Barcelona funerary stele

14-1-2003

I refer to the Iberian funerary stele from Barcelona which you display on your website.

Most funerary inscriptions contain the minimum of a personal name, which is usually composed of two separate elements (some of which themselves are compounds), eg BALKE-ADIN "piece of gold/intellect", SOSIN-BIUR "straight/twisted", or ARS-PIN "bear/genuine".

Sometimes there is a message, and often the words eban or ebanen, "here" and "in here" respectively, are placed immediately after the name of the deceased.

The difficulty here is the use of the m-sign (shaped like a "V"), which is problematic because it is multi-aspect. It is syllabic (which means it incorporates a vowel), but unlike other syllabic signs, it may incorporate any vowel, either posterior or both anterior and posterior (but never only anterior, because m cannot occur finally or before a consonant).

So MI is actually M(A)I, mai, which means "inscription" (the m-sign incorporates a posterior a). The word had an earlier meaning "slab used to carve an inscription", but came to refer to the inscriptions itself (it is also used on imprints). The Basque cognate is mai/mahai "table". The shift in meaning can be compared with Latin tabula "panel used to carve an inscription", which in English is "table". Sometimes mai appears as nai - the n-sign is not syllabic, so the a is represented.

So what is NMKE/GE? This is the message, and is really M(U)GE(I) "to the boundaries". On another funerary inscription we have IGON M(U)GEI "to ascend to the boundaries" (the m-sign incorporates a posterior u).

What is the n-sign doing here? Occasionally an n-sign is placed anterior to the m-sign. This is so on the Liria vase, where we have NMB(A)R TE "and Nabar". There are two possible explanations: (1) the n-sign indicates that there is no anterior vowel incorporated in the following m-sign; (2) in the Levantine dialect it seems there was a great deal of interchangibility between initial m and initial n (as in m(a)i and nai). This is also found in Basque, where nerabe and mirabe both have the same meaning "youth, servant", and are actually the same word (in Iberian, this appears in the inverted form, abiner); and naiz is sometimes rendered maiz.

Why is the final i missing on mugei? This is probably because it runs into the next word, the personal name exhibiting initial i, and the i is not repeated.

The first element of the personal name is clearly Ildir "highways, crossroads" (ildi + plural r). The second element comprises a plus an undeciphered sign. This is either bi/pi with the hook on the wrong side, of the seldom used bu/pu.

If the former, the element would be abi "shaft", as in Abiafelaisuraiki and Basque abe. If the latter, then perhaps it is apu "bridge".

Another word often found in funerary inscriptions is seldar. This means "grave, tomb", and is the same as Basque zaldar "boil, pustule". The shift in meaning is precisely analogous to Latin tumulus, which literally means "little swelling".