Angus J Huck

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 
From:  "Angus Huck" <ajh5743@yahoo.co.uk> |
Subject: The Liria Dish
 

Dear Luisma,

One of the items in the Liria ceramics is a circular dish.

In the middle of this dish is the Lolegarkoe seal. Around the edge is an inscription in the North Iberian alphabet.

The inscription is votive in character, and appears to commemorate a religious sacrifice.

The text is as follows:-

ban gurs : gares ban ite : egiar : saldu di ban te : jumstir : dol i (missing text) dane : bas sum(i)n adis ire (missing text)

I have separated the words as I consider appropriate, and where there is a choice between b/p, d/t and g/k, I have chosen the alternative which would be used by the cognate words in Basque. I recognise, however, that in most dialects of Iberian, initial k- is much more usual than initial g-.

A loose translation may well be: "This act of worship, and this victory, and this horse which you have created for us. All praise to you. The deluge of blood, all the wild fury, wins your friendship."

The inscription seems to refer to the sacrifice of a horse to a deity, possibly Lolegarkoe himself.

I intend to split the text into two sections, the first beginning ban gurs..., the second beginning iumstir...

ban gurs : gares ban ite : egiar : saldu di ban te :

Three things are listed, all of them introduced by ban, which appears to mean "one, a, the, this, etc", and is probably cognate with Basque bat "one", which is often ban- in compounds.

gurs seems to be cognate with Basque gurtza "adoration, worship, veneration".

gares could be cognate with Basque garesti "expensive", or garaitza "victory". The first seems more appropriate in the context, given that the word is clearly a noun, not an adjective. It could, alternatively, have an oblique meaning, such as "celebration". *gares/kares is also found in the tribal name Caristi/Karistoi. All these words are, of course, derivatives of Iberian *karai/kalai and Basque garai "high".

egiar saldu di is a phrase incorporating a verb and a noun.

egi-ar seems to be a form of the cognate of Basque egi-n "to do, make, create, etc". -ar is perhaps a marker indicating past tense.

di has to be the auxilliary, which is likely to be a form of the cognate of Basque uka-n "to have".

I would suggest Basque diguk "you (masculine) have it to us". The intervocalic -g- and final -k have been lost here, or perhaps subject to abbreviation.

te/ite is simply the copulative, and is cognate with Basque eta "and". Those who doubt this should ask themselves why te/ite appears after the second and third instances of ban, but not the first.

saldu appears to be cognate with Basque zaldi "horse". This is used as an element in Iberian personal names, for instance Saldulako of the Mogente Lead Tablet. It is also found in place names, such as Salduba/Saldiue "ford crossed by horses" and perhaps also Saltigi (*saldu-tigi) "place of horses".

jumstir : dol i (missing text) dane : bas sum(i)n adis ire (missing text)

jumstir is mysterious. It usually appears as junstir (with an -n-), and occasionally junsir, and is used in votive inscriptions.

jun- may be cognate with Basque jaun "lord" (which also sometimes appears as *jaun in Iberian). For instance Bilosjunde ("naked/great lord"), and Juntegens ("great lord peace"). Also the place name Coniumbriga (*kon-jun-briga) "the briga of the supreme lord" (this survives as Coimbra, Portugal, though the modern town occupies a different site). Compare Sumerian en, also "lord".

-stir/sir appears to me to be a suffix equivalent to English -ness, or is perhaps an abbreviation.

The whole word seems to be an _expression of praise for, or subservience to, a deity.

dol is perhaps cognate with Basque o-dol "blood". Compare Burushaski del "oil" and the following Na Dene reflexes: Eyak del and Athabascan (Chipewyan and Tututni) del, (Tsetsaut) a-dila, (Navajo) dil (all "blood"). Also Proto- Indo-European *del- "to drip" (Pok 196) (English tallow).

i- may be part of the Iberian cognate of Basque ito "to drown, suffocate", the do/to sign having been obliterated. Here, *ito would be a noun meaning perhaps "deluge, flood". Compare the UK river name, Eden, of which there are several. The Cumbria Eden was recorded by Ptolemy as Ituna ("deluge"?)

dane may well be cognate with Basque dena/dana "all, everything".

bas appears to be cognate with Basque baso "forest", which also has a secondary meaning, "wild, untamed". This may have been present in Iberian, too.

sum(i)n could be cognate with Basque sumin "rage, fury", the literal meaning being "fire pain". The m-sign is normally multi-aspect, so we can reasonably posit i as the incorporated posterior vowel.

adis may be cognate with the adis- in Basque adis-kide "friend, companion". This is a derivative of adi "attention", and the Iberian word could mean "concern, tutelage, friendship, etc".

ire appears to be cognate with Basque (h)ire "your (singular)".

The final, obliterated part of the inscription might say something like "win - it has it", or "win will - it has it".

I should perhaps make a few corrections to my discussion of the Ascoli Bronze Plate.

The female deity recorded on the San Miguel de Liria Lead Tablet is Obonumar Erreba, which probably means "greatest/adult sister". *erreba/arrebe, etc, are cognates of Basque arreba "sister". This word was used as an epithet for female deities and was rendered by Romans as revva or reus.

While the Ir- in Irsecel probably is the Iberian cognate of Basque iru "three", the name is from a damaged part of the Plate, so Ir- might be the final part of an element which has been truncated.

To worldwide cognates of Basque iturri "fountain, spring", I should add Ancient Egyptian teru "stream" and Korean dorojida "droplet, trickle".

With best wishes,

 

Angus J Huck