A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief A stele ' onMouseout='HidePop("4763")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Kaminia">Kaminia
Kaminia may refer to several places in Greece:*Kaminia, Hydra, a port near Hydra*Kaminia, Ioannina, a village in the northcentral part of the prefecture of Ioannina*Kaminia, Lemnos, a village in the island of Lemnos*Kaminia, Achaea, a village in Achaea...
. However, fragments of inscriptions on local pottery show that it was spoken there by a community. Lemnian is academically accepted as being closely related to
EtruscanThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy...
. After the Athenians conquered the island in the latter half of that century, Lemnian was replaced by
Attic GreekAttic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek"...
.
Writing system
The inscriptions are in an alphabet similar to that used to write the
Etruscan languageThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy...
and the older
PhrygianThe Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, a people from Thrace who later migrated to Asia Minor.-Inscriptions:Phrygian is attested by two corpora, one from around 800 BC and later , and then after a period of several centuries from around the beginning of the Common Era...
inscriptions, all derived from
EuboeaFor the mythological figure, see Euboea Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from the mainland of Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait...
n scripts (Western Greek alphabet,
alphabets of Asia MinorVarious alphabetic writing systems were in use in Iron Age Anatolia to record Anatolian dialects and the Phrygian language. Previously several of these languages had been written with logographic and syllabic systems....
). These scripts are ultimately of
West Semitic originThe West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. One widely accepted analysis, supported by semiticists like Robert Hetzron and John Huehnergard, divides the Semitic language family into two branches: Eastern and Western. The former consists of the extinct Eblaite...
and were adapted by various peoples from before the
8th century BCThe 8th century BC started the first day of 800 BC and ended the last day of 701 BC.- Overview :The 8th century BC was a period of great changes in civilizations. In Egypt, the 23rd and 24th dynasties led to rule from Nubia in the 25 Dynasty...
.
Classification
A relationship between Lemnian,
EtruscanThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy...
and Raetian, sometimes grouped together as the
Tyrsenian language groupTyrsenian , after the Tyrrhenoi, is a proposed classification by Helmut Rix , who argues for a close relationship of the Etruscan language and the Raetic language, together with the Lemnian language. Rix assumes a date for Proto-Tyrsenian of roughly 1000 BC. Related words between Rhaetic and...
, is largely accepted because of the strong connections between vocabulary and grammar. For example,
- both Etruscan and Lemnian share two unique dative cases, masculine *-si and feminine-collective *-ale, shown both on the Lemnos Stele (Hulaie-ši "for Hulaie", Φukiasi-ale "for the Phocaean") and in inscriptions written in Etruscan (aule-si "To Aule" on the Cippus Perusinus
The Cippus Perusinus or Cippus of Perugia is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of Etruscan text exquisitely carved into it...
as well as the inscription mi mulu Laris-ale Velχaina-si "I was blessed for Laris Velchaina").
- They also share the masculine genitive in *-s and a simple past tense in *-a-i (Etruscan <-e> as in ame "was" (< *amai); Lemnian <-ai> as in šivai "lived").
Vowels
Like Etruscan, the Lemnian language appears to have had a four-vowel system, consisting of "i", "e", "a" and "o". Having a contrast between front and back vowels, it would (unlike Etruscan) appear to lack a high back rounded vowel (written in
IPAThe International Phonetic Alphabet
["The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...]
as /u/) which is curious because this defies the linguistic universal of
contrast maximizationPhonemic differentiation is the phenomenon of a language maximizing the acoustic distance between its phonemes, presumably to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding.- Examples :...
. Since vowel systems without /u/ are rare (though occurring in languages such as
SenecaSeneca is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. About 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York state, with others living in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.-Phonology:There are several methods...
and Nahuatl), it is likely that what we transliterate as "o" from the symbol omikron was in fact meant to record /u/. This is not unusual considering that different languages may take the same letter to transcribe different sounds. It is rather coincidental that the languages neighbouring this region, namely
HittiteHittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
and
AkkadianAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
, also happen to have the same four-vowel systems lacking "o". This suggests early areal influence.
Stele
The stele was found built into a church wall in
KaminiaKaminia may refer to several places in Greece:*Kaminia, Hydra, a port near Hydra*Kaminia, Ioannina, a village in the northcentral part of the prefecture of Ioannina*Kaminia, Lemnos, a village in the island of Lemnos*Kaminia, Achaea, a village in Achaea...
and is now at the
National Archaeological Museum of AthensThe National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...
. The 6th century date is based on the fact that in 510 BC the Athenian
MiltiadesMiltiades or Miltiadis is a Greek name. Several historic persons have been called Miltiades .* Miltiades the Elder wealthy Athenian, and step-uncle of Miltiades the Younger...
invaded Lemnos and Hellenized it. The stele bears a low-relief bust of a helmeted man and is inscribed in an alphabet similar to the western ("Chalcidian")
Greek alphabetThe Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. It is as such in continuous use to...
. The inscription is in
BoustrophedonBoustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions...
style, and has been transliterated but had not been successfully translated until serious linguistic analysis based on comparisons with Etruscan, combined with breakthroughs in Etruscan's own translation started to yield fruit.
The inscription consists of 198 characters forming 33 to 40 words, word separation sometimes indicated with one to three dots. The text consists of three parts, two written vertically and one horizontally. Comprehensible is the phrase
avis sialchvis ("aged sixty", B.3), reminiscent of Etruscan
avils maχs śealχisc ("and aged sixty-five").
Transcription:
- front:
- A.1. hulaieš:naφuθ:šiaši
- A.2. maraš:mav
- A.3. sialχveiš:aviš
- A.4. evisθu:šerunaiθ
- A.5. šivai
- A.6. aker:tavaršiu
- A.7. vanalasial:šerunai:murinail
- side:
- B.1. hulaieši:φukiasiale:šerunaiθ:evisθu:tuveruna
- B.2. rum:haraliu:šivai:eptešiu:arai:tiš:φuke
- B.3. šivai:aviš:sialχviš:marašm:aviš:aumai
See also
- Etruscan civilization
Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy and Corsica, residing between the Apennines and the River Tiber, whom the ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci...
- Aegean languages
- Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna , in Italy...
- Liber Linteus
The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis is the longest Etruscan text and the only extant linen book...
- Tabula Cortonensis
The Tabula Cortonensis is a 2200-year-old, bronze artifact of Etruscan origin, discovered in Cortona, Italy. It may record for posterity the details of an ancient real estate transaction which took place in the ancient Tuscan city of Cortona, known to the Etruscans as Curtun...
- Cippus perusinus
The Cippus Perusinus or Cippus of Perugia is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of Etruscan text exquisitely carved into it...
- Pyrgi Tablets
The Pyrgi Tablets, found in a 1964 excavation of a sanctuary of ancient Pyrgi on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy , are three golden leaves that record a dedication made around 500 BC by Thefarie Velianas, king of Caere, to the Phoenician goddess ʻAshtaret. Pyrgi was the port of the southern Etruscan...
- Eteocypriot
Eteocypriot was a pre-Indo-European language spoken in Iron Age Cyprus. The name means "true" or "original Cyprian" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholarship to mean the pre-Indo-European languages of those places. Eteocypriot was written in the Cypriot syllabary, a...
- Eteocretan
- Cortona
Cortona is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy. It is the main cultural and artistic center of the Val di Chiana after Arezzo.-History:Cortona was founded by the Etruscans, who called it Curtun in their language...
- Pelasgians
The name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that preceded the Hellenes in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably autochthonous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all the autochthonous...
External links