- Tabula Capuana
The Tabula Capuana ("Tegola di Capua" Etruscophiles like to call it), now conserved in Berlin, represents the second most extensive surviving Etruscan text, after the linen book the "(
Liber Linteus )" used inEgypt formummy wrappings, now atZagreb . (The third longest Etruscan inscription now being the cast bronze inscription found atCortona in1992 , the "Tabula Cortonensis ").The "Tabula Capuana" ("Tablet from Capua") is a
terracotta slab, 60 by 50 centimeters, with a long inscribed text, apparently a ritualcalendar , of which about 390 words are legible.Horizontal scribed lines divide the text in ten sections. The writing is most similar to that used in
Campania in the mid5th century BC , though surely the text being transcribed is much older. It is an archaic ten-month year beginning in March (Etruscan "Velxitna"). The only Etruscan name for a month that has survived to us is April ("Apiras(a)").Attempts at deciphering the text (Mauro Cristofani, 1995) are most generally based on the supposition that it prescribes certain rites on certain days of the year at certain places for certain deities. The text itself was edited by Francesco Roncalli, in "Scrivere etrusco" 1985.
The tablet was uncovered in
1898 in the burial ground of Santa Maria diCapua Vetere.External links
* [http://spazioinwind.libero.it/popoli_antichi/Etruschi/tegola.html Basic information, adopted for this entry; photograph] (Italian)
* [http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/curtun.html Curtun (Modern Cortona)]
References
*M. Cristofani, "Tabula Capuana: un calendario festivo di età arcaica" Florence, 1995
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