Amphora inscription deciphered

A fragment of Roman amphora found in Spain was found to have an inscription of Virgil’s Georgics, which dealt with rural and agricultural themes. 
The amphora shard was initially found seven years ago, but only recently was it translated.

The full passage reads:

Quote

 

Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram

uertere, Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere uitis

conueniat, quae cura boum, qui cultus habendo

sit pecori, apibus quanta experientia parcis,

HINC Canere Incipiam. Uos, or Clarissima Mundi 5

lumina, labentem caelo quae ducitis annum;

Liber et alma Ceres, uestro si munere tellus

Chaoniam pingui glandem mutauit arista,

poculaque inuentis Acheloia miscuit uuis;

et uos, agrestum praesentia numina, Fauni 10

(ferte simul Faunique pedem Dryadesque puellae:

Munera Uestra Cano);

 

Quote

 

O you brightest lights of the universe

that lead the passing year through the skies,

Bacchus and kindly Ceres, since by your gifts

fat wheat ears replaced Chaonian acorns,

and mixed Achelous’ water with newly discovered wine,

and you, fauns, the farmer’s local gods,

(come dance, together, fauns and dryad girls!)

your gifts I sing.

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2023/jun/21/virgil-quote-found-on-fragment-of-roman-jar-unearthed-in-spain

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/virgil-quote-roman-jar-180982426/

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-roman-archaeology/article/las-georgicas-de-virgilio-in-figlinis-a-proposito-de-un-grafito-ante-cocturam-sobre-un-anfora-olearia-betica/742CDE20EED6987767C896C2A1F01739

Here is another article on the discovery:

Quote

The words have now been identified as verses from the second major work of the popular Roman poet Virgil, The Georgics,  a poem on an agricultural theme. The section in  question reads: Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista / poculaque inventiss Acheloia miscuit uvis (‘[The earth] changed the Chaonian acorn for the plump ear of wheat/And mixed the waters of Achelous with the newfound grape’).

Quote

The type of vessel on which the inscription was found is noteworthy: this is believed to be the first known example of a literary engraving on an amphora. The researchers suggest that the engraving was not intended to be seen, as it was written in the cursive script of everyday use, on the lower part of the amphora where it would not have been visible to merchants or consumers.

https://the-past.com/shorts/objects/inscribed-amphora-fragment/

-- brings to mind the movie "Idiocracy." Are we getting stupider? This vase was produced in the 2nd century AD, when few people could read, quoting fancy poetry written a century earlier.....Will a future archeologist dig up a coffee can made today with verses from Shelley or Whitman scribbled on the bottom?

Translating ancient text is difficult. Besides often being fragmentary, vocabulary is often different than that learned in classical forms of the language-- loaded with slang and regional dialect. Abbreviations well known and commonly used by the authors but maybe obscure to us appear often. Cf-  will a distant future reader know what "OTOH" or "IIRC" means to us? 

On 12/11/2023 at 3:22 AM, guidoLaMoto said:

-- brings to mind the movie "Idiocracy." Are we getting stupider? This vase was produced in the 2nd century AD, when few people could read, quoting fancy poetry written a century earlier.....Will a future archeologist dig up a coffee can made today with verses from Shelley or Whitman scribbled on the bottom?

Thank you for reading my post. I must disagree, however, with some of your points.

I agree, for example, that only a small population in the ancient world had any level of literacy. Among the literate (not exclusively the ruling class elite), the knowledge and familiarity of the great Latin and Greek texts was essential. Historian and numismatist Guy de la Bédoyère mentions that even soldiers were frequently at least familiar with these texts. In fact, the military character in Roman comedies was distinguished by the way he would recite quotations (see 11:30 of the video below).

As you mentioned, only a few could read. The fact that the writing was on the bottom of the amphora and not easily visible means that it was probably not meant for either the merchants or consumers. Maybe the text was copied for only the amusement of the amphora manufacturer or perhaps it was written by someone to practice and perfect his Latin.

On 12/11/2023 at 3:22 AM, guidoLaMoto said:

Translating ancient text is difficult. Besides often being fragmentary, vocabulary is often different than that learned in classical forms of the language-- loaded with slang and regional dialect. Abbreviations well known and commonly used by the authors but maybe obscure to us appear often. Cf-  will a distant future reader know what "OTOH" or "IIRC" means to us? 

Guy de la Bédoyère has done some interesting and insightful work on deciphering an inscription on the reverse of a medallion of Carausius found in the 1930s. (Carausius was the usurper who ruled Britain and Northern Gaul, coming to power in AD 286.)

On the reverse of Carausius medals was “RSP” and “INPCDA.” These inscriptions were left without an adequate translation for more than a half century. In 1997 Bédoyère was able to translate the significance of this inscription through his familiarity with Virgil’s “Ecologue.” (Virgil was the Roman Augustan poet who published “Eclogues” or “Bucolics” around 39-38 BCE, more than two centuries before Carausius.)

“RSR” was seen to represent as “Redeunt Saturnia Regna;’ “INPCDA” was “Iam Nova Progenies Caelo Demittitur Alto.” This passage is found in Virgil’s “Ecolgues” and means “The Saturnian kingdoms return (or The Golden Age returns), now a new generation is let down from heaven above.” (See page 189 of the article below.)

Bédoyère notes that fluency and understanding of Latin and Greek were much more common even in more recent years than today. In fact, he states, “A 1689 medallion of William and Mary issued to commemorate the restoration of the church carries the reverse legend ‘Caelo delabitur alto (he comes down from the heaven above)’ a direct allusion to [Ecolgues] IV, 7.”

In conclusion, our lack of familiarity with poetry little more than a century old should not cause us to underestimate the ancient appreciation of poetry several centuries old, even if only superficially.

Thanks, again, for reading my post.

Bedoyere_2005.pdf (mom.fr)

Thanks for your enlightening dissertation (as opposed to my grafittus).

I exaggerated the point for the sake of illustration.... The Romans of two millennia ago probably had more litterate among them than say, the peasants of the middle ages did-- Cf: all the graffitti in Pompeii, or the many letters, etc found at Vindolanda. Probably it wasn;t the senatorial class scribbling on the walls....The ancients didn't have People Magazine or The National Enquirer to read while sitting in the dentist's waiting room...:Like American frontier families who only had The Bible to read, the ancients mostly had works that today we consider the classics and more "high brow."

Maybe we over-think the entertainment value of works of art & lit from the distant past. One can take advanced courses intellectually analyzing Verdi's operas or the silent films of Hal Roach- which, in their day merely held the place in society that rap videos on MTV hold today. Someday the nerds in Academia will intellectualize those too and take the fun out of it.

I do have to wonder how many Romans recognized the acronyms of Vergil's lines on the coins? Maybe it's comparable to something like the pyramid and all-seeing-eye on the dollar bill-- deeper symbolic meaning to the cognoscenti, but lost on the proletariate?