An Etruscan Inscription in Reading

Extract

The Curator of the Museum of Greek Archaeology at Reading University, Mrs A. D. Ure, recently drew our attention to an apparendy unnoticed Etruscan inscription on a fragment of an Attic red-figure stemless cup datable to the third quarter of the fifth century B.C. Mrs Ure further referred us to the classification of the cup in J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters² (Oxford, 1963) 1297 (no. 7), the Painter of London E 122.

The tondo inside the cup (plate VIIa) is practically complete (diam. 12.5 cm.), but all the external decoration is lost except small parts of the bottom of the floral pattern under each handle. Inside the tondo are the figures of two women, one seated in a chair and holding a sceptre, the odier standing frontal, looking to the left towards the seated woman and holding out a box in her direction, though she does not seem to be actually offering it to her. The underside of the base has painted rings and a moulded black circular band 1 cm. wide (Plate VIIb).

An inscription in Etruscan letters is scratched on the underside of the base (plate VIIc). The letters run from right to left, as is usual in Etruscan inscriptions; we transliterate cipisvinas (cf. the tables of Etruscan alphabets in G. Buonamici, Epigrafia etrusca, 1932, 122–3). There will be no doubt about the genuine Etruscan character of the word. One notices the vowel harmony, an often attested feature (M. Pallottino, Etruscologia,² 1947, 287).