Stele of Isola Vicentina

Last updated
Stele of Isola Vicentina
Stele Isola V.jpg
Year4th century BC
LocationMuseo naturalistico archeologico di Vicenza, Vicenza

The stele of Isola Vicentina is an ancient prehistoric artefact found in the municipality of Isola Vicentina, Italy.

Contents

It is now exhibited in the Museo naturalistico archeologico di Vicenza.

History

The ancient artefact, datable to the 4th century BC, was found in 1992 in the municipality of Isola Vicentina in the locality of Altura, during extraction works in a clay quarry. It was discovered by Ettorino Caldognetto. [1]

The stele was delivered to the archaeological museum of the city of Vicenza, where the find was analysed. Since then, the stele has become a symbol of the museum, as well as one of the most important and most attractive pieces. [2]

Description

The description of the artefact SteleIsolaV.jpg
The description of the artefact

The stele is an irregularly shaped basalt stone slab with an inscription in the Venetic language and alphabet. [3]

The inscription, complete, is arranged on four lines, the writing goes from right to left and from left to right with an irregular overturning of the letters in alternate lines; there is no division between words.

The alphabet is typical of Vicenza and its territory, with the cross T (X) and the M with four strokes. [4]

IAT.S.VENE.T.K
E.N.S.O.ST.S.KE.E.NO
ZENES.LAIONS.
ME.U.VHASTO

In interpretative translation: IATS VENETKENS OST KE ENOGENENS LAIONS MEU FASTO.

The general meaning of the inscription is in the last part: meu fasto corresponds, with small variations, to the already known Venetian words mego and fagsto and means “made me”. The lack of an archaeological context does not allow us to clarify whether it is related to the sacral, funerary or civil context. Of particular importance is the word VENETKENS, because it is the first attestation ever in the Veneto of an adjective derived from the name of the ancient Venetians themselves. [5]

The structure of the inscription poses some difficulties, because it must reconcile the verb in the singular with the presence of five forms in the nominative (iats, venetkens, osts, enogenes, laions) to refer all to the same person. According to one possible interpretation, Iats is the proper name, and the other terms are adjectives referring to his position in society. “Osts”, foreigner, guest, native “enogenes”, literally 'born inside', “laions” could be an ethnic group (perhaps from the Ligurian Laevi people). [6]

"Iats, a Venetian foreigner, and a native of Laions, made me".

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etruscan language</span> Extinct language of ancient Italy

Etruscan was the language of the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria, in Etruria Padana and Etruria Campana in what is now Italy. Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventually completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions that have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek, or Phoenician; and a few dozen purported loanwords. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study, with it mostly being referred to as one of the Tyrsenian languages, at times as an isolate, and a number of other less well-known hypotheses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicenza</span> Comune in Veneto, Italy

Vicenza is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, where it straddles the River Bacchiglione. Vicenza is approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of Venice and 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Milan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lycian language</span> Extinct Indo-European language of southwestern Anatolia

The Lycian language was the language of the ancient Lycians who occupied the Anatolian region known during the Iron Age as Lycia. Most texts date back to the fifth and fourth century BC. Two languages are known as Lycian: regular Lycian or Lycian A, and Lycian B or Milyan. Lycian became extinct around the beginning of the first century BC, replaced by the Ancient Greek language during the Hellenization of Anatolia. Lycian had its own alphabet, which was closely related to the Greek alphabet but included at least one character borrowed from Carian as well as characters proper to the language. The words were often separated by two points.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asiago</span> Township in Veneto, Italy

Asiago is a minor township with the title of city in the surrounding plateau region in the Province of Vicenza in the Veneto region of Northeastern Italy. It is near the border between the Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol regions in the foothills of the Alps, approximately equidistant (60 km) from Trento to the west and Vicenza to the south. The Asiago region is the origin of Asiago cheese. The town was the site of a major battle between Austrian and Italian forces on the Alpine Front of World War I. It is a major ski resort destination, and the site of the Astrophysical Observatory of Asiago, operated by the University of Padua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Province of Vicenza</span> Province of Italy

The province of Vicenza is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital city is Vicenza.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Badoer</span> UNESCO World Heritage Site in Veneto, Italy

Villa Badoer is a villa in Fratta Polesine, in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It was designed in 1556 by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio for the Venetian noble Francesco Badoer, and built between 1557 and 1563 on the site of a medieval castle, which guarded a bridge across a navigable canal. This was the first time Palladio used his fully developed temple pediment in the façade of a villa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemnian language</span> Extinct ancient language of Lemnos, modern Greece

The Lemnian language was spoken on the island of Lemnos, Greece, in the second half of the 6th century BC. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. Fragments of inscriptions on local pottery show that it was spoken there by a community. In 2009, a newly discovered inscription was reported from the site of Hephaistia, the principal ancient city of Lemnos. Lemnian is largely accepted as being a Tyrsenian language, and as such related to Etruscan and Raetic. After the Athenians conquered the island in the latter half of the 6th century BC, Lemnian was replaced by Attic Greek.

Caldogno is a town and comune near Vicenza in Italy. It has a population of 11,337 inhabitants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portus</span> A large artificial harbour of Ancient Rome

Portus was a large artificial harbour of Ancient Rome located at the mouth of the Tiber on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Este, Veneto</span> Comune in Veneto, Italy

Este is a town and comune of the Province of Padua, in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Euganean Hills. The town is a centre for farming, crafts and industry worthy of note.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cippus Perusinus</span> Etruscan stone tablet

The Cippus Perusinus is a stone tablet (cippus) discovered on the hill of San Marco, in Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of incised Etruscan text, about 130 words. The cippus, which seems to have been a border stone, appears to display a text dedicating a legal contract between the Etruscan families of Velthina and Afuna, regarding the sharing or use, including water rights, of a property upon which there was a tomb belonging to the noble Velthinas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Picene language</span> Ancient Italic language

South Picene is an extinct Italic language belonging to the Sabellic subfamily. It is apparently unrelated to the North Picene language, which is not understood and therefore unclassified. South Picene texts were at first relatively inscrutable even though some words were clearly Indo-European. The discovery in 1983 that two of the apparently redundant punctuation marks were in reality simplified letters led to an incremental improvement in their understanding and a first translation in 1985. Difficulties remain. It may represent a third branch of Sabellic, along with Oscan and Umbrian, or the whole Sabellic linguistic area may be best regarded as a linguistic continuum. The paucity of evidence from most of the 'minor dialects' contributes to these difficulties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Picene language</span> Ancient language of the Italian Peninsula

North Picene, also known as North Picenian or Northern Picene, is a supposed ancient language, which may have been spoken in part of central-eastern Italy; alternatively the evidence for the language may be a hoax, with the language never having existed. The evidence for the language consists of four inscriptions apparently dating from the 1st millennium BC, three of them no more than small broken fragments. It is written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet. While its texts are easily transliterated, none of them have been translated so far. It is not possible to determine whether it is related to any other known language. Despite the use by modern scholars of a similar name, it does not appear that North Picene is closely related to South Picene, and they may not be related at all. The total number of words in the inscriptions is about 60. It is not even certain that the inscriptions are all in one language.

Isola Vicentina is a small town and comune in the Italian province of Vicenza in the Veneto region. Its population is around 9,319.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terina (ancient city)</span> Ancient Greek city in Calabria, Italy

Terina was an ancient city located on the Piano di Tirena hill in Nocera Terinese about 20 km (12 mi) from Lamezia Terme in Calabria. The site of the city was allegedly found in 1922 by the archaeologist Paolo Orsi near the modern village of Sant'Eufemia Vetere. A systematic archaeological investigation was made from 1997 and coins, inscriptions and other artefacts retrieved from the site can be seen in the Museo Archeologico Lametino in Lamezia Terme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archaeological Museum, Milan</span>

The Archaeological Museum of Milan is located in the ex-convent of the Monastero Maggiore, alongside the ancient church of San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore, with entrance on Corso Magenta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tourism in Abruzzo</span> Tourism in Abruzzo, Italy

Tourism in Abruzzo has become one of the most prosperous sectors in the economy of Abruzzo, and in recent years has seen a remarkable growth attracting numerous tourists from Italy and Europe. According to statistics, in 2021 arrivals totaled 1,330,887. A total of 5,197,765 arrivals were tourists, a figure that puts the region seventeenth among the Italian regions for numbers of tourists per year. A moderate support to tourism is also given to the Abruzzo Airport with many low cost and charter flights connecting the entire region with the rest of Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teatro Berga</span>

The Teatro Berga was a Roman theatre in Vicetia, modern Vicenza, Italy. It stood in an area beyond the Retrone river, in what is now part of the historic centre of the city. Its site corresponded to buildings currently standing between Contrà Santi Apostoli, Piazzetta San Giuseppe, Contrà Porton del Luzzo, Piazzetta Gualdi, Contrà del Pozzetto and contrà Lioy. Contrà Porton del Luzzo follows the semi-circular route of the external perimeter of the south-facing cavea of the former theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Archaeological Museum of Altino</span> Archaeology museum in Quarto dAltino

The National Archaeological Museum of Altino is an archaeology museum next to the archaeological site of Altinum. It is located in the frazione Altino of the municipality of Quarto d'Altino, in the Metropolitan City of Venice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Loredan</span> Venetian nobleman

Andrea Loredan (1440–1513) was a Venetian nobleman of the Loredan family, known as a collector of art. He is notable for commissioning the Ca' Loredan Vendramin Calergi, a palace on the Grand Canal, to designs by Mauro Codussi. The palace was paid for by Doge Leonardo Loredan, it is known for its association with Richard Wagner and the palace today hosts the Casino of Venice. Andrea is also notable for paying for the choir of the church of San Michele in Isola, also designed by Codussi.

References

  1. Pozzer, Federico (2019-01-21). "Oggi i funerali di Ettorino Caldognetto. Il cordoglio di Zaia". L'Eco Vicentino (in Italian). Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  2. "Venezia - Veni etiam". Venice Café (in Italian). 2018-12-30. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  3. "Isola Vicentina | Comuni Pedemontana Vicentina". Pedemontana Vicentina (in Italian). 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  4. VENETKENS Viaggio nella terra dei Veneti Antichi , retrieved 2021-05-06
  5. "Età del ferro nel territorio - Museo Naturalistico Archeologico - Musei Civici Vicenza". www.museicivicivicenza.it. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  6. Bozzolan, Millo. "stele di Isola Vicentina". Storia e Arte veneta (in Italian). Retrieved 2021-05-06.