A () was a low, round, or rectangular pedestal set up by the

Ancient Romans The Roman people was the ethnicity and the body of Roman citizenship, Roman citizens (; ) during the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire. This concept underwent considerable changes throughout the long history of the Roman ...

for purposes such as a milestone or a boundary post. They were also used for somewhat differing purposes by the Etruscans and

Carthaginians The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians), were a Semitic people, Semitic people who Phoenician settlement of North Africa, migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean during the Iron ...

Roman cippi

Roman cippi were made of wood or stone; inscriptions on the stone cippi indicate their function or the area that they surrounded, like sanctuaries and temple areas. In Rome they marked the limits of the after the city's walls were expanded further out, the course of aqueducts, and the . Cippi lined up in rows were also often numbered, often featuring the name of the person placing them or the distance to the nearest other cippus. The inscriptions on some cippi show that they were occasionally used as funeral memorials.

Etruscan cippi

Between 800–100 BC, cippi were used by the Etruscans as tombstones, which were shaped differently depending on the place and time of origin. Cippi were set up as a stele, column or sculpture in the dromos of an Etruscan grave or at the grave entrance. They had magical and religious significance. Cippi may have the shape of a cube, knob, onion, egg, ball or cylinder. There are connections between certain shapes and the representation of canopic jars; cinerary urns that were made in the shape of a human torso, and the head as a lid. *In

Cerveteri Cerveteri () is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, in the Italian region of Lazio. Known by the ancient Romans as Caere, and previously by the Etruscans as Caisra or Cisra, and as Agylla (or ) by the Greeks, ...

, the cippi of female and male burials were different. Male dead received a column ( phallus), women small houses or temples. *The monuments (6th – 5th centuries BC) from the area around Chiusi show a combination of the cinerary urn and cippus. They contain the ashes of the dead in an opening in their base. *In

Orvieto Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...

two so-called warrior head cippi have images of human heads (late 6th century BC). *In

Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...

, fluted columns with acanthus were used. *From the 4th century BC cippi also have name inscriptions. The " Cippus Abellanus" (in the Oscan language), like the " Cippus Perusinus", is not a tombstone.

Punic cippi

Carthaginian cippi have a base similar to Egyptian steles, which are sometimes also referred to as cippi (for example the " Metternich Cippi" in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

). They are found in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, but also in Sardinia (

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

, Teti, Tharros),

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

( Motya) and

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

( Huelva and

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

). The Cippi of Melqart, found in

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, which bear a Phoenician and a Greek inscription, made it possible for the first time to understand the

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions fo ...

Gallery

File:Cippo perugino, con iscrizione in lingua etrusca su un atto giuridico tra le famiglie dei velthina e degli afuna, 02.jpg, Cippus Perusinus File:Cippus - Louvre.jpg, One of two Cippi of Melqart which Jean-Jacques Barthélemy used to decipher the Phoenician language. File:SarteanoCippe.jpg, Etruscan "pietra fetida" cippus in Sarteano File:Cippe pomme de pin.jpg, Cippus surmounted by a pine cone, which symbolizes the

tree of life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythology, mythological, religion, religious, and philosophy, philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The ...

File:Castel Goffredo-Monumento La Pigna.jpg, Castel Goffredo, La Pigna monument File:Etruscan cippus warrior head side.jpg, Etruscan warrior head cippus

References

External links

* *{{wikisource-inline, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cippus Ancient Roman architecture Funerary steles