New Lemnian Inscription

Rasenna Blog ^ | December 1, 2010 | rwallace

[SunkenCiv]

A new Lemnian inscription was discovered recently during excavation of an ancient sanctuary at Efestia on the island of Lemnos. The inscription was incised in two lines on the upper portion of a rectangular altar measuring 50 cm. in length and 13.05 cm. in height (see photograph below). The direction of writing is boustrophedon. The upper line reads from left-to-right, the lower line from right-to-left. The inscription has 26 letters plus punctuation marks in the form of three vertically-aligned points separating words. The transcription provided below is that given by de Simone (2009). The letter âi (= palatal sibilant) is a transcription of the Lemnian 4-bar sigma and the letter s (= dental or alveo-dental sibilant) of the Lemnian z-sign. Punctuation is indicated by a colon.

upper line: hktaonosi : heloke (L to R)

lower line: soromâi : aslaâi (R to L)

The inscription is a votive dedication offered to or, more likely, on behalf of hktaono-. hktaonosi is inflected in the pertinentive case. (Exactly how to treat the odd initial cluster hk- is not clear.) The suffix of the verb heloke matches up well with the Etruscan past tense suffix /ke/, e.g., turuce /turuke/ ‘offered’. For the construction compare Etruscan muluvanice + pertinentive...

Background information about the date of discovery and about the archaeological context in which the altar was recovered has not yet been published. The inscription is dated on paleographic grounds to the last half of the 6th century BCE, but the date must be considered provisional until archaeological reports appear in print.

Bibliography:

de Simone, Carlo. 2009. La nuova iscrizione tirsenica di Efestia. Tripodes 11.3-58.

[SunkenCiv]

Photo: SAIA

---

[gorush]

Beautiful! Thanks.

[faithhopecharity]

really nice. thank you.
(looks like a Pizza order...?)

[SunkenCiv]

Well, I excerpted the actual (slightly edited) HTML because it’s an extinct foreign language. :’)

Where Did The Etruscans Come From?
Etruscology website | June 2002 | Dieter H. Steinbauer
Posted on 08/06/2005 9:08:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1458504/posts

Wiki-wacky: Lemnian language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemnian_language

Etruscan and Lemnian Appear to Be Twigs of the Pelasgian Branch of the Indo-European Language Tree
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-57934047/etruscan-and-lemnian-appear-to-be-twigs-of-the-pelasgian

Nice discussion here:

Paleoglot: Translating a new Lemnian inscription
8 Nov 2010
http://paleoglot.blogspot.com/2010/11/translating-new-lemnian-inscription.html

Glen Gordon: “We arrive at a provisional translation of ‘[Surum] has been slain for Axulos Hektaion.’ I presume here that the name of the recipient in question is Greek, a conclusion that I doubt would be objectionable considering its context on an Aegean island.”

[SunkenCiv]

Lemnian Stele

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I think it says “Extra anchovies, light sauce.”

[left that other site]

Nice...but it’s all Greek to me!

[SunkenCiv]

Etruscan topics, from the FRchives:

• Archaeologists Investigate Underground Pyramidal Structure Beneath Orvieto, Italy
• A New Type of Inscribed Copper Plate from Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation
• The Minoans were Caucasian
• Magnitude 6.4 Earthquake Strikes Off Coast of Greece & Turkey)
• Archaeologists' findings may prove Rome a century older than thought
• Ancient Etruscan Prince Emerges From Tomb: Photos
• Skeleton of Ancient Prince Reveals Etruscan Life
• French wine 'has Italian origins' [Etruscans]
• Bronze Age Golden Cup Unearthed in Italy
• Seafaring in the Aegean: new dates
• Rare Cuneiform Script Found on Island of Malta
• Roman DNA project gives voice to the silent majority
• Ancient Etruscan childbirth image is first for western art
• Bulgarian Archaeology Finds Said to Rewrite History of Black Sea Sailing
• Ancient Etruscan 'holy site' found near Viterbo
• Etruscan House Reveals Ancient Domestic Life
• Unraveling the Etruscan Enigma
• New findings from ancient tomb in Italy
• Computers to translate world's 'lost' languages after program deciphers ancient text
• Italy: Ancient Etruscan home found near Grosseto
• Men & ideas on the move: settled lands & colonized minds [review of "Empires and Barbarians"]
• Golden Bough from Roman mythology 'found in Italy'
• Tuscans 'not descended from Etruscans'
• Decoding antiquity: Eight scripts that still can't be read
• 'Etruscan Treasures' On View At Dallas's Meadows Museum
• Etruscan tomb unearthed in Perugia
• Italian Builders Uncover (27) 2,000 year Old Tombs (Etruscans)
• Ancient World Treasure Unearthed
• Omens and Superstitions (Romans and Etruscans)
• Intact 2,000-Year Old Etruscan Tomb Discovered
• Ancient Etruscans Were Immigrants From Anatolia (Turkey)
• DNA Boosts Herodotus' Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy
• On The Origin Of The Etruscan Civilisation
• Etruscan Holy City Discovered
• Hub Of Etruscan Civilization Found
• Pre-Roman sanctuary discovered [ Etruscan federation ]
• FSU Etruscan expert announces historic discovery at ancient site [ Cetamura ]
• Man Leads Archaeologists To Frescoed Tomb (Europe's Oldest)
• Tuscany's Etruscan Claim Knocked
• Lucca's Roman past revealed
• Untouched Roman Sarcophagi Found
• Where Did The Etruscans Come From?
• Archaeologists May Have Found What Was Once The Biggest City In Italy
• Etruscan Engineering and Agricultural Achievements: The Ancient City of Spina
• The Etruscans: Reopening the Case of the Mute Civilization
• 50 Ancient Tombs Uncovered (1400BC, Crete)
• Huge Etruscan Road Brought To Light
• Fabled Etruscan Kingdom Emerging?
• Dietler Discovers Statue In France That Reflects Etruscan Influence
• Ghost Fleet 'Shows Pisa Was An Ancient Venice'
• Etruscan Demons, Monsters Unearthed
• Lost No More: An Etruscan Rebirth
• Etruscan Ruins Show How Ancients Lived

[SunkenCiv]

Quite sweet, the bottom graphic is a sarcophagus lid showing a bas-relief of the married couple.

[SunkenCiv]

[gorush]

That’s what I was referring to...is that of the same time period?

[SunkenCiv]

Lemnian
edited by: Daniele F. Maras
http://lila.sns.it/mnamon/index.php?page=Scrittura&id=54&lang=en
symbols:
http://lila.sns.it/mnamon/index.php?page=Simboli&id=54&lang=en

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, it’s similar to what the Etruscans did with their burials, and even their cremations.

[MUDDOG]

So did the Etruscans come the western Anatolia region, or did the Etruscans and the Lemnosians share an earlier origin from somewhere else?

[Conservative4Ever]

Naaaa...look again...it translates to...

Eat at Joe's

[donna]

Oh! I didn’t see it until you said. It is sweet.

[faithhopecharity]

Joe’s Pizza Parlor

[faithhopecharity]

“Kilroy was here”

[SunkenCiv]

The ancient sources have it that the Etruscans came from the Aegean, and given that their cultural and trade contacts were all with the eastern Med, and the DNA evidence points to the eastern Med, and there's this related language in inscription (both the examples shown, and fragments of the script from ostraca on the island), AND that there were non-Etruscan language precursors in Italy, the wonder is that there was any doubt about it. Not only doubt, but outright denial that it was true. :')

The Mycenaean Greeks planted some colonies in the western Med, it's likely (to me, anyway) that the Etruscans preceded them. The Etruscans were also on the mainland, to the north of Greece.

Unique book goes on display BBC Monday, 26 May, 2003 The world's oldest multiple-page book - in the lost Etruscan language - has gone on display in Bulgaria's National History Museum in Sofia. It contains six bound sheets of 24 carat gold, with illustrations of a horse-rider, a mermaid, a harp and soldiers. The small manuscript, which is more than two-and-a-half millennia old, was discovered 60 years ago in a tomb uncovered during digging for a canal along the Strouma river in south-western Bulgaria... There are around 30 similar pages known in the world, Ms Penkova said, "but they are not linked together in a book".

[SunkenCiv]

The surviving tomb-wall painting has scenes of that kind; also they left a lot of terracotta sculpture in their burials.