A (plural: ''cippi''; "pointed pole") is a low, round or rectangular pedestal set up by the

Ancient Romans In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...

for purposes such as a milestone or a boundary post. They were also used for somewhat differing purposes by the

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roug ...

and

Carthaginians The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...

Roman cippi

Roman cippi were made of wood or stone; inscriptions on the stone cippi indicate their function or the area that they surrounded, like sanctuaries and temple areas. In Rome they marked the limits of the ''

pomerium The ''pomerium'' or ''pomoerium'' was a religious boundary around the city of Rome and cities controlled by Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within its ''pomerium''; everything beyond it was simply territory ('' ager'') belonging to Rome. ...

'', the course of aqueducts and the ''

cursus publicus The ''cursus publicus'' (Latin: "the public way"; grc, δημόσιος δρόμος, ''dēmósios drómos'') was the state mandated and supervised courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire, later inherited by the Eastern Roma ...

''. Cippi lined up in rows were also often numbered, often featuring the name of the person placing them or the distance to the nearest cippus. The inscriptions on some cippi show that they were occasionally used as funeral memorials.

Etruscan cippi

Between 800–100 BCE cippi were used by the

as tombstones, which were shaped differently depending on the place and time of origin. Cippi were set up as a

stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek language, Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ...

, column or sculpture in the

dromos Dromos may refer to: * ''Cursus publicus'', the public road system of the Roman and Byzantine empires * Dromos, in architecture, an entrance passage or avenue leading to a building * Dromoi Dromoi (Greek: δρόμοι "ways"; singular: δρόμο ...

of an Etruscan grave or at the grave entrance. They had magical and religious significance. Cippi may have the shape of a cube, knob, onion, egg, ball or cylinder. There are connections between certain shapes and the representation of canopic jars; cinerary urns that were made in the shape of a human torso, and the head as a lid. *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 na ...

, the cippi of female and male burials were different. Male dead received a column (

phallus A phallus is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic. Any object that symbolically—or, more precise ...

), women small houses or temples. *The monuments (6th – 5th centuries BCE) from the area around

Chiusi Chiusi ( Etruscan: ''Clevsin''; Umbrian: ''Camars''; Ancient Greek: ''Klysion'', ''Κλύσιον''; Latin: ''Clusium'') is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Siena, Tuscany, Italy. History Clusium (''Clevsin'' in Etruscan) was ...

show a combination of the cinerary urn and cippus. They contain the ashes of the dead in an opening in their base. *In

Orvieto Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are comp ...

two so-called warrior head cippi have images of human heads (late 6th century BCE). *In

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part ...

fluted columns An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform. Coming down to the present from Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civilization, the arc ...

with acanthus were used. *From the

4th century BCE The 4th century BC started the first day of 400 BC and ended the last day of 301 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. This century marked the height of Classical Greek civilization in all of its aspec ...

cippi also have name inscriptions. The " Cippus Abellanus" (in the Oscan language), like the " Cippus Perusinus", is not a tombstone.

Punic cippi

Carthaginian cippi have a base similar to Egyptian steles, which are sometimes also referred to as cippi (for example the " Metternich Cippi" in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

). They are found in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, but also in

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label= Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, aft ...

(

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

Teti Teti, less commonly known as Othoes, sometimes also Tata, Atat, or Athath in outdated sources, was the first king of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt. He was buried at Saqqara. The exact length of his reign has been destroyed on the Turin King Lis ...

Tharros Tharros (also spelled Tharras, Archaic Greek: , Hellenistic Greek, Tarras or Tarrae, Τάρραι) was an ancient city and former bishopric on the west coast of Sardinia, Italy. It is currently a Latin Catholic titular see and an archaeolog ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

( Motya) and

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

(

Huelva Huelva (, ) is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is between two short rias though has an outlying spur including nature reserve on the Gulf of Cádiz coast. The ria ...

and

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

). The

Cippi of Melqart The Cippi of Melqart are a pair of Phoenician marble cippi that were unearthed in Malta under undocumented circumstances and dated to the 2nd century BC. These are votive offerings to the god Melqart, and are inscribed in two languages, Ancie ...

, found in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, which bear a Phoenician and a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

inscription, made it possible for the first time to understand the

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician al ...

Gallery

File:Cippo perugino, con iscrizione in lingua etrusca su un atto giuridico tra le famiglie dei velthina e degli afuna, 02.jpg, Cippus Perusinus File:SarteanoCippe.jpg, Etruscan "pietra fetida" cippus in Sarteano File:Cippe pomme de pin.jpg, Cippus surmounted by a

pine cone A conifer cone (in formal botanical usage: strobilus, plural strobili) is a seed-bearing organ on gymnosperm plants. It is usually woody, ovoid to globular, including scales and bracts arranged around a central axis, especially in conifers an ...

, which symbolizes the

tree of life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythological, religious, and philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A Hist ...

File:Castel Goffredo-Monumento La Pigna.jpg,

Castel Goffredo Castel Goffredo ( Upper Mantovano: ) is a '' comune'' in the province of Mantua, in Lombardy, northern Italy, from Mantua and a few more from Brescia. It lies in a region of springs at the foot of the slopes that drain into Lake Garda, towards ...

, La Pigna monument File:Etruscan cippus warrior head side.jpg, Etruscan warrior head cippus

References

External links