T H E CE LT I C I NS CRI P T I ONS OF GAUL ADDI T I ONS AND CORRE CT I ONS B Y S I R JOHN RH Y S FE LLOW OF T H E ACADE MY Read No v. 22, 191 1 . T H I S pape r is miscellaneous : it begins with a recently discovered o f n o t group inscriptions, which have yet been edited with Special al a regard to their philologic ch racteristics, and it ends by returning Our t o the Coligny Calendar . Celtic inscriptions are so scarce and o ae theref re so enigmatic in their formul , that there is little hope of a extracting their meaning except by attacking them repe tedly, and the greater the number of scholars who do so the greater the a h0 pe o f tenable results . I fl tter myself that I have made some o f r as progress , but I claim the right fu ther revision , whether the result of the spade exposing new finds to the light of day or of philologists making fruitful suggestions leading to better ways o f a al is sa treating the materi l ready in hand . It needless to y that re - o n e ar this process of revising and revising, schol improving on ’ a t o nother s conclusions, is not agreeable a certain class of minds ; but I do not be lieve that an Academy so young as ours counts many Fellows who have a blank wall of finality before their eyes . When we l a cease revising the resu ts obt ined by ourselves and others , we may take it that we have ceased learning . I I have before me an offprint of a paper in the Revue du Midi con o f r 1 0 taining an account an impo tant discovery in June, 9 9, of five n Cabellio D Celtic inscriptions near Cavaillon , the a cient , in the epart is V M. Mazauric ment of aucluse . It from the pen of , the able and A a al M of N courteous keeper of the rch eologic useums imes, and to his ' he 14 notes has appended a useful plate bearing date October , 1 n of di 909. He describes the circumsta ces the fin ng of the stones, showing that there were a score or more together, but only five v G l 2 P ROCEEDI NGS OF THE B RIT IS H ACADEMY o n u with inscriptions them , tho gh four others appear to have once been inscribed with letters rendered illegible by the wear and tear o f their surfaces : those I have not seen . He has come to the conclusion that they had all bee n used t o mend a road after one o f the frequent of a floods the loc l stream called the Coulon . He thinks that as monuments they stood alongside an ancient Roman road near old Cabe llio where it issued from the , and that they were not carried to the spot where they have been found (about four kilometres from r o r t r our that town) till the fou th fif h centu y of era, a conclusion which he appears to have drawn from his finding on two o f the stones ‘ le ’ monogramme du Christ gravé ala facon des g mfliti the reference is to the second stone and the third in the following list . a are I should h ve said, that the five stones now in the space o f old enclosed m front the hospital, a building which has been bought , M r M. r with great public spi it, by ichel Jouve and his brothe and to sister, in order fit it up as a public museum . There, with their i S assistance , I exam ned the stones . ince then they have been good t o f enough to superin end the photographing the inscriptions . See 1 —5 photographs , which they have generously presented to me for the following notes M Mazauric o f 2 1 . gives the height this stone as about metres m including the piece protruding at the bottom (0 21) as tenon for insertion into the pedestal : the side measure at the bottom he gives m m as 0 46 and that at the top 0 40 . He restores it in his sketch and speaks o f it thus : Nous avons dit que cette superbe tombe était ’ L e n se m ble et complete . de la plinthe, de la stele de la pyramide m i s mesure environ 2 541 de haut . The reading E AOY I CCA MA FOY P E I rl Y A u n o f is 6 E The last vowel b t o e the second line rounded, not but the on e at the beginning is so damaged that nothing is left except o f the three extremities . Even harder to read is the first letter the ' i was I r n thi rd line : it is impossible to be certain whether t o T . O the whole it seems to me somewhat more likely to have been the former L e so a than the latter. astly, the s cond line is close to the first th t ' the top of the l covers a portion of the lower part of the 0 above it . t ch tz c E lvissa Holder in his Al eeltischer Sprachs a ites the name , E lvisius Mariasaal : se e B together with , from in Carinthia the erlin i m 4 E lvisso E lvisson is C us I n scr. Lat n aru . 0 am , III 9 9; also , genitive , 5 2 M OY P I M 5 3 . AF E A ibid . , III . (with ligatured) appears to be the o f Ma ureos genitive g , a name which would seem to mean related THE CELTIC INSCRIPTIONS OF GAUL 3 ’ ‘ ’ or do Ma uros s so n o f Ma uros to, having to with, g , po sibly g . Ma u reos a a as a o f Ma m 'ios d g may perh ps be tre ted a v riant g , cite by as Ma urius . lll a uria R Holder g (fem g ), from osendorf in Carinthia 4 2 10 28 I . L 6 L 0 1 a C. 6 . 2 8 9 V. 7 7 , III , inz III , Padu , Trent V. 034 R I 5 50 o f 5 V . 7 . , ome The occurrence these names as far east as s d Carinthia sugge ts questions which I am not prepared to iscuss, but l the fact shou d be noted . Gian a o r Gia a What is to be made of n is very uncertain, and before a d ffi a f cing that i culty let us see how the epit ph is to be construed . T wo ways occur to me ; (1 ) o n e o f them is that which I suggested in n T he eltic I n scr F e o . ran ce an d I tal 21 my former pap r C of y (p . ) in ’ o f L I sle - - the case the column from sur Sorgue, now in the Musée A Calvet at vignon . This I should now read AAFGNNOP I I' I MAP €[0 0 ]Y I ’ T o or Ad e n n orix M so n Ve reteo s a t for g areus [ ] of , f er the model o f D R en illiae Catalin i il. T itio lae f De villia oman inscriptions like j , O ’ T itiola o f Catulin us S o , daughter . in the present instance one might — ‘ ’ E lvissa G a t o f Ma ureo s. 2 translate iava, d ugh er g ( ) The other ‘ ’ ul as z— E lvissa Gian a of M o s rendering wo d be follows , the agure . The only objection to this syntax is that the usual position o f the genitive is not before but after the noun governing it ; but in the o f early stages Celtic when the case endings were intact, such a con u . str ction had probably not become the rule Indeed, Celtic poetry l ff of : on e see Dé Ma sti l o ers plenty exceptions for Irish instance g , ’ ’ 5 ‘ M Go d s Slave, on page below . Setting this aside, we have agu ’ ’ ’ reo s s G o a Ma ureos s i iava , suggesting s me such transl tion as g w fe, sister, - - ih o r . dau hter daughter law, cousin, niece The word for g is excluded by the fact that the word for so n o r daughter seems never to have been Gia n a as e . we treat inserted in such inscriptions If , a word expr ssing family relationship the only hope of identifying that relationship must c rest on the probable e tymology of the word . The following oc urs — is i au ieu to me There a common Welsh word g , older spelling g , ‘ em a iem - n eiow sinews, muscles , singular g y (for g y ), Cornish g , sinews, i singular ge en : I have not detected any form of the word in Irish . ’ as m a If we look at sinew meaning a kind of cord or string, we y * compare Latin n urus (for sn u3u3 ) and German S chn ur in the sense ‘ ’ ‘ ’ o f o r S chn ur a au -ih - : string, tie , and d ghter law for the chief ’ W Latein isc t m lo isc art r h v u .