The aim of this book is to offer an exhaustive overview of the present state of knowledge and research on the pre-Roman languages of Hispania and related writing habits. In order to fulfil this task, the editors invited contributions from the most competent personalities of the field, mainly from the Iberian Peninsula, who have provided the volume with a multidisciplinary focus. The book comprises a preface by the editors, a list of figures, maps and tables (all of outstanding quality, some of them in colour), a list of abbreviations, a list of contributors, fourteen chapters, bibliography, a concordance of inscriptions and an index of sources.
The author of the opening essay is J. de Hoz, who unfortunately passed away before he could see the book printed and who has left a great void in the scholarly community. In his contribution, ‘Method and Methods: Studying Palaeohispanic Languages as a Discipline’, he offers an introduction to the linguistic and epigraphic conditions of pre-Roman Hispania and to the historical development of Palaeohispanistics. In doing so, he not only brings light to the obstacles that research has faced from the beginning, but also presents the advances made by the discipline in recent decades and the projects currently under development, offering bibliographic references.
A. Lorrio and J. Sanmartí, in ‘The Iberian Peninsula in Pre-Roman Times: an Archaeological and Ethnographical Survey’, address the discrepancy between ‘archaeological cultures’ and the ethnic fragmentation attested in the written sources. Beginning from the consideration that pre-Roman peoples did not identify ethnic groups with either material cultures or languages, but rather with socio-political associations, the authors describe the archaeological remains of pre-Roman Hispania and the types of human organisations that can be deduced from them.
J.Á. Zamora's essay, ‘Phoenician Epigraphy in the Iberian Peninsula’, is particularly welcome, since it deals with the local evidence of a language that is not strictly ‘Palaeohispanic’, although it cannot be ignored for its significance within the cultural history of pre-Roman Hispania. In light of the most recent discoveries, Zamora reassesses the role of epigraphy in the areas of the peninsula where there was a known Phoenician presence, since this role was inappropriately belittled in the past to the extent of considering such areas as ‘illiterate’.
In their joint contribution, ‘Palaeohispanic Writing Systems: Classification, Origin, and Development’, J. Ferrer and N. Moncunill provide a detailed and clear explanation of the different scripts used in the peninsula for registering the Palaeohispanic languages in written form. This is a very instructive chapter, where problems concerning both the decipherment of the scripts and their genealogy are presented, including the different positions of scholars, recent achievements and their newest proposals.
In ‘The Epigraphic and Linguistic Situation in the South-West of the Iberian Peninsula’ J.A. Correa and A. Guerra focus specifically on the so-called ‘south-western script’. They provide a critical review of some key questions concerning the phonetic values of this script, the chronology and the cultural context of the monuments on which it is documented. They also address the vexed issue of the unknown filiation of this language, which is traditionally called ‘Tartessian’ and which is mainly attested in southern Portugal, with some evidence also in Andalusia and Extremadura.
The second contribution by de Hoz, ‘The Linguistic Situation in the Territory of Andalusia’, looks at this specific part of the peninsula – including the extended Turdulo-Turdetanian territory – and examines its multi-ethnic and multi-lingual character, ‘in which language and ethnic group did not necessarily coincide’ (p. 158). De Hoz emphasises the use of Phoenician as a lingua franca in this area, considering the possibility that it might have facilitated the shift to Latin in this role in the following centuries.
J. Velaza, in ‘Iberian Writing and Language’, offers an in-depth description at different linguistic levels of this still undeciphered language as well as a rich selection of texts. It is preceded by an introductory section, in which Velaza outlines the principal methodological problems regarding the study of Iberian, including the debated question of its apparent uniformity despite wide territorial extension, a phenomenon that Velaza connects with the short span of time in which Iberian was established in the area and the earliest inscriptions produced in this language.
A. Mullen and C. Ruiz Darasse, in ‘Cultural and Linguistic Contacts in Southern Gaul’, examine the degree of interaction between several languages in this important trade area of the Mediterranean sea. The authors critically discuss the hypothesis – suggested in the past by de Hoz – regarding the local role of Iberian as a lingua franca and then focus on the so-called ‘Gallo-Greek’ epigraphy, whose lapidary development they connect with the intensification of an Italic presence in the area.
E. Orduña's essay, ‘The Vasco-Iberian Theory’, is a learned and essential contribution on the controversial theory that considers Iberian to be the antecedent of Basque. Orduña summarises the history of this idea from the beginning in the sixteenth century down to the present day, when it has been significantly revised as a result of the growth in evidence and linguistic achievements. He concludes that, despite an evident connection, the relationship among these languages still needs to be clarified.
F. Beltrán and C. Jordán, in ‘Writing and Language in Celtiberia’, offer an exhaustive description of the linguistic system of Celtiberian, a still not fully deciphered language, together with insights on the related epigraphic culture and a selection of inscriptions. The authors stress the importance of this fragmentary language for improving investigation in the bosom of the Celtic linguistic family. Also interesting are the comparisons between Celtiberian and Iberian epigraphic habits, especially concerning their responses to the introduction of the Roman model in Hispania.
In ‘Language and Writing among the Lusitanians’ E.R. Luján discusses relevant problems connected to the study of the so-called ‘Lusitanian language’, of which he stresses the role in the religious domain, and describes its linguistic system to the extent of our actual knowledge, offering texts in an appendix. Luján also deals with the dialectal classification of Lusitanian, in which he essentially rejects the idea that it was a Celtic language, explains similarities with the Italic languages by their common Indo-European origins and refers to possible linguistic contacts, especially with Celts, in this area.
J. Gorrochategui and J.M. Vallejo's contribution, ‘The Parts of Hispania without Epigraphy’, shows the importance of onomastics for linguistic investigation, particularly for the language of the illiterate peoples of Hispania, although the analysis is also briefly extended to the territories of the peninsula where epigraphy was produced. The use of maps evidencing the distribution of names facilitates the creation of several onomastic series according to geo-linguistic areas, which are studied by the authors as synchronically consistent repertories. The recourse to other kinds of sources, namely glosses of Classical authors or modern local dialects, is also referred to in this chapter.
In ‘Coin Evidence for Palaeohispanic Languages’ P.P. Ripollès and A.G. Sinner focus on one of the most representative written products of pre-Roman Hispania, namely coins, which are not a canonical source-type for epigraphists of the ancient world. Coins are in fact a clear example of how pre-Roman populations adopted epigraphy for practical ends – fiscal or economic in this case – mainly under external influence.
In the final essay, ‘Writing, Colonization, and Latinization in the Iberian Peninsula’, B. Díaz Ariño, M.J. Estarán and I. Simón investigate the introduction of the Latin language and Roman epigraphy in Hispania, emphasising in particular the role of the latter as a vehicle for the former. This convergence between epigraphic habit and linguistic influence led to the creation of bilingual texts – and in some cases even to the first adoption of writing by the indigenous populations –, but also provoked the disappearance of epichoric scripts. On the other hand, the authors judge that the destiny of single languages is difficult to evaluate.
As a whole, the book examines all the principal questions related to Palaeohispanistics, showing a particular concern with the challenges of methodology and the interpretation of the sources. It also underlines the topics that still deserve further reassessment and indicates future lines of investigation. Due to the wide range of contributions in the volume, basic concepts and even content inevitably repeat themselves throughout the book, but this is an aspect that also guarantees the self-sufficiency of each contribution, allowing for the easy consultation of chapters according to specific scholarly interests or needs.
Common problems of the discipline also emerge from the different essays, such as the need to have recourse to conventional labels for describing ethnic and linguistic unities that possess internal differentiations, the scarcity of the documentation, decipherment difficulties also due to the uncertain segmentation of words, insufficient proof of dialectalisation, the lack of contexts and related dating problems. All this is sufficient to highlight the importance of this publication, which takes stock of this complicated situation and makes the results of the investigation available to the international community of scholars by means of an accurate English edition.
This book should certainly form part of all university libraries specialising in the ancient world and should be read by anyone who would like to be introduced to Palaeohispanistics or who has the desire to know the current state-of-the-art of this discipline. There is, indeed, no other monograph on the topic that is so exhaustive, up to date and accessible as this one, all at the same time.
