BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:The decipherment of some recently found ostraca from Post-Roman No
 rth Africa  - Dr Sabine Ziegler\, Saxonian Academy of Sciences at Leipzig 
 /  Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena
DTSTART:20140430T161500Z
DTEND:20140430T180000Z
UID:TALK48370@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Silva Nurmio
DESCRIPTION:During excavations of a Roman fort at the limes Tripolitanus n
 ear the village Gheriat el-Garbia (roughly 300 km to the south of Tripolis
 ) in the years 2009/2010 a team of Munich archaeologists unearthed 8 ostra
 ca written in Latin current script\, but not (mainly\, see below) in Latin
  or Greek or any other hitherto well-known language\, dating from the firs
 t half of the 5th century AD. This is likely because of the associated fin
 ds in the excavated stratum. The ostraca are written in scriptio continua 
 (except for some lists) and show a few peculiar letters or letter forms no
 t known to Latin script in this area. Each ostracon is written in a charac
 teristic ductus so that we can distinguish 8 scribes. One of these ostraca
  is long enough (roughly 160 characters) to take it as a starting point fo
 r deciphering. While working on these ostraca I tried to find a method by 
 which as a first step it could be possible to work out the word boundaries
 . The second step was to identify words or functional elements (the so-cal
 led synsemantika). This method is mainly based on principles of linguistic
  typology and information or discourse structure of texts. By applying thi
 s method I could identify the language of the ostraca as a new variety of 
 late Punic which I call “South Punic”. Two of the ostraca show a mixtu
 re of Latin and South Punic words looking like short vocabulary exercises.
  The hitherto known Punic language varieties are attested only fragmentari
 ly and mainly in funeral or monumental inscriptions in the Phoenician cons
 onant script or (after the Roman conquest of Carthago in 146 BC) in Latin 
 script. \nThe discovery and decipherment of these few ostraca adds a contr
 ibution to our knowledge of this badly documented area which should not be
  underestimated. They show that 1. Latin scribal tradition was still vivid
  in Post-Roman times\, 2. a regional scribal tradition had developed in th
 is area\, 3. both Latin and South Punic were spoken\, and 4. they exhibit 
 a new variety of Punic vernacular different from the fragmentary funeral a
 nd monumental inscriptions from Carthago and the neighbouring regions whic
 h increases our knowledge of late Punic. \nLiterature: \nM. Mackensen\, 
 “New fieldwork at the Severan fort of Myd(-)/ Gheriat el-Garbia on the l
 imes Tripolitanus”\, Libyan Studies 43\, 2012\, 41-60.\nM. Mackensen/S. 
 Ziegler (forthc.)\, “Die spätantike Besiedlung in Gheriat el-Garbia und
  die Entzifferung der südpunischen Ostraka” (working title)\, Mitt. DAI
  Rom 119\, 2013.\n
LOCATION:Faculty of English\, Room GR-06/07
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR