- chapter 22: The Etruscan language –
are preserved, so that the manuscript has large gaps. The text consists of approximately
1,350 words and about 400 different lexical units (some of the lexical units appearing
more than once). It is a ritual calendar, describing the ceremonies that should be made
on established days for the benefi t of various divinities. Example (LL VIII.3) (Fig. 22.2):
(1) celi huθiś zaθrumiś fl e rχva neθunsl śucri ...
On September six twenty offerings to Neptune are to be dedicated (?)
[“On September twenty six offerings are to be dedicated (?) to Neptune”]
Second in text length is the so-called “Capua Tablet” (Fig. 22.3), incised on a slab of
terracotta found at S. Maria Capua Vetere in Campania.^6 It is divided into ten sections by
horizontal lines, and is currently made up of 62 lines, some with lacunae, and of about
390 words, not all completely preserved. The lexical units present are about 200. The
script is the one used in Campania around the mid-fi fth century bc. It is, as in the case of
the “Zagreb mummy,” a “ritual calendar”: it prescribes the ceremonies to be performed
at certain dates (and in some places) in favor of some deities.
An example from Section I, lines 2–3:
(2) ... leθamsul ci tartiria ci-m cleva acasri ...
to Lethams three tartiria and three cleva are to be offered (?)
The “Tabula Cortonensis,”^7 recently retrieved, is a bronze tablet with a text of 32 rows on
one side, eight rows on the other – for a total of 206 words, which puts it in third place
among the “longer texts” in the Etruscan corpus. This is a legal document, dating from
Figure 22.2 Liber Linteus, from northern Etruria, second century bc (Zagreb, Archaeological Museum).Figure 22.3 Detail of the Tablet of Capua, fi fth century bc, fi rst half (Berlin, Staatliche Museen).