The Bern

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

tablet or Gobannus tablet is a metal sheet found in 1984 in

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. As it was only analysed after the death of the workman who had found and removed the tablet from its site, its original archaeological context can no longer be precisely determined. According to the scant information available to archaeologist Rudolf Fellmann, it was found in Thormenboden forest within what appears to be a Gallo-Roman context, a layer dominated by Roman roof tiles at a depth of roughly 30 centimetres. It is inscribed with an apparently

Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, 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, ...

inscription, consisting of four words, each on its own line, the letters formed by little dots impressed onto the metal: : ΔΟΒΝΟΡΗΔΟ ΓΟΒΑΝΟ ΒΡΕΝΟΔΩΡ ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ (''Dobnoredo Gobano Brenodor Nantaror'') The dedication is to Gobannus, a Gallo-Roman god, the name simply meaning "the Smith". ''Brenodor'' is probably a placename, ''Brenno-duro-'' "town of Brennus"; compare ''Salodurum'' > Solothurn, '' Vitudurum'' >

Winterthur Winterthur (; ) is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. With over 120,000 residents, it is the country's List of cities in Switzerland, sixth-largest city by population, as well as its ninth-largest agglomeration with about 14 ...

, Gaulish ''-duron'' "town" deriving from PIE ''dhur-'' "door". ''Nantaror'' may refer to the Aare valley (containing as first element ''nanto-'' (Modern Welsh ''nant'') "deep valley with a stream/river"), and ''Dobnoredo'' seems to be an epitheton of ''Gobano'', maybe composed of ''dubno-'' "world" (Old Irish ''dumhan'' (Modern Irish ''domhan'', cf. Dumnorix, Donald (Gaelic ''Domhnall'') and ''rēdo-'' "travel" (Old Irish ''riad''), or ''rēdā'' "chariot" i.e. "world-traveller" or "world-charioteer", so that the inscription may mean approximately "to Gobannus, the world-traveller, dedicated by the people of Brennoduron in the Arura valley". Since the inscription consists of four proper names, it cannot straightforwardly be considered in the Gaulish language. The datives in ''-o'' may be either Gaulish or Latin. Use of the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...

, however, seems to suggest that when the tablet was inscribed, Roman influence was not yet overwhelming, and Gaulish probably was still in wide use. That the tablet does date to Roman Gaul is suggested by the final Ρ of ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ: it was at first written as a Latin R, the additional stroke having been removed again as a scribal error. Mixing of Greek and Latin letters is also attested from a number of Gallo-Roman coins. The discovery of the tablet had a significant important on determining the etymology of the city of

, suggesting that the modern city continues to use a toponym of Celtic origin (possibly ''*berna'' "cleft") that pre-exists any Latin or German names. The tablet is made of

, and on grounds of this it was considered a forgery for some time, since production of zinc is unattested in this region prior to the 16th century. The alloy, however, turned out to be different from modern zinc, containing

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

and

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

, as well as traces of

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

, tin, and

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Like z ...

.Rehren Th. (1996) ''A Roman zinc tablet from Bern, Switzerland: Reconstruction of the Manufacture'', in Archaeometry 94, The Proceedings of the 29th International Symposium on Archaeometry, Eds S. Demirci et al., Ankara, 35-45. It was concluded that the zinc of this tablet was collected from a furnace, where the metal is known to have aggregated,

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

calling it ''pseudoarguros'' "mock silver" (in 1546, Georg Agricola rediscovered that a white metal could be condensed and scraped off the walls of a furnace when zinc ores were smelted), but it is believed that it was usually thrown away as worthless. Since the tablet is dedicated to the god of the smiths, it is not unlikely that such zinc remnants scraped from a furnace were collected by smiths and considered particularly smithcraft-related.

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20110531204806/http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/quellentexte.cgi?40 Gallo-Roman religion Zinc History of Bern Gaulish language Gaulish inscriptions

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