Tita Vendia vase

The Tita Vendia vase is a ceramic impasto pithos[1] (wine container[2] made around 620-600 BC,[3] most likely in Rome[4]). The pithos, which exists only as an incomplete set of sherds,[5] carries one of two earliest known inscriptions in Latin language (the Vendia inscription)[2] and is usually, but not unanimously, interpreted as the earliest instance of a bipartite female Latin name with praenomen and gentilicum.[1]

The sherds of the vase were found by Raniero Mengarelli and deposited in the collection of Museo di Villa Giulia.[6] The exact location of the find is unknown but it probably occurred in Cerveteri[6] (ancient Caere).[7] The vase belongs to a type found in Southern Etruria.[6] In its original form, based on the collection of sherds found, it was likely to have been approximately 35 centimetres tall and 45 centimetres wide.[1] The letters, 15 to 25 millimetres tall, had been scratched near the bottom.[1] They were inscribed by a right handed artisan, using reversed letter S, and with letters VH instead of normal F (VHECET instead of fecit; according to Baccum, this rules out Faliscan origin of the vase).[1] The inscription reads:

ECOVRNATITAVENDIASMAMAR […] EDVHE[1]

The lacuna between MAMAR and EDVHE is ten to twelve letters wide.[1] Only part of it has been reliably filled by interpreters. The missing part probably contained the name of the second potter; the first potter is unanimously identified as Mamarcos or Mamarce.[6] With the lacuna partially filled the inscription is expanded into:

ECŌ VRNĀ TITĀ VENDIĀS MAMAR[COS … M]ĒD VHE[CED][2]

The most common English interpretation of this text is:

I am the urn of Tita Vendia. Mamarcos … had me made.[2][8]

In this interpretation, archaic ECO is used where we would expect normative Latin ego, since Latin had not yet developed a separate symbol for the voiced velar /ɡ/; the personal name VENDIAS uses archaic genitive declension (as in pater familiās) which is omitted in TITA, most likely due to a writing error.[2] There are also alternative interpretations:

  • that VRNA connects to TITA as VRNA TVTA, i.e. "this whole urn".[2]
  • that TITA should be interpreted as an adjective, meaning "prosperous".[1]
  • that VRNA TITA is a piggy bank.[1][9]
  • that TITA is a teat that feeds Vendia wine.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Baccum, p. 583.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Baldi, p. 126.),
  3. ^ Baldi, p. 126. Blanck, p. 24, dates it 640-630 B.C.E.
  4. ^ Baldi, p. 126: "It is probably from Rome, ca. 620-600 B.C.E.".
  5. ^ See photograph in Blanck, p. 24.
  6. ^ a b c d Baccum, p. 584.
  7. ^ Caerean origin is taken for granted, for example, by Vogt-Spira, p. 38.
  8. ^ Clarkson and Horrocks, p. 29.
  9. ^ Watkins, p. 129.

References

  • Baccum, G. C. L. M. (2009). The Latin dialect of the Ager Faliscus: 150 years of scholarship, Volume 1. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 90-5629-562-4.
  • Baldi, Philip (2002). The Foundations of Latin. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-017208-9.
  • Blanck, Horst (2008, in Italian). Il libro nel mondo antico. Ediziono Dedalo. ISBN 88-220-5814-3.
  • Clackson, James and Horrocks, Geoffrey (2007). The Blackwell History of the Latin Language. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. ISBN 1-4051-6209-0.
  • Vogt-Spira, Gregor (1989, in German). Studien zur vorliterarischen Periode im frühen Rom. Gunter Narr Verlag. ISBN 3-87808-340-8.
  • Watkins, Calvert (1995). How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-508595-7.