A Vasconic inscription on a bronze hand: writing and rituality in the Iron Age Irulegi settlement in the Ebro Valley

Relatively few examples of Palaeohispanic writing have been recovered from the Vasconic territories of present-day Navarre, leading to the assumption that the Vascones were a pre-literate society. Here, the authors report on an inscription on a bronze hand recovered at the Iron Age site of Irulegi (Aranguren Valley, Navarre) in northern Spain. Its detailed linguistic analysis suggests that the script represents a graphic subsystem of Palaeohispanic that shares its roots with the modern Basque language and constitutes the first example of Vasconic epigraphy. The text inscribed on this artefact, which was found at the entrance of a domestic building, is interpreted as apotropaic, a token entreating good fortune. Keywords: Iberian Peninsula, Circum-Pyrenean region, Late Iron Age, Vasconic epigraphy, Palaeohispanic, linguistic analysis
Introduction The Vascones--mentioned in Classical sources including Ptolemy (Geographia 2.6.67; Garcia Gil & Molinero Hernando 2006) and Pliny (Naturalis Historia 3.3.24; Rackham 1942) --were a Late Iron Age cultural group [...]