The Etruscan month-name Celi in the Liber Linteus

Eslem zaθrumiś Acale is a direct calendar reference at LL 6.xvii of the Liber Linteus, the infamous "mummy text". We can easily translate it as "on the 18th of Acalva". Likewise at LL 12.x, θunem cialχuś Masn is translated as "on the 29th of Masan". Both month-names are attested in other documents (note the Latin gloss Aclus, equated with June, and the reference to the month of Masan in the Pyrgi Tablets). Both these examples show the same word order mirroring that of Modern French with the date preceding the month-name. The date number is declined in the directive case suffix, -is, referencing an instantaneous point in time.

Now let's look at LL 8.xix, celi huθis zathrumis, which is commonly translated as "on the 26th of (the month of) Celi", as has been done by both Jean Turfa and Larissa Bonfante^[1]. Putting aside the fact that huθ means 'four', not 'six', many Etruscanists depend too much on the Latin gloss Celius, said to be equivalent to September (TLE 824). They've become blindly convinced that if celi should be found next to a number, it must be a month reference even though this month-name is attested nowhere else. Even if this were a month-name, why does it precede the date, in contradiction to the other confirmed calendrical phrases in the same text?

Regardless of whether there was a month-name *Celi in Etruscan, there is a reason to reject the view that celi in the Liber Linteus meant anything other than 'before/upon the earth' with locative case marker -i. That major reason is Occam's Razor and the avoidance of unnecessary assumption. We don't need to evaluate celi as a month-name in any of these instances but we do need to evaluate it as a form of 'earth' in at least the majority of instances in this and in all other artifacts.

In the Liber Linteus itself, this alleged month-name is strangely found a lot beside the word suθ 'tomb' (cf. LL 9.xviii). If we can agree that celi is referring to 'earth' here then celi suθ sensibly means 'before/upon the tomb earth'. The form cel-θi-m 'and in the earth' is already found at LL 6.xviii matching cel-ti in TCort B.iii. This is all in perfect alignment with the noun stem present in cels in TLE 368 and 625. It's certain that none of these last examples can sensibly refer to a month *Celi. They strictly point to 'earth' and so there is simply no methodical reason to continue insisting on the opposite value.

So celi suθ is surely 'before/upon the tomb earth', celi pen equals 'on the earth below' in LL 11.ii (pen = 'below' and ce-pen 'here below') and celi huθis zathrumis must instead mean 'upon the earth on the 24th'. The opening phrase is followed by the offering of gifts to Neptune that are to be dedicated on this day. This sounds a lot like the Roman festival of Neptunalia but this event is thought to have been celebrated on July 23rd. The date number is curiously one day off.


NOTES
^[1] Bonfante/Bonfante, The Etruscan language: An introduction (2002), p.183 & Harvey/Schultz, Religion in republican Italy (2006), p.76 (see link).

To conceal a dead tongue

As already suggested in the works of those like Larissa & Giuliano Bonfante, the meaning of celu or cel as 'earth, ground' is well-founded. In more detail, we find calu in Old Etruscan and due to the regular raising of low a to mid e before resonants, the root eventually evolved to Late Etruscan cel(u)- which is why Liber Linteus shows locative forms like cel-i 'upon earth' (< *calv-i) and cel-θi 'in earth' (< *calv-i=θi). This word is usually however confused with the gloss Celius which was claimed centuries ago as a month in the Etruscan calendar.

Simultaneously, Indo-Europeanists have reconstructed a root *ḱel-/*kel- meaning 'to conceal, to hide' and since Indo-Europeanists seldom if ever dabble in the Etruscan language, as I hope to explain, there is a subtle logic conflict here. Ultimately I believe that this IE root may be yet another misidentification of a non-IE verb.

It's striking that Etruscan calu can so readily mean '(that which is) covered' by supposing an Etruscan verb root *cal- 'to cover' plus the transitive participle ending -u. This idle assumption isn't substantial in itself, of course, but it is when all direct evidence of the competing Indo-European root just so happens to be restricted to Europe.

The comparanda for PIE *ḱel-/*kel- has been from Germanic (*haljō- 'underworld' and *haljanan 'to hide') and Latin (cēlāre 'to conceal, hide, cover'). Some scholars will add Greek καλύπτω 'to cover, to hide' yet as Robert Beekes notes, the word is unanalysable in IE terms and shows a non-IE suffix *-u[p/b]- (cf. καλύβη 'hut, cabin'). It should also be asked why the Greek term should contain *a in its root. Some push a little too far, implicating "Indian šaras- 'skin over milk'"^[1] (which I'm having trouble verifying) in an apparent try to capitalize at once on r/l-alternation, satemization and shifting semantics to build an even flimsier house of cards. This strategy is far too easy and unconvincing. Adams and Mallory simply label it "WC" (West Central)^[2] which is a quiet way of admitting that the evidence is restricted to Europe and that they can't validate it as a genuine Indo-European root. All in all, while the root has become part of accepted Indo-European vocabulary, it nonetheless appears to be weakly justified.

This is where it may be wiser to look to Proto-Aegean to explain why the root is restricted to the west and why Etruscan looks in all appearance to be built on the so-called "Indo-European" root even though Etruscan isn't an Indo-European language. If we propose Proto-Aegean *kal- 'to cover over', then Greek καλύπτω and καλύβη is sourceable to a derivative *kalúpa. It's certainly better already compared to racking our brains wondering why the odd a-vocalism and suffix conflicts with IE grammar and with other identified cognate forms to the west. Likewise, the resultant Etrusco-Rhaetic transitive verb *kal can then explain the source of the Etruscan 'earth' word (perhaps also reflected in Rhaetic as χelθi 'in the earth'(?) in Schum SZ 12) while supplying a source for both Latin cēlāre and a Pre-Proto-Germanic *kal- whose initial plosive shifted to *h by Grimm's Law sometime after 1000 BCE. As with so many of these other curious Etrusco-Germanic correspondences, a language intermediary (Venetic *kal- ?) is plausible.


NOTES
^[1] Szemerényi, Scripta minora: Selected essays in Indo-European, Greek, and Latin, vol 63, part 4 (1991), p.2042 (see link).
^[2] Mallory and Adams, The Oxford introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European world (2006), p.492 (see link).