Lemnian language

The Lemnian language is the language of a 6th century BC inscription found on a funerary stela on the island of Lemnos (termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia). The inscriptions are in an alphabet similar to that used to write the Etruscan language, and that used for the older Phrygian inscriptions, and a relationship of Lemnian and Etruscan, sometimes grouped together as Tyrrhenian languages or Aegean languages, has been proposed, as well as a classification of both Etruscan and Lemnian as marginal members of the branch of the Indo-European Anatolian languages, suggesting an Aegean origin of the Etruscans. Characters similar to those used in the inscription are also found on some pottery fragments on Lemnos.

According to Herodotus, the pre-Greek population of Lemnos was Pelasgian, according to Thucydides they were Tyrrhenian.

Table of contents

1 The Lemnos stela 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

The Lemnos stela

The stela was found built into a church wall in Kaminia and is now at the National Museum, Athens. The 6th-century date is based on the fact that in 510 BC the Athenian Miltiades invaded Lemnos and hellenized it. The stele bears a low-relief bust of a helmeted man and is inscribed in an alphabet similar to the western ("Chalcidian") Greek alphabet. The inscription is in Boustrophedon style, and has been transliterated but not successfully translated.

The inscription consists of 198 characters forming 33 to 40 words, word separation sometimes indicated with one to three dots. The text consists of three parts, two written vertically and one horizontally. Comprehensible is the phrase avis sialchvis ("aged forty"), reminiscent of Etruscan avils machs sealchls ("aged forty-five").

See also

• Etruria
• Eteo-Cypriot
• Eteo-Cretan

References

• Dieter H. Steinbauer, Neues Handbuch des Etruskischen 1999, pages 357-366.

External links

• http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/history.html

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