12 Jan 2014

Boopis and Cvl Alp



In usual interpretations of the Piacenza Liver, the work of Martianus Capella is often consulted, attempting to explain one mystery with another. I continue to disagree with that method. I believe that we should look at the artifact itself long and hard, noting its symmetries and asymmetries. One would do better making appeals to ancient Near Eastern religions which are a bit more certain than a curious interpretational work that was created many centuries after the dominance of Etruria.

The sequence cvl alp (written from right-to-left in the upper left portion of the above picture) has long been assumed to be an abbreviation for a god *Culsans-Alpan although this is unpalatable to Jean-René Jannot[1]. I currently wonder if another interpretation is possible: *Cvil Alphazal 'Eye/face of the Cow'. This instead means that this area would refer to the equivalent of Greek Boopis 'Cow-faced' (an epithet of Hera) and Egyptian Hathor. The Liber Linteus makes mention of a Semitic goddess Estara Alphaza which may also be related.



NOTES
[1] Jannot. Religion in Ancient Etruria (2005), p.163: "Is it Alpan who hides in the second part of the piacenza liver's inscription Cvl.alp? This seems impossible."

5 comments:

  1. Alp reminds me of Semitic *'alp 'bull'. Is there a connection?

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  2. Yes, I think there is. In such a case, a Phoenician or Ugaritic origin could explain it. The additional ending -za is an Etruscan diminutive.

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  3. Hmm...
    On the one hand, Hathor's associations are with life, (re)birth, glee (both in the modern sense of "happiness" and in the ancient sense of "music"), and on the other with Horus: etymologically, at least according to Wikipedia, her name comes from ḥwt (large stucture: mansion, temple, palace) + ḥr (Horus; face; (up)on, and, also, per, because of, originating from) — i.e. "great house of Horus"
    This almost sounds like a feminine aspect of the Sun — "the eye of heaven". Of course, I'm not sure how much of the original meaning of "Hathor" remained by the time "Cvl Alp" was inscribed in a bronze liver, so my assumption is likely rather anachronistic.

    On a related note, it just struck me how similar Horus' name (and species) is to the reconstructed PIE root *h3er- (eagle). Wanderwort, I'd imagine — but a relatively early one, since it's in Hittite too.

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  4. There's also Punic Pene Baal 'Face of Baal', the epithet of Tanit.

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  5. Please forgive the off-topic, but in the absence of somewhere else to post - I wonder if you have seen this?
    http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/full/ncomms2871.html

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