The
Region
The
north-east of Italy is a geographically and ethnically diverse region
stretching from the lowlands of the Po delta to the alpine regions along
the modern borders with Switzerland and Austria. Historians, from
the Greeks onwards, identified the main ethnic groups of the region as
the Veneti (occupying the region illustrated to the right) and the Raeti,
who are associated with the regions to the north and west of this
area. How far this corresponded to the self-definition of these
groups is less certain. It was also a linguistically diverse
area. Five main languages are represented in the written documents
- Venetic, Raetic, Etruscan, Greek and Latin - although not all are
present at all periods. Of the five groups Venetic is the most
widespread, being found throughout the southern part of the region, and
as far north as Lagole, the site of a major palaeovenetic
sanctuary. Inscriptions written in Venetic language and alphabet
are also found as far afield as the central Appenines. Raetic is
concentrated in the Alpine areas to the north and north-west but the
distributions are not mutually exclusive and there is some
overlap. Greek and Etruscan occur in much smaller quantities and
are found mainly in the Po delta, around Adria and Spina, while Latin is
a later phenomenon, found in inscriptions from the 2nd century BC
onwards.
The Inscriptions
|
Bronze writing tablet,
from sanctuary of Reitia
at Baratella, Este |
The data for this region comprises c.700 Venetic
inscriptions, together with c.250 Raetic inscriptions and a small number
of Greek and Etruscan examples. Latin inscriptions are included
for comparative purposes, where they interact with indigenous material,
but are not the primary focus of this study. The first occurrence
of alphabetic inscriptions dates to the late 6th century BC, and Venetic
is not superceded as a written language by Latin until well into the 1st
century BC, although many of the later inscriptions use the Roman
alphabet. Many of the Venetic and Raetic inscriptions are
collected in existing corpora (Whatmough, Conway and Johnson
1933; Pellegrini and Prosdocimi 1967; Schumacher 1992); it is not our
intention to try to replace these as linguistic analyses, but to create
a searchable resource from this - and more recent - data, and to examine
their socio-cultural significance.
Even a brief preliminary analysis indicates that
Venetic and Raetic, in particular, were inscribed on a wide variety of
objects. Greek was much more restricted, being found principally
as graffiti on imported pottery from Adria and Spina. Alphabetic
and pseudo-alphabetic (i.e. those composed of mixtures of letters and
abstract symbols) inscriptions occur on a wide variety of votive
tablets and figurines, funerary urns and gravestones, as well as on less
obvious objects such as worked animal bone, loom weights and even
natural rock faces. It is clear, however, that the context of
writing is limited to a very small number of contexts - principally
religion and funerary ritual. In particular, two sanctuaries
supply a relatively large proportion of our evidence. That at
Lagole, dedicated to a male deity, has produced dedications by men
only. The other, the sanctuary of the goddess Reitia at
Baratella, near Este, also shows an interesting gender division. Among
the many votive offerings in this deposit were bronze writing palettes and styluses, which are interpreted as ceremonial versions of the
implements (probably of wood) which were actually used for writing. The
inscriptions on the styluses suggest that they were dedicated by women
(possible female name endings), while the palettes appear to bear male
names only. So, both women and men may have been involved with early
writing in this area, although possibly in different ways. In
addition to these votive deposits, funerary inscriptions on grave
markers and cinerary urns from both Padua and Este indicate changing
practices of written commemoration for both men and women from the
archaic era to the period of Romanization.
Further Study
Further research on this region will concentrate on
placing these inscriptions in their archaeological context, and further
examining the social function of literacy in north-east Italy. In
particular, changes in patterns of writing and in types of inscription,
in particularly in practices of funerary inscriptions and commemoration,
may cast light on changes in the society and culture of the region more
generally. The use of writing in certain gendered contexts must
also be examined more fully, and a methodology must be developed for
analysing the large number of artefacts with 'pseudo-alphabetic'
inscriptions. These frequently repeat a single letter or small
group of letters, interspersed with abstract symbols, and clearly
require a different approach from inscriptions which consist of complete
words or sentences. Inscriptions also provide a rich resource in
the number of personal names which they preserve, which may give us more
insight in to social structure and social interactions, and their
representation in the written record. The theme underlying many of
these questions is that of cultural identity and collective
self-consciousness, and one of the central questions to be addressed is
that of the impact of writing (if any) on these issues. Finally,
interaction with other cultures of writing is a further area which
requires detailed examination. The written culture of the Greeks
and Romans was very different from that of north-east Italy and the
interaction between these cultural groups must be studied in more
detail.
References
R.S. Conway, J. Whatmough and S. Johnson (1933), The
Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy. 3 vols.
G.B. Pellegrini and A.L. Prosdocimi (1967), Le
Lingua Venetica. 2 vols.
S. Schumacher (1992) Die Raetichen
Inschriften.
A preliminary report on the first year of the research
project and its results from north-east Italy was presented by
Kathryn Lomas at the next meeting of the British Epigraphy Society on
November 15th 2003.