The Chamalières tablet (French: Plomb de Chamalières) is a lead tablet, six by four centimeters, that was discovered in 1971 in
Chamalières, France, at the Source des Roches excavation. The tablet is dated somewhere between 50 BC and 50 AD.
The text is written in the
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switze ...
language, with
cursive Latin letters. With 396 letters grouped in 47 words, it is the third-longest extant text in Gaulish (the
curse tablet from L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac and the
Coligny calendar
The Coligny calendar is a second century Celtic calendar found in 1897 in Coligny, France. It is a lunisolar calendar with a five-year cycle of 62 months. It has been used to reconstruct the ancient Celtic calendar. The letters on the ca ...
being longer), giving it great importance in the study of this language. The magical subject matter of the text, which invokes the Celtic deity
Maponos, suggests it should be considered a
defixiones tablet.
Pierre-Yves Lambert Pierre-Yves Lambert (born 30 May 1949) is a French linguist and scholar of Celtic studies. He is a researcher at the CNRS and a lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Celtic linguistics and philology. Lambert is the director of the j ...
, in his book ''La langue gauloise'', offers an analysis.
Text
andedion uediIumi diIiuion risun
artiu mapon aruerriIatin
lopites snIeððdic sos brixtia anderon
clucionfloronnigrinon adgarionaemilI
on paterin claudIon legitumon caelion
pelign claudío pelign marcion uictorin asiatI
con aððedillI etic secoui toncnaman
toncsiIontío meIon toncsesit bue
tid ollon reguccambion exsops
pissIiumItsoccaantI rissuis onson
bissIet lugedessummiIis luge
dessumíis lugedessumIIs luxe
In popular culture
The Swiss folk metal band
Eluveitie
Eluveitie ( ; )Chrigel Glanzmann: "...According to current research, it is pronounced in Bernese German as, i.e. ''"Elvèyti"''. But I don't know if this is correct. The gods know that.:: Metalist Magazine :: Interviews :: Eluveitie is a Swiss f ...
used the text for their song ''Dessumiis Luge'', and the first two verses for ''Spirit''.
See also
*
Larzac tablet
References
*Xavier Delamarre, ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise'', Paris, Errance, 2003.
*Pierre-Yves Lambert, ''La langue gauloise'', Paris, Errance, 2003.
*Venceslas Kruta, ''Les Celtes. Histoire et dictionnaire'', Paris, Laffont, 2000.
*''Études celtiques'', XV-1, 1977, pp. 156 sv.
External links
Article sur le site persee.fr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chamalieres Tablet
Iron Age France
Gaulish inscriptions
Curse tablets
Archaeology of Auvergne