ISic001621: I.Sicily inscription 001621
- ID
- ISic001621
- Language
- Oscan
- Text type
- dedication
- Object type
- altar
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- 2: εκ is no longer visible, but can be seen in Orsi’s drawing.
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Limestone block forming the top front part of an altar (Crawford 2011), with a recessed rectangular panel in the centre. The back of the recess is covered with stucco, patches of which have now fallen away. With cornice at the top, 141.0 cm wide by 55.0 deep in total, fascia 7.0 cm high. The recess bearing the inscription is 15 .o cm high by 40.o wide by 3.o deep.
- Object type
- altar
- Material
- limestone (Muschelkalk)
- Condition
- Dimensions
- height: 36 cm, width: 125 cm, depth: 45 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The inscription is cut into the stucco in the recess and the letters are painted red. Much of the bottom of the stucco has been damaged. “It is highly likely that there was a third line in the [recessed stucco] panel, and quite possible that there were further lines on a block below.” (Crawford 2011)
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1-2: 20mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Messana
- Provenance found
- Found around 1910-1915 (Orsi) in the digging of the foundations for a large new post office building, at a depth of around 3.5 metres.
Current location
- Place
- Messina, Italy
- Repository
- Museo regionale interdisciplinare di Messina , A240
- Autopsy
- McDonald 2014-09-20
- Map
Date
After the Mamertine occupation in 288 BCE, perhaps soon after, and unlikely to be later than the third century. (288 BC – 200 BC)- Evidence
- textual-context
Text type
commentary
The recess in the stone may have been cut to replace a Greek inscription with an Oscan one, which Crawford (2011) believes suggests a date soon after the Mamertine takeover of Messana, i.e. c. 275 BC.
The inscription is cut into the stucco and painted red. Much of the bottom of the stucco has been damaged. “It is highly likely that there was a third line in the panel, and quite possible that there were further lines on a block below.” (Crawford 2011)
The text is written in the adapted Ionic Greek alphabet which was usually employed to write Oscan in Lucania and Bruttium from around the fourth to the first centuries BC.
The spelling μαμερεκς is notable because elsewhere where Oscan is written in the Greek alphabet, names with the cluster /ks/ are written with the letter xi. This may be indicative of systematic orthographic differences between Oscan at Messana and Oscan in Lucania and Bruttium. Cf. ISic001620 and ISic002816 (McDonald 2015: 91).
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 171042
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Paolo Orsi, «Messana. La necropoli romana di S. Placido e di altre scoperte avvenute nel 1910-1915», Monumenti Antichi 24 (1916): 121–218, at 196-199 fig. 47
- E. Vetter, Handbuch der italischen Dialekte (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1953), at no. 197
- O. Parlangèli, «Le iscrizioni osche (mamertine) di Messina», Bollettino Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani 4 (1956): 28–38, at 37 pl. 4
- Helmut Rix, Sabellische Texte : die Texte des Oskischen, Umbrischen und Südpikenischen, Indogermanische Bibliothek. Erste Reihe (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2002), at Me 4
- M. A. Mastelloni, «Messana e i Mamertini», in Lo Stretto di Messina nell’Antichità, a c. di F. Ghedini et al. (Rome: Quasar, 2005), 275–92, at 278 figs. 3a-b
- M. H. Crawford, ‘The Oscan Inscriptions of Messana’, in Guerra e Pace in Sicilia e Nel Mediterraneo Antico (VIII-III Sec. a.C.)., ed. C. Ampolo, vol. 2 (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006), 521–25, at 521-525
- M.H. Crawford, Imagines Italicae. A Corpus of Italic Inscriptions, 3 vols, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 111 (London: institute of Classical Studies, 2011), at Messana 6
- Discussion
- James Clackson, ‘Oscan in Sicily’, in Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily, ed. Olga Tribulato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 132–48, at 138-141
- Katherine McDonald, Oscan in Southern Italy and Sicily : Evaluating Language Contact in a Fragmentary Corpus, Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge, 2015), at 90-92
- Nicholas Zair, Oscan in the Greek Alphabet, Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), at 137-141
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Katherine McDonald
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 1/17/2022