di Daniela Degan
An open window on the ancient Umbrian population, its socio-political organization, writing and public rituals of a community religiosity.
The language of the Umbrians is part of my life, because my female lineage draws its origins and strength from the land of Gubbio: a place of ancient community civilizations, whose echoes still resound in the dwellings of the Apennine Sibyls. Over the elected hill also described by Dante Alighieri, Monte Ingino, there is a cave, a cave of the Goddess, the cave of the Sibilla Eugubina. In the vicinity of the cave of Sant'Agnese and the prehistoric cave on Monte Ingino, traces of a cult linked to the Niger Regin, "Black Regin", have been found. In some caves there are various graffiti and many canals dug into the rock along which the water flowed, which had to be collected in a basin dug in the center of the mountain and around which some rites linked, in fact, to water and the cult of the Great Mother. A very ancient civilization, whose traces have mixed with Etruscan and Latin ones, but which has even more distant roots. In fact, there are many lexical survivals in the local dialect, but also in the Italian language, which emerge from the ancient language of the Umbrians, borrowed from the Latins and still come down to us today[1].
Thanks to the Iguvine Tables, a unique document, whose inscriptions represent the longest ritual text of ancient Italy, we are able to open a window on the ancient Umbrian population. The panels are exhibited at the Civic Museum of the Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio.
The characteristics of the tables
The Eugubine Tables (Tabulae Iguvinae) are made up of seven inscriptions on bronze plates found in the XNUMXth century in the territory of the ancient one Ikuvium (Gubbio), near the Roman Theater, in the Umbrian language, relating to complex ceremonial lustration and expiation of the city. The tables were sold to the municipality of Gubbio in 1456 and are currently kept in the Civic Museum of Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio.
The Tablets were produced between the XNUMXrd and XNUMXst century BC in order to preserve the texts of very ancient previous religious rituals which were transmitted orally or which could be inscribed on perishable materials. We can imagine these slabs as a "breviary" that was used by people called to officiate public rituals.
The Tables contain 4365 words engraved on twelve bronze facades, a non-perishable material which was therefore destined for the sacred and allowed the rituals to be fixed over time. It is argued, thanks to recent studies, that the engraving of the plates did not take place directly on the bronze plates, but made with the "lost wax" technique, a methodology that was introduced in the Bronze Age.
"The text was engraved on a waxed rectangular wooden table (and equipped with lateral ridges on the sides), over which a clay mixture was pressed. After cooking and the consequent melting of the wax, the bronze was poured onto the terracotta model and a bronze plate was obtained with the inscription identical to that of the wax"[2].
Previously, the Tables were thought to be nine, then eight, but later both errors were refuted. In the first case the number nine comes from a misunderstanding spread by Leandro Alberti (1550) in his work Description of all Italy, while the source of the second issue is Stefano da Cremona who, in the Italian translation of his Life of St. Ubaldo (1523) speaks of four plates in Latin characters and four in Etruscan characters, while in the original text in Latin he had mentioned seven[3].
What we find written in the bronze tablets as a whole is extremely more archaic than the time of its transfer to the bronze, but of difficult and uncertain dating. However, it can be said that for the text of the like it and lustration two archetypes existed, the older one summarized in table I while the other, more recent one is found in tables VI and VII. Given that the interpretation of the Tables is still being studied today, in the source referred to in note 3 we can find in detail the translation of the tables to which I refer. From it it is possible to extrapolate the different contents which can be classified as follows:
- Ceremonies please e lustral contained in the two faces of Table I
- An extended redaction of the above two ceremonies contained in Tables VI and VII
- Prescription for the ceremony for "adverse omen" contained in facade a of Table II
- Sacrifice of the dog, on the same facade a of Plate II
- Ceremony of tax meetings on facade b of Table II
- The ceremonial complex of the Sestentasie in Tables III and IV
- The rules on fees and fines that regulate the functions of the officiant in Table V
- The tax regulations concerning exchanges between districts and confraternities in facade b of Table V
- Duties and fines of the head of the brothers, on facade b of Table VII
In the tables the main features of the religion also emerge through the Iguvine sacrifices, the venerated divinities, the politically relevant institutions in the community, the places where the community rites were performed[4].
The language of the Umbrians and the writing of the Tables
Umbrian is a language that precedes the diffusion of Latin in Ancient Italy and is part of the "Sabellic" group. This term replaces the previous designation of "Osco-Umbrian" dialects. It is the northernmost dialect of the group and the one best documented thanks to the Gubbio tables. It is certainly a language of Indo-European origin such as Latin, Greek and the Germanic languages, characterized by a complex morphology and with logical functions of the words that are expressed by endings. In the written language of the Tables, two Indo-European linguistic layers are manifested, one more ancient, or the Paleo Umbrian, and a more recent and dominant one, the safino. Many literary testimonies, including the pen of Herodotus, maintain that the Umbrians lived south of the river Alpi, in an area located between the Alps and the Padania, but the sources on the Umbrian side are conflicting, suggesting an autochthonous origin of the Umbrians who would have survived a flood[5].
The ancient Umbrians knew the Etruscan writing system well, but did not have their own alphabetic tradition; therefore, when they felt the need to write texts they used a local alphabet, but adapting it to the phonemes of their own language. Basically the tables are written in the Umbrian language, but they used a local writing of Etruscan derivation: where there was no correspondence with sounds that the neighbors did not know, they adapted the Etruscan sign to the sonorous sound of the Umbrian language. The adaptations did not create decoding problems for them, because they knew the words of their language and read it well, depending on the context. In this case they were rituals in which the sequence and the words had to be articulated correctly, I would say perfectly, otherwise you had to start over from the beginning[6]. In fact, the texts contained in the Gubbio Tables reveal how important the power of the word, a "magic" word that was used in traditional rituals, a "secret" word, given that it was read by few people, more precisely by those who officiated the rituals described in the bronze plates, once handed down orally.
From Maddalena Fagiani's analysis, ancient Umbrian had seven sounds for vowels, including the “o” as a back vowel. However, this aspect was not present in the Etruscan language and alphabet; therefore, in transcribing the text on the Tablets the Umbrians used the Etruscan sign V (or the Etruscan sign for "u") also to indicate the "o" (an example: in the writing "tuta ikuvina" instead of the o there is the u, but in Umbrian it reads “tòta igòvina”).
The "younger" Iguvine Tables (Table VI – VII dated to the beginning of the XNUMXst century) show how at a certain point the Umbrians began to write using a different alphabet from the previous one adapted from Etruscan, the Latin one, given the progressive conquest of the territories of the Italian peninsula by the Romans. Uses and customs changed and with them the Latin language entered with its alphabet, and it spread throughout the territories by modifying the native dialects. The adaptation to the Latin language for the Umbrians was not difficult, taking into account the fact that both languages are part of the Indo-European group, while Etruscan had a different origin; moreover, the sounds were similar and, unlike Etruscan, Latin was written, like Italian, from left to right.
Finally, from the morphological analysis of the writing contained in the Eugubine Tables, taking into account the fact that there are some words that are almost the same in Umbrian and Etruscan, as well as in Umbrian and Roman, it is almost always necessary to assign the origin of the entries to the Umbrian environment , not to the Etruscan or Roman one. That is, the Umbrian lexical borrowings in Etruscan and Latin are to be attributed to the Umbrian world and not vice versa. This is because, according to a historical law, borrowings take place from the language of the more prestigious environment to that of the less prestigious environment, with reference to the sector of human activity to which the word refers: and this represents an indication of an ancient "superiority" of the Umbrian people compared to the others[7].
The rituals and religion that emerge from the translation of the Tablets
The Eugubine Tables are the only source of notable importance for the Italic Religion[8]: they manifest in written form the rituals of an archaic polytheistic religion with 25 divinities[9]: the rite is entrusted to the "creative word" and to the act performed by the officiants who wore the ritual toga traversa.
The ancient Italic populations developed their own cultural, social and religious identity for centuries, despite the different influences of other cultures such as the Greek ones, those coming from the East and finally the more invasive one, a consequence of the expansion of the Romans. Initially the Umbrians, as well as the other peoples, had not had the need to bring rituals and spiritual tradition into written form, on the contrary they were wary of the written form and this explains why they had not developed their own alphabet, but following the strong Roman pressure, fearing the corruption of the ancient traditions, they felt the need to transcribe what had once been handed down orally by the people who officiated the rituals of an institutional religiosity[10].
Below is the transliteration taken from the site "The Tables of Gubbio"
Va
- esuk. brother: atiieřiur:
- eitipes: plenasier: urnasier: uhtretie
- t: t. kastruçiie: ařfertur: pisi: pumpe:
- fust: eikvasese: atiieřier: ere: ri: esune:
- kuraia: prehabia: piře: uraku: ri: esuna:
- si: herte: et: pure: esune: sis: sakreu:
- perakneu: upetu: revestitu: puře: teřte:
- eru: emantur: herte: et: pihaklu: pune
- tribřiçu: fuiest: akrutu: revestu:
- emantu: herte: ařfertur: pisi: pumpe:
- fust: erek: esunesku: vepurus: felsva:
- ařputrati: fratru: atiieřiu: prehubia:
- et: nuřpener: prever: pusti: kastruvuf:
- frater: atiieřiur: esu: eitipes: plenasier:
- urnasier: uhtretie: kt kluviier: kumnah
- kle: atiieřie: ukre: eikvasese: atiieřier:
- bee: apelust: muneklu: habia: numer:
- prever: pusti: kastruvuf: et: bee: purtitu:
- fust: muneklu: habia: numer: tupler:
- pusti: kastruvu: et: bee: subra: spafu: fust
- muneklu: habia: numer: tripler: pusti:
- kastruvu: et: bee: frater: çersnatur: furent:
- ehvelklu: feia: fratreks: ute: kvestur:
- sve: rehte: kuratu: si: sve: menstru: karu:
- fratru: atiieřiu: pure: ulu: benurent:
- prusikurent: rehte: kuratu: eru: eřek:
- prufe: yes: sve: mestru: karu: fratru: atiieř
- iu: pure: ulu: benurent: prusikurent:
- kuratu: rehte: neip: eru: enuk: fratru
A complete reading of the translation of the tables highlights the conception of the divine, the prayers and rituals performed by the officiants for the good of the whole community (ikuvina suit) and the named manifestation of the local deities. The Umbrian divinities did not have a human form like the Greek ones, but were represented as great forces: they are recognized as "divinities of the Act" or "divinities - Word"[11]. The vision of the world was profoundly spiritual and the relationship with the divine is in the communion between people (the community) and creation.
The spirit of the texts of the Tablets starts from a mentality and an awareness for which ceremonies are not an individual form of religiosity, but real public acts, we would say institutional facts, with which the community, through the officiants[12]relates to the divine. The names assigned to the divinities by the Italic theologians are extremely suggestive and reveal the forces that were called to intervene on the basis of the requests (prayers) in the liturgies of the time: the "Frightener" (Torsa), "the Impeditrix" (Prestota), or she who holds back the enemies, "the Creator" (Cerfo or Cerfia)[13], that is, who makes the crops grow.
The Gubbio deities of the Tables are also always represented in the number of three: “Sometimes the names with which the deities of the Act are called are accompanied by adjectives, as in the case of Cerfo Marzio, Prestota Cerfia or Torsa Giovia. A divinity of the Act or divinity-word was the expression of one of the great forces observed by the Italian theologians: that jovia (the power of the word), that marzia (physical strength), that cerfia (the strength of life)[14].
And therefore three main divinities. In the rite, the magic-religious value attributed to the number three is fundamental: three are the main gates, Tessenaca, Trebulana e Vehia, from which you could access Iguvium, named in the Tables. There are also three times of sacrifice. Three for each divinity the said sacrifices uranii. Ternary was also the rhythm of the ritual dance. And finally the proclamation of the end of the rite, described in table VI, repeated three times before the ranks could finally dissolve. They are the actions performed by the person called for the different ceremonies in relation to lustration and like it, to purification of the community or the army, to the Sestentasie which, if analyzed as a sort of list of necessary acts, highlight the characteristics of ritual gestures. All this accompanied by the need, fundamental for the result of the ceremony, of a repetitive precision called "efficient word and action". Therefore, extrapolating the actions of the different rituals from the translation of the Tablets, here is what most resonates with me:
In plates Ia and Ib
The Purification of the City:
- "The officiant begins this ceremony after the rite of revealing the birds, those in front of him and those behind him"
- “extract its low entrails. Present the products of the earth. Consecrate with flour. You pray in secret over the meat and the products of the earth"
- “You use offering bowls and consecration bowls” (this for the Rocca Fisia) as well as “a second type of offering bowls and a second type of consecration bowl for the City of Gubbio. You pray in secret (…)”
- (…) “you grind it sitting down and sitting down you pray on the ground”
- (…) “present the products of the earth and add the braided bread, consecrate both with wine and with flour. You pray in secret over the meat and the products of the earth, then the Rocca will be purified".
The lustration of the army:
- “The officiant begins this ceremony after the rite of revealing the birds, those in front of him and those behind him. On return put on the shoulder strap and then set the fire in the portable tray. When you have done so, then formulate the commitment to the deity" (...)
- (…) “when you have gone around, pray. Then proclaim the go Eugubini. Three times you go around, three times you pray. Repeat three times “Andate Eugubini”
- (…) “So the sacrifice will be perfect. After the third tour around the army, the officiant orders that the mature heifers be put to flight above the place of the assembly"[15]
- “Consecrate with flour. Consecrate with the rite of the pit. You pray in secret over the meat and the products of the earth"
In table VI a – VI b
The Purification of the City, long version:
- "the officiant begins this ceremony by detecting the birds: the hoopoe and the crow coming from the right, the woodpecker and the magpie coming from the left"
- (…) “the right birds and calls according to the divine will”
- "When the one who has had the task of detecting the auspicious messages has sat down on his seat, then (the officiant) does not murmur and does not interfere with a ritual formula, until the one who has received the task of detecting the messages wish him not come back. If there will be a murmur or if (the officiant) will have interfered with some ritual formula, there will be a formal defect".
- “the vessels (…) extend them towards each other so that he can provide for the lighting of the fire directly from the fire. Likewise at the Tesseneca gate. Also at the Veia gate”
- (….) “Be favourable, be propitious to Rocca Fisia, to the City of Gubbio, to its name. With this formula I pray to you and I really trust in the ritual formula (…)
- (…) “Let the officiant address all these prayers in silence, in the same way do the consecration. Repeat on the cut out parts add the seasoned crescia as bread. Present the products of the land. Consecrate both with wine and with flour. Consecrate the victims on the plank.”
- (…) “during the prayer you knead and dance to a ternary rhythm. After you have presented the crescia condita, give the Holy Offering of cut meats. Then, kneeling, give the Holy Offering of the dough, (making it fall) from the pàtera. Then crumble the crescia, the dough and the lower entrails over the fire, spreading them on top. Finally, sitting down, you grind, pray over the ground and have the two offertory bowls and the two consecration bowls replaced.
- (…) “work towards the pit with the bowl, holding it with your left hand, until the dough is ready; then lower the bowl and, at the same foot of the door, give it as a Holy Offering.
In tables III and IV
The Sacrifice of the Sixties:
- "Sacrifice[16] it must take place at the culminating moment of the ordinary Sestentasie feasts. First, you clear the ground in the sacred grove. (…) Finally, take the due route to the field and along the way let the fire smoke, accompanying with prayers.”
- (…) “finally you grind, sing an accompanying hymn and pray over the ground. In this ceremony you burn perfumes, use the censer and toasted flour. When he has done these things the offering will be fulfilled. In case he had previously purified the soil, then he will do without that flour."
The Sestentasias were associated with the Minorita[17] to the ritual of the goddess Orsa, finding profound similarities between the two ceremonies: the cultic use of fire, perfumes, ritual tools. In these ceremonies, dealing with the goddess Cupra or Cupa and with the aspects and attributes of the great goddess, the Buseghin[18] underlines how the comb was one of the attributes of an Umbrian-Sabellian goddess: “It is to her that in the ritual of the Sestentasie of Gubbio a tart in the shape of a comb, the PETENATA, is offered. The goddess is Vesona, which means the Benefica".
The ceremonies and rituals referring to the Sestentasie have their culmination, the construction of a ritual chariot, without wheels (the kletra), a sedan chair to be carried on the shoulder, a sort of simulacrum that can be related to the three stretchers used for the Festa dei Ceri held every 15 May in Gubbio, to celebrate the patron saint of the city, Sant'Ubaldo[19]. The magical number three returns[20]. Three Ceri of the Festival of Gubbio[21], which takes place in the period of maximum awakening of agricultural festivals. The triad of Gubbio deities (Jupiter – Mars – Vofione) is linked to the cult of rocks, according to Ancillotti and Cerri these deities added the attribute Grabovio to their name, as an expression of the characteristics of a local pre-Indo-European deity, Grabo, of which they take their place[22]. "The grabovia triad would have absorbed a previous indigenous divinity, but not so much a Grabo god, as a goddess Graba, the Goddess of the Mountain, in harmony with the pre-Indo-European Euro-Mediterranean religiosity characterized by a very strong feminine accent. And she certainly must have been a very great Mother if she conditioned the pantheon of newcomers to such an extent as to compel them to place her mark on supreme divinities"[23].
"Grabo would be the theonym linked to the Mediterranean name of the rock, *grabo (as already supported by Pfiffing in 1964, an interpretation underlined by Devoto himself the following year). So Jupiter Grabovio would be a very ancient form of a cult that had a first phase when the language we call Umbrian was not yet spoken here; a second phase when the god was admitted to the cult of the Umbrians of Gubbio in the strict sense, a third phase, in which the god survives as a Roman deity, when the Umbrian language ceased to exist".
The places of the ceremonies therefore (mountains, rocks, springs, doors, woods) are fundamental both for the religious aspect, but also as a place of political and strategic military reference (the mountain). The most important is certainly the sanctuary on the sacred mountain, which was not a built structure, but for the Ancient Umbrians the sacred space to be set up for rituals. The sanctuary (eku) was an area located on top of the mountain, in the Umbrian language okri, which means rock. In Gubbio still today on Monte Ingino, where the Basilica of Sant'Ubaldo is located, there is a place called La Rocca, where traces of a cave with a source of water remain. In the Tables the fortress or rock is called physio, or the fortress of Jupiter Physio which is referred to as the deity who protects the social pact that bound the people of the total iiouina.
The socio-political and community organization
«O Šerfo Marzio, or Prestota Šerfia of Šerfo Marzio, or Torsa Šerfia of Šerfo Marzio, be favorable and propitious with your peace towards the army of the Community of Gubbio, towards the Community of Gubbio, towards its veterans in service and those in dismissal, towards the recruits in service and those in waiting, towards their name and towards her name» (Plate VI facade b).
The texts delivered in the seven tables are of a purely liturgical nature, as illustrated up to now, and yet through the rules imposed for the correct execution of the rituals, information emerges on the social, political and community world within which those texts had matured. The information that can be obtained from the texts, thanks to a careful examination of the twelve inscribed pages, constitutes perhaps ninety percent of what we know today of the ancient Umbrian-Safina culture, which is at the very origins of the civilization of Rome. From a morphological point of view, Gubbio is located in the valley between three mountains, Mount Foce, Mount Ingino and Mount Ansciano, and three are the keywords that identify the characteristics of the Ancient Umbrian society. Here is the ideological triad: tota, okri and trifu.
"The term tota meant a self-determined 'community', almost like a small state. Each tota occupied a rural district, the trifu, whose economy referred to small settlements, mostly made up of "scattered houses" (pagan settlement) and sometimes of small concentrations (vicanic settlement). Over time, the vicanic settlement became urbanized into “city". Each tota headed to a 'sacred mountain', an okri, which, with its ritual high ground area, was the symbol of the community's identity, placed under divine sacredness. This conceptual triad (tota, okri, trifu) constitutes a kind of cultural marker of pre-Roman Italic cultures. It appears central not only in the Umbrian Iguvine Tables, but also in the Picene and Sabellic inscriptions (Marrucini, for example), and even among the Sicilians"[24].
From reading the Iguvine Tables it can be analyzed that the rules contained therein were not intended "for the outside world", but for the "Atiedia fraternity". It is a college of excellent citizens of the Iguvina community. These people had the task of officiating the collective cults. Atiedio is the mother city in the upper Esino valley, today Attiggio, a fraction of the municipality of Fabriano, of which Iguvium she was a daughter. Through the rules of the ritual we can reconstruct the society of the Ancient Umbrians. And in Table II and in Table V the correct ritual performance of the pact of the is highlighted decade, a traditional confederation of ten communities (tota), united in a pact in the Apennine territory that gives Iguvium reached the Adriatic Sea[25].
Table IIb – The sacrifices of the tax meetings – repeats the ancient ritual of stipulating the federal pact between the various districts, a pact ratified by the Atiedia confraternity which represented the expression of the same confederation. In this way, through the federative pact over a vast territory, it was possible to control and secure the movement of flocks, trade and transhumance routes and offer security to all its members. The individual communities were linked by the sacred bond placed under the control of the supreme divinity Fisio (Jupiter), which expressed the loyalty of the commitment undertaken by the confederate communities[26]. It is therefore a community made up of loyal people that emerges from the words of the tables. “The centrality of this ethical attitude is entrusted to the divinization of the commitment itself, which is embodied in the theonym Fiso Sancio (related to the commitment between men), and in that of Fisovio Sancio (related to the commitment between man and God). The divine is also the guarantor of the social pact, the foundation of the community, and of the federal pact, the foundation of foreign policy. He is an optimistic and positive man, who counts on the possibility of finding the mers in all things, a term that we translate as "the right", but which etymologically indicates the measure, the balance"[27].
In the Iguvine Tables the lustratio, a purification ceremony of armed citizens. For the Umbrian community it was a fact that military actions brought death and destruction and therefore inevitably led to the overthrow of the natural order of things. The characteristic of the mentality of the ancients is undoubtedly the rejection of war. So Federico Fioravanti illustrates this aspect:
"From the words of the Iguvine Tablets we discover a people who take up arms only when forced. And who sees war, almost exclusively, only as an instrument of defence. The soldier's dress was worn as a duty towards others, to defend the common good of the territory threatened by enemies. But war is an evil, to be kept away from one's homes and from everyday life"[28].
The Romans, imperialist nephews of the Umbrians, will transform the armies into an instrument of conquest and territorial expansion. The Romans will be the builders, alongside the ancient natural routes of the commercial routes traveled by the Italic peoples, of efficient and paved consular roads, useful for moving the devastating military machine of the legions quickly from one point of the peninsula to another.
However, the rural classes, the ancient Apennine communities of the Sibyls, and the current populations have kept their genetic heritage intact and will continue to experience war as a problem to be kept away from their land, from their lives. As in the prayer of Table VII facade to:
O Prestota Šerfia di Šerfo Marzio, for a distant way divert the foreigner from the army of the Community of Gubbio and from the Community of Gubbio.
Daniela Degan, 2022
REFERENCES
- Ancillotti Augustus and Cerri Romulus – The Eugubine Tables – Editions Jama – Perugia 1997;
- Buseghin Maria Luciana – The last Sibyl. Ancient divinations, curious travelers and folk memories in the Umbria-Marche Apennines – Carsa Editions – Pescara 2013;
- Castellani Dina – In Gubbio before Ikuvium – EFG Gubbio Photo Book Editions – Perugia 2014;
- Magdalene Faggiani – The Umbrians of the Tables. A short journey to discover an ancient people – EFG Gubbio Photo Book Editions – Perugia 2015;
- Frances fin – The Language of the Umbrians – Editions Jama – Perugia 2013;
- Marija Gimbutas – The Language of the Goddess – Venice 2008.
Footnotes
[1]A word that may seem obsolete, but which my mother often used to define a puddle, is fish or Macko which means polenta. One word to define a town near Gualdo Tadino is Rigali. When we little girls asked for a gift, she would tell us "yes, of course, Rigali is beyond Gualdo". See Maddalena Fagiani – The Umbrians of the Tables. A short journey to discover an ancient people – EFG Gubbio Photo Book Editions – 2015 – p. 4.
[2]Maddalena Fagiani – op. cit. – Fr. 5.
[3]Augusto Ancillotti and Romolo Cerri – The Iguvine tables – Editions Jama – Perugia – pp. 37 and 38.
[4]"While popular Umbrian religiosity is represented by archaeological finds such as anthropomorphic Italic bronzes, the speculation of ancient theologians is represented by the texts of the Iguvine Tablets and the religious ideology outlined therein. These are two profoundly different conceptual worlds, which have independent roots and which have coexisted in parallel for centuries and centuries, sometimes with large stretches of superficial convergence. During the first millennium BC (a period to which both the archaeological finds and the texts of the Iguvine Tablets date back) popular religiosity saw the divinities in anthropomorphic form and expressed themselves through ex-votos, while that of theologians conceived the divine in an abstract form and it was expressed in the “word”. Basically, as Maddalena Fagiani showed in her 2007 work, we are dealing with two cultural layers superimposed over time, the first of which, characterized by an anthropomorphic conception of divinity, dates back to the "paleoumbrian" phase of the second millennium BC, while the the second introduces an abstract vision of the divine and represents the result of the "Safina" culture superimposed on the Paleoumbrian one during the first millennium BC It is true that even in the Iguvine Tablets some designations of the divine pertaining to the most ancient phase survive (evidently too deeply rooted in the people because the theologians could erase them) such as the name of Iupater, or that of Mars, or that of Çerfo; but even these "names" are re-functionalized to the new theological vision, in which they represent "areas" of action of the divine (as Prosdocimi, 1978 and 1989 had well seen) rather than "gods" in the classical sense. In short, what is represented in the Iguvine Tables is not a true "pantheon", but an ideological system that organizes the idea of the divine. (…) The Gubbio Tables are seven bronze plates discovered in 1444 in the ruins of the Roman theater in Gubbio, and acquired by the Municipality of Gubbio with a notarial deed of 1456, now kept in the State Archives of Gubbio. The seven tables have different dimensions (from 28x40x0.4 cm of IV to 57x87x0.4 cm of VI) and different weights (from 2,590 kg of IV to 15,590 kg of VI), and were melted down at different times ( the III and IV at the end of the 3rd century BC, the I and II at the beginning of the 2nd century BC, the V around the middle of the 2nd century BC, the VI and VII at the beginning of the 1st century BC) with the aim of preserving texts previously written on perishable material (canvas, skins, leaves, wood).” (text taken from Augusto Lancillotti – The religiosity of the man of the Iguvine Tablets - Vol. 5 - no. 1)
[5]For further information, please refer to Francesca Pinna – The Language of the Umbrians – Editions Jama Perugia. “The ancient bronzes, like mirrors, reflect the lost language of the Ancient Umbrians and the pre-urban world of the fabulous people who escaped the incessant rains of a deluge remembered as "universal". The Greeks called them Ombrikoi. For Pliny, they were the most ancient lineage of the peninsula: Gens antiquissima Italiae. The linguist and archaeologist Giacomo Devoto defined the Iguvine Tablets as «the most important ritual text of all classical antiquity»”. (text taken from Federico Fioravanti – Talking with the gods: the Gubbio Tablets)
[6]The first tables (from I to IV) were written, probably, around the 8rd or 18nd century BC, in Umbrian characters and language. Plates VI and VII are also written in the Umbrian language, but with the Latin alphabet and it seems that they may date back to the XNUMXst century BC. Plate V is written in Umbrian characters on face a and in the first seven lines of face b. The remaining lines (XNUMX-XNUMX) are instead in Latin characters. The plates written in the Umbrian alphabet are called "paleoumbre", those written with the Latin alphabet are called "neoumbre". In all probability the tables show, in monumental form, much older texts, perhaps dating back to the XNUMXst millennium BC Among them, the differences in language are largely due to differences in handwriting, since the Umbrian alphabet had no signs for o, g, d and often wrote p for b and paleoumbrian ř in the neo-Umbrian it is rendered with rs. However, all the texts are written in the Umbrian language. (Source Wikipedia, entry "Tables Eugubine").
[7]Augusto Ancillotti and Romolo Cerri – op. cit. – Fr. 101 and following and Francesca Pinna – op. cit. – Fr. 25 and following.
[8]There are other Italic inscriptions of a religious nature: the Rapino table in the Marrucino dialect from the second half of the XNUMXrd century PEC, and the inscription of Fossato di Vico in the Umbrian language from the end of the XNUMXnd century PEC, in which there is the Umbrian-Picene divinity Cupra, the Bona Dea (Maddalena Fagiani - op. cit. ).
[9]View The Iguvine "pantheon".
[10]"The Iguvine Tables list ritual prescriptions. Rules that were not intended "for the outside world" but only for the "Atiedia brotherhood", a college of excellent citizens of the Iguvine community which had the task of officiating the collective cults. So called in memory of Atiedio, mother city in the upper Esino valley, today Attiggio, fraction of the municipality of Fabriano, of which Iguvium was daughter or colony. Speaking with the gods on behalf of the community was a privilege reserved for a select few nobles. But it was important to do it correctly, according to rigorous and immutable procedures, through a "breviary" that was preserved and transmitted from generation to generation. It was necessary to prevent whoever officiated the rites from changing the manner and times of a liturgy considered perfect. The only way, according to the ancient inhabitants of the Apennines, to gain divine benevolence and obtain the health of people and livestock together with the coveted prosperity of the fields.” (text taken from Federico Fioravanti – Talking with the gods: the Gubbio Tablets)
[11]In 1989 it is Prosdocimi who speaks of "divinity-word" and of "divinity-action": if the divine is present in things and in actions, each of the things and each of the actions can bring about a divine will favorable or unfavorable to the postulant. In fact, the divine maintains its inscrutable will, which however can be solicited to grant the prayer and only if this is done "according to rituals" (Aldo L. Prosdocimi - The religions of the Italians – in AA.VV. – “Italia omnium terrarum parens” – edited by Pugliese and Carratelli – Milan 1989 – pp.475-545).
[12]We are in this case in a phase following the time in which spirituality throughout the Mediterranean and in Old Europe was in female hands and took place in a collective and shared way. However, the echo of the successive fundamental influences of the Sibylline communities remains in this particular Apennine territorial area. Thanks to the research and studies carried out over the last twenty years, I am now able to see the traces left by the previous rituals of circles of women of wisdom and the details of the ceremonies described in the bronze writings that show how much of the ancient deities, gestures , inspirations, actions and intentions are in any case at the roots of the subsequent traditions reported in the Tables. For these aspects see the following texts: Vicky Noble – The Awakening of the Goddess and The Double Goddess; Luciana Percovich – Dark Shining Mothers; Morena Luciani Russo – Shaman women.
[13]Cerfo or Cerfia have Cer or Ker in the name, in common with the goddess Ceres. They are both personifications of the force of growth, the fruitful energy. In this regard, see Maria Luciana Buseghini - The Last Sibyl – Carsa 2013 – pp. 108 and 109.
[14]Magdalene Fagiani – The Umbrians of the Tables - quoted – Fr. 19.
[15]The rite of the escape of the 12 heifers (the number results from Table VII b) through the streets of the town and of their capture is part of the very ancient pre-Indo-European tradition of bullfighting in the Mediterranean environment.
[16]Two differentiated ritual procedures are observed: the "uranium" and the "chthonic" rite. In the case of the first, the victims (sheep, pig, lamb, goat) are consecrated on the table and the entrails are offered in the fire of the altar; in the case of the second, the victims consecrate themselves on the ground and the entrails are offered in the "pit". All in perfect coherence with the divinities of heaven and earth respectively (Ancillotti-Cerri - op. cit. - p. 83). The parts intended for the deities were burned on the great fire altar (in Umbrian so) and the smoke went directly to the deities related to the sky. During the chthonic sacrifices, instead, the products of the earth were shredded above a small altar (in Umbrian hereclus) and then they were thrown into a hole below (the ritual of the pit), through the earth they reached the chthonic divinities (Maddalena Fagiani - op. cit. - p. 20).
[17]Anonymous scholar known as Minorita Norcino who narrated an archaic myth of the Bear and which Maria Luciana Buseghin proposes in her book.
[18]P. 46 of The last Sibyl - quoted See also p. 140 where the similarities are expressed in detail.
[19]For a more in-depth and detailed analysis, I refer to pages 138 - 141 - 142 of The last Sibyl and to p. 96 of The Iguvine Tables, cit., as well as what was exposed by Augusto Ancillotti in his work "Some traces of the Festa dei Ceri in the Eugubine Tables”. Thanks to the above reading and reflections, I was able to highlight passages of this creepy party that has always moved me … and that foreigners often don't understand. Now that I recognize the link, I understand why there are three machines, a number dear to the Great Goddess, three are the "primary" colors Red, White, Black in the clothes of the ceraioli and Yellow as the color of Mother Earth, but which instead in the current festival it is the color of Sant'Ubaldo. But we know that the saints come later, first there were the Goddesses, the Sibyls, the nymphs of the Springs. Three are the "birate” that the Ceri do in the piazza grande and there are songs, dances, wine and falling in love. A further aspect that links the Tables to the Ceri festival are some gestures and movements of the ceremonies analysed, such as the always circular movement, the "stations" at the three doors and the vases that will have to be broken, as happens for the jugs of the Ceri which are thrown and routes before birates.
[20]"These three proto-cerus were therefore dedicated, in order, to the Pomone-Vesona couple, to Hula and Torsa and, since they are anointed like the thorn (a fixed or fixed monolith in the ground), they are certainly emblems of fertility, but unlike the spine they have to be raised, to be lifted, evidently to be carried on the shoulder with the kletra.” Inside the words, etymological windows by Giancarlo Gaggiotti and Maria Luciana Buseghin – op.cit. – p.141.
[21]The volume by Giancarlo Gaggiotti, an expert on the cultures and languages of ancient Italy, is enriched by "etymological windows" which help to understand, thanks to linguistic analysis, the distant and near events of "this complex figure, Grabo, the female protagonist of the magical Mediterranean world. “Furthermore, in this book, the scholar proposes for the first time ever a possible reconstructive and interpretative key to the famous Ceri di Gubbio” (interview with Maria Luciana Buseghin).
[22]Maria Luciana Buseghin – op. cit. – Fr. 121.
[23]Maria Luciana Buseghin – op. cit. – Fr. 141.
[24]Text taken from the site "The Tables of Gubbio"
[25]The allied city-states, over time, became twenty, while maintaining the original ten sacred names: tiieřiate, klaverniie, kureiate, satanes, peieřiate, talenate, museoate, iuieskane, kaselate and peraznanie. The brotherhood Atiedia, in fact the first and most important form of supra-regional government of the Italian peninsula that we know of, was made up of one hundred members, five for each community. Physio was the name of the mountain on whose slopes stood the city of Iguvium: the current Monte Ingino was defined with the word okri: indicated the sacred place, symbol of the collective identity, where the people, the armed citizens capable of fighting, were summoned.
[26]Magdalene Pheasants, op. cit. pp. 14 and 25.
[27]Augusto Ancillotti in "The religiosity of the man of the Iguvine Tablets"
[28]The craft of arms, in any case, was the exclusive competence of the elites. There lustratio, one of the most archaic forms of census known, thus also became a way to count oneself, to understand who was in condition to fight. The list of potential warriors excluded foreigners. The circumstance, paradoxically, makes us reflect on the tolerant spirit of the ancient Italic people towards those who were not born in the community of Iguvium. The fact that the prohibition is repeated several times informs us that many foreigners resided in the city of the Umbrians and that their presence, with the exception of the moment of battle, was considered completely normal. The exclusion from the military ceremony was therefore not dictated by hostility but by the need to emphasize the citizen's identity. In everyday life, the Ancient Umbrians were constantly looking for the seasthe "right fit". A common sense to follow and which also emerges in the text of the seventh table, in the famous passage of the curse, the prayer addressed to the deity of Torsa Jovia to get the defeat of the enemies. The inhabitants of Iguvium they describe themselves as victims of constant raids by belligerent neighbors. They strongly condemn them. But they know that it is not possible to eliminate them completely from their lives. Somehow they have to live with the misfortune of almost always being under the pressure of an attack. Then they pray to the goddess collectively. They ask her to terrorize the enemies, so that they at least move and retreat to other areas. The invocation to Torsa Jovia it is the oldest poetic formulation known in the Italian peninsula. It is characterized by a pressing rhythm and the figure of alliteration. The sound of the same sentences was repeated several times, to give greater strength to the prayer: another sign of the blind faith of the Umbrians in the magical power of the word.