The Tita Vendia vase is a ceramic impasto pithosBaccum, p. 583. (wine containerBaldi, p. 126.), made around 620-600 BC, most likely in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

). The ''pithos'', which exists only as an incomplete set of

sherd In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels, as well. Occasionally, a piece of broken p ...

s, carries one of two earliest known inscriptions in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

language (the ''Vendia inscription'') and is usually, but not unanimously, interpreted as the earliest instance of a bipartite female Latin name with

praenomen The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the bi ...

and gentilicum. The sherds of the vase were found by Raniero Mengarelli and deposited in the collection of Museo di Villa Giulia. The exact location of the find is unknown but it probably occurred in

Cerveteri Cerveteri () is a town and ''comune'' of northern Lazio in the region of the Metropolitan City of Rome. Known by the ancient Romans as Caere, and previously by the Etruscans as Caisra or Cisra, and as Agylla (or ) by the Greeks, its modern name de ...

(ancient

Caere : Caere (also Caisra and Cisra) is the Latin name given by the Romans to one of the larger cities of southern Etruria, the modern Cerveteri, approximately 50–60 kilometres north-northwest of Rome. To the Etruscans it was known as Cisra, to ...

). The vase belongs to a type found in Southern Etruria. In its original form, based on the collection of sherds found, it was likely to have been approximately 35 centimetres tall and 45 centimetres wide. The letters, 15 to 25 millimetres tall, had been scratched near the bottom. They were inscribed by a right handed artisan, using reversed letter ''S'' (Ƨ), and with letters ''VH'' instead of normal ''F'' (''vhecet'' instead of ''fecit''; according to Baccum, this rules out Faliscan origin of the vase). The inscription reads:

ECOVRNATITAVENDIASMAMAR EDVHE

The

lacuna Lacuna (plural lacunas or lacunae) may refer to: Related to the meaning "gap" * Lacuna (manuscripts), a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or musical work **Great Lacuna, a lacuna of eight leaves where there was heroic Old Norse po ...

between ''MAMAR'' and ''EDVHE'' is ten to twelve letters wide. Only part of it has been reliably filled by interpreters. The missing part probably contained the name of the second potter; the first potter is unanimously identified as ''Mamarcos'' or ''Mamarce''.Baccum, p. 584. With the lacuna partially filled the inscription is expanded into:

ECO VRNA TITA VENDIAS MAMAR OS MD VHE EDref name=B126/>

The most common English interpretation of this text is:

I am the urn of Tita Vendia. Mamar os had me made

In this interpretation, archaic ''eco'' is used where we would expect normative Latin '' ego'', since Latin had not yet developed a separate symbol for the voiced velar the personal name ''Vendias'' uses archaic

genitive In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...

(as in ''

paterfamilias The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (plural ''patres familias''), was the head of a Roman family. The ''pater familias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his ext ...

'') which is omitted in ''Tita'', most likely due to a writing error. There are also alternative interpretations: * that ''vrna'' connects to ''tita'' as ''vrna tvta'', i.e. "this whole urn". * that ''tita'' should be interpreted as an adjective, meaning ''prosperous''. * that ''vrna tita'' is a

piggy bank Piggy bank (sometimes penny bank or money box) is the traditional name of a coin container normally used by children. The piggy bank is known to collectors as a "still bank" as opposed to the "mechanical banks" popular in the early 20th century ...

.Watkins, p. 129. * that ''tita'' is a

teat A teat is the projection from the mammary glands of mammals from which milk flows or is ejected for the purpose of feeding young. In many mammals the teat projects from the udder. The number of teats varies by mammalian species and often corre ...

that feeds Vendia wine.

Notes

References

* Baccum, G. C. L. M. (2009).
The Latin dialect of the Ager Faliscus: 150 years of scholarship, Volume 1
'. Amsterdam University Press. . * Baldi, Philip (2002).
The Foundations of Latin
'. Walter de Gruyter. . * Blanck, Horst (2008, in Italian).
Il libro nel mondo antico
'. Ediziono Dedalo. . * Clackson, James and Horrocks, Geoffrey (2007). The Blackwell History of the Latin Language. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. . * Vogt-Spira, Gregor (1989, in German).
Studien zur vorliterarischen Periode im frühen Rom
'. Gunter Narr Verlag. . * Watkins, Calvert (1995). '' How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics''. Oxford University Press US. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Tita Vendia Vase Latin inscriptions Women in ancient Rome 7th-century BC works Collections of the Villa Giulia 7th century BC in the Roman Kingdom Individual vases