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Ancient Pilgrimage and Inscriptions. Examples from Pre-Roman Rock-Inscriptions of Italy

Pellegrinaggio nel mondo antico. Esempi dell’epigrafia rupestre e in grotta nell’Italia preromana
Simona Marchesini

Résumés

After a critical review of the linguistical methodological tools that are at our disposal for an integrated and multidisciplinary approach to studying the ancient world and sacred places, this paper will focus on two marginal areas of pre-Roman Italy: the Alpine area in the north and Apulia in the south. The methodological approach employed includes anthropological and ethnographic aspects of pilgrimage (Turner 1978; Coleman, Eade 2004; Le Breton 2012; Häussler, Chiai 2020), the Landscape Linguistics by Ron Scollon (2006), the theory of context developed by the linguist Eugenio Coseriu and the frame semantics by Charles J. Fillmore 1976. Finally, the anthropology of writing, mainly outlined by Giorgio Raimondo Cardona (1981, 1986) and by the French anthropologist Béatrice Fraenkel (2006, 2007), is used to identify different kinds of pilgrimage and understand similarities between ancient pilgrimage sites and modern memorials.

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1. Anthropology and Ethnography on Pilgrimage

1From an anthropological and ethnographical perspective, pilgrimages are activities undertaken by humankind in all periods of history. David le Breton regards pilgrimage as a form of communication in space and time:

For those who are accustomed to a medium, many markers mark out their routes in the manner of a living map, often made of relationships between different objects. The outline of a path is woven through scattered signs that one must know how to discover.

  • 1 Breton 2012.

Beyond the path, there is everything else, off the beaten track, another use of the world, animals, forest or rocks.1

  • 2 V. Turner, E. Turner 1978, xxiv.

2Even if the walker may often be indifferent to his/her destination, a path is a proposal, an orientation or a direction. The topic of orientation is also stressed by other anthropologists. Simon Coleman and John Eade’s 2004 Reframing Pilgrimage. Cultures in Motion defines pilgrimage as culture in motion with activities such as walking, dancing and crawling involved in the process. Before them, Victor and Edith Turner 1978, in their introduction of Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, write that pilgrimage is a ‘kinetic ritual’ whereby the interrelations of symbols and meanings framing and motivating pilgrim behaviour in a major world religion are seen as a rather circumscribed social field2. In pilgrimage, a place-centred approach replaces the person-centred approach we observe, for instance, in private worshipping.

  • 3 Graburn 1983.
  • 4 Graburn 1983.
  • 5 Bauman 1996, 19.
  • 6 Bauman 1996, 22.
  • 7 Bauman 1996, 18.

3Parallels have been drawn between pilgrimage and secular institutions, such as tourism3 and popular youth culture4. Modern memorials share with pilgrimage the place and some aspects of the textual pattern and rite. In any case, be the pilgrim secular or religious, it is what Zigmund Bauman defines as a ‘restless seeker for identity’5. Thus ‘destination, the set purpose of life’s pilgrimage, gives form to the formless, makes a whole out of the fragmentary, lends continuity to the episodic’6. Bauman aims to trace the move from pilgrim to tourist, from modernity to postmodernity, since if the modern problem of identity has been to construct an identity and keep it stable, the postmodern challenge is how to avoid fixation and thus keep one’s options open7.

  • 8 Reader 2015.
  • 9 Girardi, Marchesini 2021.

4As Ian Reader8 reminds us, not all pilgrimage sites are specific to one cult: in the polytheistic sanctuaries of ancient Italy, a pilgrim interested in the cult of Zeus might, at the same time, have worshipped other gods or goddesses. Theonymic formulas expressing divine couples are frequent in ancient Italy and found in every linguistic and epigraphic tradition9. The order in which the theonyms appear in the inscriptions can reveal their rank and reciprocal relationship. Derivative suffixes, like in the formula Zeus Mefit-anus, in the inscriptions from Rossano di Vaglio in Basilicata (Southern Italy), or the Iupiter or Mars Grabovio of the Iguvian tables (ancient Umbria), reveal the importance of local gods concerning the main gods of the Italic Pantheon. One god/goddess is characterised by their relatedness to another deity using a derivative adjective (epithet).

  • 10 Galati, Scandola, Signoretto 2011; Cardini 2015; Doralice 2016-2017.

5As for the relevance of pilgrimage places, renowned international sanctuaries go hand in hand with numerous minor sites of local use. People unable to travel far can perform short-distance pilgrimages with the same benefits. Also, replications of more famous sites are known in several religions worldwide. In the Middle Ages, the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Jerusalem was not accessible to all, and local pilgrimage routes, called 'Minor Jerusalem', sprang up in many European towns10.

  • 11 Coleman, Eade 2004, 6.
  • 12 Eickelman, Piscatori 1990.

6The differentiation among the aims of the ancient travellers is challenging to set. If we consider the pilgrim as an archetypal seeker11, the distinction between secular and religious pilgrimage becomes more and more blended. The reasons to travel can be mixed: pilgrimage, emigration, travel for learning or visit shrines12. These motivations are more difficult to identify in the pre-Roman world: we do not have "native speakers" or travel stories – as in the case of Aelius Aristides and his Hieroi Logoi in the late 2nd century AD or the late Antique Peregrinatio Aetheriae – who tell us why they embarked on a pilgrimage. Nevertheless, traces of people’s motivations in travelling towards the cult place can be recognised in inscriptions and the archaeological records. Since pilgrimage coincides in most cases with the accomplishment of a process or an internal pathway that leads to the experience of divinity, pilgrims tend to leave offerings or mementoes of their visits.

  • 13 Frey 1998, 11.
  • 14 Tilley 1994, 10.

7Nancy Louise Frey underlines that walking is not just a form of self-sacrifice requesting endurance and austerity, but it also allows pilgrims to rediscover the past13. People undertake a pilgrimage to leave their world behind and rediscover their origins and the tradition of their ancestors. In this regard, Christopher Tilley’s assumption that “place is fundamental to the establishment of personal and group identities and the formation of biographies” fits very well with pilgrimage14. All these motivations must be considered when approaching the signs pilgrims left in sacred places. Both votive offerings and inscriptions can help us to shed light on the motivations of ancient pilgrims and occasional visitors.

2. Phenomenology of pilgrimage

  • 15 Häussler, Chiai 2020, 1.

8With Tilley, we have entered the theme of a phenomenological perspective of pilgrimage. Every human environment influences human activities, perceptions and religious understanding. On the one hand, humans interpret, shape and transform their natural environment15. Depending on the observer’s cultural and religious experience, sacred places may be perceived differently, and this perception changes through time and space. The landscape becomes medium and is no longer a mere container of human products. It conveys meanings, especially when it is naturally or anthropically marked. Natural features, such as a spring, rocks and stones, mountains, rivers and trees (e.g., Dodona’s oak in the Epirote sanctuary), sometimes the topographic seclusion from the civil world, might have prompted and increased a site’s sacrality.

9On the other hand, human- or god-related events can turn a place into a memorial. Miracles, destructions, numinous events or the presence of famous people in the place, all of which provide a place with specific religious connotations, thus enhancing its extraordinary position compared to other places.

  • 16 Oxford Reference 2020.

10In the sacred landscape, and all the more in pilgrimage places, all things are related. Ralph Häussler and Gian Franco Chiai, in the Introduction of their miscellany Sacred Landscapes (2020), speak of a ‘task-scape’, intended as a constructed space of related human activities, all interlocking: any task is embedded in how other tasks are seen and understood16.

11The phenomenological viewpoint developed by Christopher Tilley in 1994, based on Heidegger’s and Husserl’s philosophy, involves the ‘understanding and description of things as they are experienced by a subject. It is about the relationship between Being and Being-in-the-world’. This framework paved the way for a cognitive approach to human experience. However, phenomenology in archaeology might hide a weakness. As recently outlined by Häussler and Chiai, it is difficult to practice the ‘being in the world’ in reconstructing the landscape. Each archaeologist has their experience, which is historically and disciplinary influenced. In some cases, social agents and historical conditions may play a role in reconstructing landscapes.

  • 17 Coseriu 1970, 1988, 1997.

12To overcome this weakness, we can work on a multidisciplinary basis, sampling all possible information about the situation we want to focus on. Our philological interpretation of the past will arise from a critical comparison of disciplines and tools. In this regard, considering the "context" in the broadest possible meaning can help to reconstruct ancient landscapes. The historical linguist Eugenio Coseriu developed from the 1960s onwards the so-called “Umfeld” (German) or “Entorno” (Spanisch) theory17. The Spanish term entorno sums up the combination of context and situation.

13In the book Linguistica del testo, published in 1997, he distinguishes every possible declination of the concept of context, including every category useful to define the universe in which a linguistic act takes place. He points out that in producing a text, be it a long poem or a single word of greeting, many different accidental, historical, physical, meteorological, biographical and cultural aspects can interact. All these aspects, that he describes in a detailed list, must be considered in the heuristic of written records.

  • 18 Fillmore 1982, 195.

14The context is also a founding concept in the Geo-Semiotic and Frame Semantics approaches. For the Frame Semantics, developed by Charles Fillmore in 1976, the frame is a cognitive pattern that helps in reading situations and events in the world. Frames help contextualise situations and are culturally related: Roman institutions, Etrusco-Italic sanctuaries or medieval worshipping are examples of frames. In Frame Semantics ‘words represent categorisations of experience, and each of these categories is underlain by a motivating situation occurring against a background of knowledge and experience’. He defines the ‘frame’ as a system of categories structured according to a certain motivating context, assuming that ‘The background context is absolutely essential to understanding the category’18. In other words, in the process of using a language, a speaker ‘applies’ a frame to a situation and shows that he/she intends this frame to be applied by using words that the interlocutor recognises as being grounded in such a frame. The concept of Frame Semantics can be applied not only to languages but also to images and contexts because every sign in the world is a bearer of meaning.

  • 19 Scollon, Wong Scollon 2003. See also Malinowski, Tufi 2020.
  • 20 Peirce II, 274-308. See also Bodel 2021, 174-175, applied to the Roman signa.

15An innovative tool for the study of the signs – including epigraphic records – in a landscape is Landscape Linguistics (LL) as developed by Ron Scollon and Sukie Wong Scollon19. In contrast to the concept of Linguistic Landscape, which describes the variety of languages displayed in a context (landscape), LL studies the semiotic of signs given in the everyday world, with its icons, symbols and indexes. What makes LL innovative is the addition of a semiotic distinction between Icon, Symbol and Index to linguistic studies, as well as the development of the concept of ‘indexability’, as already developed by Charles Sanders Peirce20, i.e. the capability of our brain to store information on icons and symbols in the landscape and to retrieve them any time we meet them. In Peirce’s approach, there are three ways in which a word, a sign, a phrase, a figure or a gesture expresses meaning:

  • Icons, if they schematically represent an object (e.g. an emoji);

  • Symbols, if they arbitrarily represent it (e.g., a traffic light);

  • Indices: they represent an object or feature depending on their position in the world.

  • Arrows and exit signals are the most evident indexes, but every object, word or symbol can become an index. Linguistically seen, deictics (here), local or time adverbs (once, now), and verb tense (past, future) can be indexes. They suggest how to read a frame (landscape) and offer a path from which we can start interpreting the situation. As we will see, the forms in which inscriptions appear on a surface can become indices of special text classes.

16Following the tools listed above for our hermeneutic approach of the epigraphic landscape, we arrive at a hermeneutical pathway that can be summarised as follows:

  • explore the geographic situation and conditions of the landscape;

  • gather literary sources – when available;

  • sample archaeological data;

  • gather linguistic and epigraphic data;

  • identify indexes. This task is based on a comparative anthropological and ethnographic approach which allows for establishing similar patterns in different societies and comparing them;

  • assign the indices a provisional value: work on a hypothesis and verify whether the value assigned corresponds to all requirements. This procedure is called 'combinatory' in relic language studies. If the value provisionally assigned encounters a high level of satisfaction with all requirements, we are approaching the truth, and the theory is worthy of being pursued.

17The operations listed here in sequence are probably already part, more or less consciously, wholly or partially, of the method used by scholars of Antiquity to decipher the linguistic signs of the past. Adding new tools and their operationality in studying ancient landscapes can enrich the methodology and facilitate the integration of a multidisciplinary approach. To understand the context, the linguist has to rely on the archaeologist and the archaeologist can draw from texts – even if fragmentary, thus supplementing the information about the landscape under investigation.

3. Examples of the application of LL to detect pilgrimage contexts

3.1 The inscribed boulder of La Carona di Val Camisana, Bergamo

  • 21 Casini, Fossati 2013; Casini, Fossati, Motta 2014; Casini Fossati 2016.
  • 22 The inscriptions have recently been added to the online corpus of Cisalpine Celtic inscriptions Lex (...)

18In the central western Alpine area, the archaeologists Stefania Casini and Angelo Fossati and the linguist Filippo Motta have found and studied a group of inscribed rock boulders at the source of the Brembo river, along the slopes of Mount Aga in the Bergamo province21. The place’s altitude ranges between 2,100 and 2,400 m above sea level. The limestone boulders present a dense network of overlapping inscriptions belonging to different periods. In pre-Roman times, Lepontic and Camunic texts have been identified starting in the 5th century BCE22. Roman-period texts were partially superimposed on more ancient inscriptions. A dense network of threadlike secondary writing interventions covers much of the surface.

19Crosses, hearts, Salomon knots, five-pointed stars and armed men of the Middle Ages are among the scratched signs. The most important boulder is the so-called Camisana 1, which displays Lepontic inscriptions and prehistoric figures. Scholars attribute to this boulder the value of a focal point of a natural sanctuary connected with the springs of the river Brembo and the nearby high-altitude pass of Valsecca. On the CMS1 boulder, there is also a Latin alphabet of the Republican period, consisting of 21 Latin letters of different sizes, with the Lepontic letters (<a> and <p>) taking the place of the Latin ones (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Inscribed boulder Camisana 1

Fig. 1 Inscribed boulder Camisana 1

From Casini, Fossati, Motta 2014.

  • 23 In addition to the classical works, Dietrich 1901 and Dornseieff 1925, we can mention Torelli 1965; (...)
  • 24 Ferrer i Jané 2018.
  • 25 Marchesini 2011.
  • 26 Dozens of bronze tablets with alphabet series were devoted to the Goddess Reitia in the Sanctuary o (...)
  • 27 Pandolfini, Prosdocimi 1990; Prosdocimi 2002; Marinetti 2002; McDonald 2021.
  • 28 The number of alphabet series in Apulia has recently increased (up to c. 10 alphabetarians), but th (...)
  • 29 Antonini 1990; Agostiniani, Facchetti 2009.

20The indices which allow recognising of religious activity at first glance are icons such as the stars and alphabet series. We know that the alphabet series possessed magical value in the ancient world23. Comparative studies in different epigraphic traditions allow the reconstruction of this value at the beginning of writing when letters were employed to name stars in the Near Eastern tradition and numbers in Greece. Outside the Graeco-Roman world, alphabetic series, including signs not effectively used in the texts, have been recorded in almost all the European pre-Roman epigraphic traditions. We know such series from Portugal (in the Vale da Casa), the Pireneians24, Valcamonica25, Venetia26, Etruria27, and Apulia28, as well as in the the Oscan inscriptions29.

21It is significant, to determine the cultural context in the Camisana boulder, that the abbreviation of the name of god Iovis Poeninus occurs three times (written poe- and pe-). On the Great St Bernard Pass, a sanctuary was devoted to the god Penninus in the Roman period, revealing a link to the small Carona cult place, which may be considered the goal of a mountain pilgrimage. The period of attestation of the inscriptions, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, seems to confirm this hypothesis. Its frequentation was, therefore, not sporadic but systematic, as befits a sanctuary. In addition to the alphabet series and other symbols, such as the star, the overlapping inscriptions build another index of the kind of pilgrimage practised in this place, which is very similar, as we shall see, to the situation at Grotta Poesia in Apulia and its contemporary memorials: overlapping inscriptions, magic symbols and personal names.

3.2 The Alpine Rhaetic cult place of Schnejdjoch (A)

  • 30 Rix 1998.

22Despite its exclusion from Italy’s modern borders, the rock cult place of the Schnejdjoch in Steinberg am Rofan (Tirol, Austria) belongs to the Rhaetic epigraphic culture that covers Trentino Alto Adige, the Engadina Valley in Switzerland and western Veneto. In the last 30 years, since H. Rix published the paper “Rätisch und Etruskisch”, in-depth studies have demonstrated that his assumptions on the genealogic relationship of Rhaetic and Etruscan’s is a fact. He called the newly identified linguistic family – which includes Etruscan, Rhaetic and Lemnian – Common Tyrrhenic30. The relationship among the three languages and its consequences on the Palaeo-Europe reconstruction have been discussed in a round table organised by Alteritas, the University of Rome La Sapienza and Tor Vergata in September 2021, whose proceedings are in print.

23The epigraphic culture in the Rhaetic area is characterised by two main sub-areas, the so-called Sanzeno and the Magrè districts. Both share the same alphabet (Fig. 2), derived from the Etruscan model with some more minor variants, which is due to the diachronic development of the letters: the Sanzeno epigraphic culture started at the end of the 6th century BCE and underwent a rapid decline in the 4th century, disappearing during the 2nd century. The Magrè area took up the baton in the 4th century, though with limited epigraphic usage regarding the variety of inscribed objects and the typology of texts, and ended in the 3rd century.

Fig. 2. The Rhaetic alphabet

Fig. 2. The Rhaetic alphabet

From MLR

24In the northern district of the Rhaetic epigraphy in Tyrol, a rock wall in the woods, discovered in 1957 near a water spring at 1,440 m above sea level, presents a surface (2 by 3 m) used for writing activities over several centuries. The place’s features and the typology of inscriptions (indices) insinuate that this secluded place might have been the destination of a pilgrim route. The Rhaetic texts display stylistic traits, such as the alliteration in the sequences kastriesi, kasrzimiapet, kastrinia, which might suggest sacred/magic content (another index for the interpretation of the place).

25Two different casts, made by the Museum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck and by the Staatssammlungen of Munich, included in the photo documentation in the MLR, help shed light on the palaeographic aspects of the texts and allow their attribution to different writing hands. The Schejdjoch inscriptions cover a broad chronological span with different epigraphic traditions. If we exclude the more recent ones, which can be attributed to modern times, three inscriptions can be identified as Rhaetic and four more in other unknown languages. In one case (Fig. 3), we are probably dealing with a Camunic text, as suggested by the signs for heta and phy.

From Mansel 2011

The Schnejdjoch inscriptions. Squeeze by the Archäologische Staatsammlung München
  • 31 For the attestations in the Rhaetic area cf. Marchesini 2014, 134. On the name see Delamarre 2003, (...)

26Local and short-distance pilgrimages have converged on this sacred place in Antiquity. Unfortunately, only a few personal names can be identified: one of them (in MLR 268) is the pertinentive (dativus dedicationis) Esimnesi, for which there are parallels in other Rhaetic inscriptions with slight root variations, and which goes back to a Celtic etymology. The form Esumne is attested at Cles, and in Cisalpine Gaul, other forms are known, such as Exobnus, Exobna and Exomnus. The swing between /u/ and /i/ – in contact with liquid or nasal consonants – as it happens, for example, in Rhaetic spira instead of spura, can be explained as a phonological trait common to several languages. In Latin, the alternation of /i/ and /u/ in the adjective optime/optume is well known; in Messapic, the theonym Damatira was also written Damatura. The root, -obnos of Exobnus, Exobna is preceded by the privative suffix ex(s), meaning ‘fearless’31.

27In this case, as in other monuments, the writing activity linked to the cult place's primary function derives from the secular activity of tagging a person’s presence in a particular place. The separateness of the place, the proximity to a natural water spring, the rock inscriptions and their concentration within a limited surface on the wall are all indices for a kind of pilgrimage.

3.3 Grotta Poesia, Roca (Lecce, Southern Italy)

  • 32 The SELECT (Self-Learning Atlas of Ancient European CulTures) project aims at creating an online av (...)

28The maritime cave sanctuary of Grotta Poesia provides another context with a similar epigraphic scenario, though with a larger number of inscriptions, is. The language in which most inscriptions are engraved is Messapian, an Indo-European language only fragmentarily attested. About 650 texts (excluding the hundreds of inscriptions in the Grotta Poesia) come from three cultural districts: Daunia in northern Apulia, Peucezia in central Apulia and Messapia in Salento (Fig. 4)32. Nevertheless, since Daunia and Peucetia represent a unitary district in linguistic and epigraphic terms – at least at the current state of the documentation – we oppose the distinction between a southern linguistic district, Messapia, and a northern one, including Daunia and Peucetia. The map (realised within the project Select: www.selecteplus.eu) shows the epigraphic findspots and the different districts. The maritime cave sanctuary of Grotta Poesia is located in Roca Vecchia, in the municipality of Melendugno (province of Lecce), on the Adriatic coast of Messapia.

Fig. 4. Ancient Apulia with its epigraphic districts

Fig. 4. Ancient Apulia with its epigraphic districts

From the SELECT project

29The ‘Grotta’ complex is an underground area consisting of caves, corridors and siphons discovered by men probably during the late prehistoric period when they entered a long tunnel from the seaside and reached a large room with a freshwater spring which they chose as a place of worship. Two large karst cavities, known as ‘Grotta Poesia Grande’ and ‘Grotta Poesia Piccola’, are both regularly flooded by seawater and open to the sky due to the collapse of their roofs, probably in Late Antiquity. The largest of the two caves counts as one of the most extraordinary archaeological monuments ever discovered in the ancient Mediterranean: hundreds of carvings, including signs of hands, animals, spirals and even the Minoan-like pairing of bucranium/double-axe, as well as hundreds of inscriptions attest intense religious activities at least from the Bronze Age to the end of the Roman Republic (Fig. 5). Alongside votive texts in the Messapic and Apulian alphabet, there are also a few Latin and Greek inscriptions which demonstrates the continued frequentation of the cave over the centuries.

Fig. 5 The cave sanctuary Grotta Poesia

Fig. 5 The cave sanctuary Grotta Poesia

Image by the author

  • 33 Pagliara 1987, 1990 and 1991.
  • 34 Taranto Proceedings 1991.
  • 35 de Simone 1992.
  • 36 Poetto 1997 proposes another etymology, that might be consistent with the contest of the cave ‘of t (...)

30The Grotta Poesia, already known by local sailors, attracted scholars’ attention in 1983 when the historian and epigraphist Cosimo Pagliara from the University of Lecce undertook the first analysis and report of the site33. As a consequence of this exceptional discovery, the annual congress held in Taranto by the Società Magna Grecia was devoted to the Messapii34. Carlo de Simone offered a preliminary report on a selection of inscriptions in 1992 and published 21 texts based on the autoptic analysis and Pagliara’s transcriptions35. The content of the inscriptions revealed new linguistic data. Votive texts entailed new words, such as the adjective andiraho (explained as cognate to Latin inferus by de Simone36, used to define the god Taotor, or verbs such as the perfect indicative ligaves (‘(he/she) laid down [the offers]’), or the present indicative apistathi (‘he/she offers’), both deeply connected to a sacral environment where people performed different ritual actions. Among the divine names, we have to remark that while Zis (corresponding to Zeus) and Venas (its relation to the Latin goddess Venus is uncertain) may be reconducted to a common Indo-European heritage, Taotor seems to have been a local god, unparalleled in the Indo-European world.

31Compared to other cave sanctuaries, the whole scenario of Grotta Poesia contains crucial information in reconstructing aspects of the history of religions in the Apulian district as a relevant piece of the ancient Mediterranean culture. In the 1990s, the University of Salento undertook a casting operation on the written surface of the Grotta after having constructed scaffolding to make the survey possible. Despite the very challenging environmental situation, a large part of the inscribed surface was cleaned and coated with a polyurethane resin layer. The resin was converted into resin panels, which are today preserved in the stores of the Dipartimento di Beni Culturali of the University of Salento. The reading and interpretation of the texts are just at the start. The extremely complex frame in which the inscriptions were scratched, and the multilayer execution, partially covered by limestone crusts and mould, prevented archaeologists and epigraphists from even attempting to decipher in situ and on the resin casts.

  • 37 The Universities of Salento (Lecce) and Roma La Sapienza, Alteritas, the Archaeological Superindent (...)

32In recent times, the new activities carried out in the Grotta by a Consortium of eight partners37, aimed at preserving, valorising and studying the cave, have allowed to take some pictures and to begin, at the same time, a photogrammetric campaign on the site and the resin casts made in the ‘80s, which allows to verify some of Pagliara’s readings.

  • 38 Marchesini (in print).

33On the cast panels we could verify some of the inscriptions provisionally published in the MLM. In most texts, invocations to the Messapic gods Zis, Taotor and Venas are usually followed by votive expressions with dedication verbs. The inscriptions express ex-voto or nuncupatio voti texts. For one of the inscriptions recently reviewed (MLM 3 Ro), I proposed to read the text as the gift (probably a throne) dedicated by a husband to the god Taotor after his wife had made a vow or an offering in the past38.

34Based on the evidence that the casts allow to read and confirmed by an autoptic examination, the cave basically displays two different writing activities: first, votive texts, which were only marginally affected by secondary writing interventions, are well preserved and legible, and, second, a net of overlapping writing activities that is impossible to decipher by the human eye: the inscriptions have been written above each other in different writing styles and sizes. The two groups will be better recognised within the cave and the Consortium aims to reconstruct the overall disposition of carvings and writings on the cave walls. The cave's floor is now covered by seawater, which destructively enters the cave during heavy floods. This requires continuous maintenance of the platforms that were constructed since the 1990s in order to walk inside the cave and survey the inscriptions.

35We can nevertheless suggest some hypotheses thanks to the resin casts. The above-mentioned methodological approach allows us to identify the same pattern in places made significant by nature and/or human activities. Two different kinds of writing activities can occur in contexts of this type: on the one hand, the religious pilgrimage which produces proper votive texts, usually produced under the auspices of the sanctuary’s authorities; on the other hand, the complicated spin net of overlapping and illegible tags qualify the writing activity as a compelling need to attest someone’s presence. The latter can be labelled as a secular pilgrimage, which we also observe in modern memorials.

36As the French anthropologist Béatrice Fraenkel observed, memorials often show repeated inscriptions – also called ‘tags’ – written one over another without concern for readability. The last example covers more ancient texts producing undecipherable nets of signs. This activity has been observed in both ancient places and modern memorials. The underlying motivation to leave a written sign of one’s presence – mainly the first name and the date – characterises diverse types of memorials. Whether the nature of the site is religious or not, devotional practice develops with people visiting these places. In the present day, we can also observe this practice in memorials linked to misfortunes or attacks. The tags left on the Twin Towers memorial in New York or at the Sanctuary of San Romedio in the Non-Valley (Trentino, Italy) share similar aspects. Alongside official and well-preserved dedications or ex-voto, placed in reserved spaces ruled by the administrators of the memorial/sanctuary, we find – in more absconded spaces – dozens of spontaneous tags where personal names, symbols, such as hearts, stars or dates, are inscribed one over the other (Fig. 6a-b). In both cases, be they secular or religious memorials, visitors wish to leave a trace of their presence. The control of religious or other local authorities on the sanctuary or memorial sometimes prohibits extemporary writing activities, whilst sometimes it is allowed under supervision.

Fig. 6a. The sanctuary of San Romedio: ruled ex-voto dedications

Fig. 6a. The sanctuary of San Romedio: ruled ex-voto dedications

Photo by the author

Fig. 6b. The sanctuary of San Romedio: spontaneous tags

Fig. 6b. The sanctuary of San Romedio: spontaneous tags

Photo by the author

3.4 Determining the typology of pilgrims in Grotta Poesia

37Palaeographic analysis and personal names can reveal considerable information on the identity of pilgrims or visitors of a cult place, specifically their provenance, gender and sometimes also the migration background of their family. In this respect, they can be indices according to Scollon's definition.

38The first index comes from palaeography and can reveal habits that are locally anchored, such as the epigraphic tradition to which a writer belongs. Personal names provide the second index: first names can undergo fashion reasons, while inherited family names (gentilicia) may reveal something about the origin of the dedicators.

39In Grotta Poesia, the epigraphic elements that reveal the pilgrims' short-distance origin regard both phonologic and graphemic features. A first example is the grapheme <H> for long /ē/, a northern trait since in proper Messapic (the district where the cave is located) the heta seems to be used rather for a fricative sound (as in the genitive singular Dazima-ihi < Dazimas). In the Grotta, two inscriptions attest the use of het for long ē: MLM5 and 9 Ro.

40The second index is graphemic: the grapheme <u> appears in some inscriptions alongside <o>, while in the Messapic epigraphy of the southern district, the grapheme <o> seems to represent both /u/ and /o/ sounds. From 24 attestations of the grapheme <u> in the Messapic corpus, 16 come from the northern district, one from the border (Gnathia), and a few others from Massafra, Ostuni and Ugento in the Salento (southern district). Significantly, four inscriptions attesting the use of the northern grapheme <y> have been recorded in the Grotta Poesia. Here the words [k]lauhi (‘listen’) instead of the Messapic klaohi, Θautori (dative to Θaotor) instead of Θoutori (MLM 4), daus instead of daos (MLM 5 Ro) or Θoturi instead of Θotori present the realisation of /o/ or /ou/ with the grapheme <u>.

41As for the personal names, we can list a series of Messapic names attested throughout the southern part of Apulia (Messapia). In the list below, onomastic formulae are given in their original form, with the first name in the nominative. In one case (no. 5) the feminine praenomen is in the dative. MLM quotations highlighted with an asterix (nos. 21 and 22) refer to still unpublished inscriptions whose study and publication are ongoing.

  • 39 MLM I, 5-18.

42The chronological horizon of the epigraphic records in the Grotta can be set between the end of the 4th and the end of the 3rd century BCE. Unfortunately, the only criterion to date Grotta's inscriptions is palaeography and most alphabetic types can be dated within the last three phases of the Messapic epigraphy as established in MLM39.

Nr.

Name

MLM

Name origin

m/f

1

Dazoma Dazinnaha Akreθθihi

3 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

f

2

Θaotor Akreθθes

3 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

m

3

Kokkehias

5 Ro

Latin

f

4

Rania Vallana

6 Ro

?+Messapic?

f

5

Damai Sketθes(?)

7 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

f

6

Dazoma[---]zes

7 Ro

Messapic+?

f

7

Dazzes Staboa (?)

7 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

m

8

Θaotor Τaoteθθes

8 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

m

9

]Aviθes Taholas

9 Ro

Messapic+?

m

10

Morkos Opades

11 Ro

Latino/Italic?+Messapic

m

11

Dazos Ka[---]ae Aviθes

12 Ro

Messapic+?+Messapic

m

12

Θeotor Damokes

13 Ro

Messapic+Messapic?

m

13

[Sta]boas Krandias

15 Ro

?+?

m

14

Dazz[es] Dazehias

16 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

m

15

Plator Blaθes bilia

17 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

f

16

Aviθes Atimes

19 Ro

Messapic+?

m

17

Valas Baledon(as)

20 Ro

Messapic+Messapic

m

18

Dezomas Nabahes (*naba-ya-s)

21 Ro

Messapic+?

m

19

]sterinnes

22 Ro

?

m

20

Dazomas Megones

23 Ro

Messapic+Messapic?

m

21

Dazion Vaihalles

25 Ro*

Messapic+Messapic?

m

22

Dazes Kezareais

26 Ro*

Messapic+Latin

m

  • 40 For the analysis of Messapic feminine name formulas see Untermann 1964, 179-190; Däuber 1991, pp. 3 (...)

43Two-members onomastic formulae usually contain a praenomen in the nominative, followed by the gentilicium in the masculine and patronymic in the female formulae (father’s name for no. 5). The three-members formula (no. 1) refers to women and expresses the patronymic and gamonymic, with the husband's name in the genitive. In one case (no. 15), the patronymic formula contains the noun bilia ('daughter', cf. Latin filia) in the third position, though it remains unclear why the first part of the onomastic formula is represented by a masculine praenomen (Plator) in nominative followed by a gentilicium in nominative. Usually, the word bilia is preceded in the onomastic formula by a feminine praenomen in the nominative or genitive, as in MLM 24 Cae in genitive (plastas moldatθehiai bilia: ‘daughter of Plazes Moldatθes’), followed by a patronymic, expressed in the form of an adjective in (*-yo-) or the father’s name formula, as in MLM 8 Al (baoštas stinkaletos biliovas no: 'I am (the grave?) of Baošta Stinkalet’s daughter)40. A possible explanation is that both father and daughter (both in the nominative case) left a sign of their presence in the Grotta. Still, in this case it remains to clarfiy why the daughter’s praenomen was not stated in the text and why the word ‘bilia’ is not connected to the first name with the enclitic conjunction -ti/-θi or anda. Further autoptic analysis of the inscription will probably allow us to ascertain the text’s completeness and confirm the transcription.

44From the analysis of the gentilicia included in the texts of the Grotta explored so far, it becomes clear that many names are hapax legomena, attested only in the cave. Two of them have Latin origin: no. 3 Kokkeias (cf. the Latin gentilicium Cocceius) and no. 22 Kezareias (cf. the Latin gentilicium Caesareius).

  • 41 Giannotta 1995, 1996.
  • 42 Tomb 3, dated from the second half of the 4th to the beginning of the 3rd c. BCE, contains a black (...)

45For names already attested in ancient Apulia, at the current state of the documentation, we find comparanda in Aletium (7 correspondences), followed by Caelium (2) Lupiae (1), Uria (1), Vastae (1), Tarentum (1), Gnathia (1), Ostuni (1) and Brundisium (1), all sites of Southern Apulia, i.e. ancient Messapia, situated between 50 and 100 km from Roca. Unfortunately, past excavations on the ground outside Grotta Poesia have barely yielded any information on the Messapic period and only one inscription. The chronology of approximately 30 Messapic tombs excavated in the 1930s and published in 1995 and 199641 partially confirm our findings from the analysis of the alphabetic types on the walls of the Grotta: the grave goods date from the 5th to the 3rd century BCE.42

46The epigraphic evidence of the Grotta considered so far presents a “short-scale” sanctuary, a place of pilgrimage for people coming mainly from the Messapic district and only sporadically from the northern Apulian area.

47The two Greek inscriptions found in the Grotta (still unpublished) do not seem to be archaic, and are statistically irrelevant. The two dozen Latin inscriptions (under investigation), apparently belonging to the text class of noncupatio voti, belong to a later phase of frequentation of the cave during the 3rd-1st centuries BCE. All these more recent graffiti were superimposed on the pre-existing Messapic inscriptions and are usually written with larger letters.

3.5. The vocation of cult places in Apulia

  • 43 Mastronuzzi 2017.
  • 44 Mastronuzzi 2017, § 28;
  • 45 D’Andria, Mastronuzzi 2008, p. 231.

48The short-distance pilgrimage in the Grotta della Poesia reflects what we know from the archaeological evidence: most of the ancient pre-Roman cult places in Apulia show a local frequentation in the archaic period (8th-4th centuries BCE) and in the subsequent phase (4th-2nd centuries BCE) as well43. Other marine cult places are attested in Torre dell’Orso, Castro, on the Adriatic coast and in the Grotta di Capelvenere on the Ionian coast44. Even though these maritime cult places are often related to seafarers, they also present a fertility-related character as natural caves and fireplaces containing the remains of possible caprine animal sacrifices. The cult complex in Leuca, Grotta Porcinara, reveals, especially from the 6th century BCE onwards, a trade vocation thanks to the inscriptions that testify the worship of gods with Greek (Batas) and Messapic character (Zis). In the Roman period, the two gods were synthesised in the form of Iuppiter Batius on the walls of the Grotta Porcinara45.

4. Conclusions

  • 46 Cardona 1981, 177.

49Several kinds of pilgrimage may affect the same cult place. Based on the epigraphic and archaeological evidence, it is challenging to distinguish secular from religious pilgrimages, as can also be confirmed by ethnographic comparisons. Every act of worship practised away from home can be considered the endpoint of a pilgrimage. Nevertheless, the evidence of overlapping inscriptions, which become increasingly unintelligible over the centuries, appear to insinuate a secular frequentation, i.e. a secular pilgrimage. The compelling writing activity of scratching tags on a wall recalls the eternal human need to leave a sign, to mark the territory with their presence. However, the inevitable illegibility to which the tag is condemned gives the writing act a performative essence that becomes, paradoxically, a ritual act. As Cardona already pointedout, ‘l'atto illocutivo magico ha come contenuto proposizionale la scrittura’46 (the magical illocutionary act has writing as its propositional content). Writing becomes a mode of expression of the ritual or magical act. It does not matter, from this perspective, if the text is read by someone. Its sacredness takes place in the moment of the act, regardless of its fruition. They are ‘words for myself’ (and the gods)’, not for humans, and therefore do not need to be seen by other humans.

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Notes

1 Breton 2012.

2 V. Turner, E. Turner 1978, xxiv.

3 Graburn 1983.

4 Graburn 1983.

5 Bauman 1996, 19.

6 Bauman 1996, 22.

7 Bauman 1996, 18.

8 Reader 2015.

9 Girardi, Marchesini 2021.

10 Galati, Scandola, Signoretto 2011; Cardini 2015; Doralice 2016-2017.

11 Coleman, Eade 2004, 6.

12 Eickelman, Piscatori 1990.

13 Frey 1998, 11.

14 Tilley 1994, 10.

15 Häussler, Chiai 2020, 1.

16 Oxford Reference 2020.

17 Coseriu 1970, 1988, 1997.

18 Fillmore 1982, 195.

19 Scollon, Wong Scollon 2003. See also Malinowski, Tufi 2020.

20 Peirce II, 274-308. See also Bodel 2021, 174-175, applied to the Roman signa.

21 Casini, Fossati 2013; Casini, Fossati, Motta 2014; Casini Fossati 2016.

22 The inscriptions have recently been added to the online corpus of Cisalpine Celtic inscriptions LexLep (https://lexlep.univie.ac.at/wiki/Carona).

23 In addition to the classical works, Dietrich 1901 and Dornseieff 1925, we can mention Torelli 1965; Garbini 1982: Cardona 1981, 181; Pandolfini, Prosdocimi 1990; Marchesini 2000; Prosdocimi 2002; Velaza 2019; a recent contribution to the topic in Campus 2020, 94-95.

24 Ferrer i Jané 2018.

25 Marchesini 2011.

26 Dozens of bronze tablets with alphabet series were devoted to the Goddess Reitia in the Sanctuary of Este: LV, Es; Marinetti 2002.

27 Pandolfini, Prosdocimi 1990; Prosdocimi 2002; Marinetti 2002; McDonald 2021.

28 The number of alphabet series in Apulia has recently increased (up to c. 10 alphabetarians), but their publication is ongoing. Some of them are undoubtedly non-Messapic, probably Greek. In the MLM only a few are included, known until 2000: MLM 2 Bas (from Vaste), MLM 2 Sv from Salve, MLM 11 Ar from Arpi. Two Italo-Greek alphabetic series from Gravina and Altamura, in the Peucetian district have been recently analysed by Giovanni Boffa (Boffa 2017).

29 Antonini 1990; Agostiniani, Facchetti 2009.

30 Rix 1998.

31 For the attestations in the Rhaetic area cf. Marchesini 2014, 134. On the name see Delamarre 2003, s.v. For Esopnios and Esopnos cf. Lejeune 1971, 54 and n. 139. The Latin attestations of the name have been gathered by Olivieri 2014, 93-94.

32 The SELECT (Self-Learning Atlas of Ancient European CulTures) project aims at creating an online available thematic cartography of the the European Pre-Roman (and non Greek) cultures. The project 2020-2023 is funded by the European Commission with the Grant Agreement nr. 2020-1-IT02-KA201-079057. For further information visit the url http://www.selecteplus.eu.

33 Pagliara 1987, 1990 and 1991.

34 Taranto Proceedings 1991.

35 de Simone 1992.

36 Poetto 1997 proposes another etymology, that might be consistent with the contest of the cave ‘of the cave’, where the lexeme andiraho may go back to *andi/ora- (*andi/ora-ya), similar (or loanword?) to Greek ἄντρον.

37 The Universities of Salento (Lecce) and Roma La Sapienza, Alteritas, the Archaeological Superindentence of Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto, the technological partner CETMA, the municipality of Melendugno, the Association Vivarch and the geological enterprise ENSU.

38 Marchesini (in print).

39 MLM I, 5-18.

40 For the analysis of Messapic feminine name formulas see Untermann 1964, 179-190; Däuber 1991, pp. 326-238 and Matzinger 2019, pp. 104-105.

41 Giannotta 1995, 1996.

42 Tomb 3, dated from the second half of the 4th to the beginning of the 3rd c. BCE, contains a black painted skyphos (local imitation of the Attic skyphoi type A) inscribed with a sign F and the name Ainas (whose linguistic attribution is uncertain; see also the Appendix in the same article, Lombardo 1995); the other tombs date between the 5th and the 3rd century BCE.

43 Mastronuzzi 2017.

44 Mastronuzzi 2017, § 28;

45 D’Andria, Mastronuzzi 2008, p. 231.

46 Cardona 1981, 177.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1 Inscribed boulder Camisana 1
Crédits From Casini, Fossati, Motta 2014.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/docannexe/image/6003/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 767k
Titre Fig. 2. The Rhaetic alphabet
Crédits From MLR
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/docannexe/image/6003/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,6M
Crédits From Mansel 2011
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/docannexe/image/6003/img-3.png
Fichier image/png, 4,8M
Titre Fig. 4. Ancient Apulia with its epigraphic districts
Crédits From the SELECT project
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/docannexe/image/6003/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 601k
Titre Fig. 5 The cave sanctuary Grotta Poesia
Crédits Image by the author
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/docannexe/image/6003/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 473k
Titre Fig. 6a. The sanctuary of San Romedio: ruled ex-voto dedications
Crédits Photo by the author
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/docannexe/image/6003/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 250k
Titre Fig. 6b. The sanctuary of San Romedio: spontaneous tags
Crédits Photo by the author
URL http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/docannexe/image/6003/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 434k
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Simona Marchesini, « Ancient Pilgrimage and Inscriptions. Examples from Pre-Roman Rock-Inscriptions of Italy »Mythos [En ligne], 17 | 2023, mis en ligne le 15 décembre 2023, consulté le 11 avril 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/6003 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/mythos.6003

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Simona Marchesini

Alteritas - Interazione tra i popoli, via Seminario 8
37129 Verona
s.marchesini(at)alteritas.it

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