Botorrita plaque

As boards of Botorrita a series of four bronze plates is referred to, which were in the course of archaeological excavations in the ancient Celtiberian city Contrebia Belaisca in today Botorrita place in the province of Zaragoza ( Spain) have been found.

All four panels are numbered according to their finding time from I to IV and are located in the Museo Provincial de Zaragoza. They form an important part of the extremely sparsely occupied Celtiberian language, especially Botorrita I, on the longest contiguous text is preserved in this language.

Apart from Botorrita II, which contains an inscription in Roman characters, the other three panels show Celtic inscriptions in Iberian alphabet, a syllabary, which was acquired by contact with the Iberian culture.

I Botorrita

The panel was excavated in 1970 in a broken state. Dated it is the period between the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st century BC Composed measures the board about 40 cm wide and 10 cm high. It is written on both sides, but it is not excluded that there are two independent documents.

On this panel, as well as on Botorrita III and IV, was the Iberian alphabet used, which is not suitable to represent all Celtiberian sounds and sound groups exactly. ( For example, it can not tell the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds. Certain in the Celtiberian language existing groups with multiple consonants can represent difficult by the Iberian alphabet. ) In the inscription are word and sentence boundaries clearly marked what the deciphering comes to meet.

The text was transcribed according to painstaking restoration work to the Latin alphabet. The nine lines of the called " Side B " text were later deciphered with the help of Botorrita II as a list of persons, each of which is identified by first name, father's name, tribe or clan, title and hometown. The text on " Side A " remains to date, despite numerous attempts at interpretation by experts (W. Meid, J. de la Hoz, JF Eska, H. Eichner and others) untranslated. It consists of eleven rows and contains very likely a Lex Sacra, ie a law of a religious nature.

Botorrita II

The as Tabula Contrebiensis ( panel of Contrebia ) known plaque was found in 1979. It is a Latin text that can be precisely dated, because on the board is expressly date as the year in which L. Cornelius Cinna and Cn. Octavius ​​Roman consuls, and that corresponds to the year 87 BC

Although not directly relevant to the Celtiberian linguistic corpus, this board is still important as a tool for the interpretation of the other boards, and it contains valuable information about the Celtiberian city Contrebia Belaisca and their management system. Contrebia Belaisca was in its time a kind of capital that controlled a particular territory politically and economically. It is also known by there, coins. In this legal text is a decision on a water dispute between two neighboring peoples: the inhabitants of the communities Salduie (now Zaragoza ) and alum ( church today Alagón ) submitted to the Council of Contrebia Belaisca decision.

Botorrita III

Found in 1992, this tablet so far considered to be the longest Celtiberian document. However, the inscription has been found to be a list of proper names, and therefore their linguistic relevance is low.

Botorrita IV

This plaque was discovered in 1994. The content is believed that this is a text similar to Botorrita I. It is located in a very poor condition and there are barely twenty words readable, which makes accurate dating impossible. But it may be assumed by comparison with the other boards that they should be classified between the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st century BC.