Umbrian Language: Iguvine Tablets

See the little towns... Gubbio

.

Leah: What a climb. But we made it. In here.

.

Gubbio Civical Museum:
Tablets III to VII

Aria: We came here to see these?

.

Leah: Discovered by a farmer in a field in 1444.

.

Aria: What’s the writing mean?

.

Leah: Part Umbrian, written before Christ, a dead language now, and part in Latin.

Translate that!

.

Aria: Another dead one.

.

Leah: But these are linguistic and cultural gems. The largest complete Umbrian text in existence. And all about sacrificial customs carried out in Gubbio here, two thousand years ago.

.

Aria: Sacrifices? Who did they kill?

.

Leah: Not people, but oxen, sheep, goats, pigs, puppies. To protect the mountain, to protect the city. All carried out by a religious brotherhood according to strict protocols. Bird flights determine auspicious timing, some animals are sacrificed outside the city gates, some inside, how the officiator is to be dressed, and how to conduct the ceremony.

________

Voice-over

A community which protects itself through sacrificial rites is not so far back in the past. David Wootton writes in “The Invention of Science” that in the 1600s, even educated Englishmen, who might own as many as a dozen books, believed in the power of witches, werewolves, magicians, unicorns, alchemy, astrology and a flat earth. A few still do. Fascinating to see how we thought before reason and science helped us make better sense of the world.

...