Cib. to Luguei 'towards Lugus' vs. Luguei 'for Lugus': syntax and deities in Peñalba de Villastar

Abstract

By comparing the largest Peñalba inscription with other Celtiberian and Celtic documents we can recognize some morphosyntactic features (the distinction between datives with and without prepositions and between the copulative conjunctions -kue and uta, the constituent order determinans + determinatum, the various gender, number and case endings and their mutual relationship, the accusative of argument in the incipit) providing us with a schematic analysis which, moreover, fits in with the careful punctuation and organization of the engraved text. This morphosyntactic analysis —somewhat more precise than the earlier ones to which it is indebted— will have to constitute the base for every interpretative proposal trying to better define the semantic content of the inscription. As to the religious aspect, it seems that Lug might be venerated also in most of the other inscriptions of the rock sanctuary: we find repeatedly the epithets ‘powerful’ and ‘hard, strong’ —resp. turos and cala(i)tos—, probably a ‘summus auium’ to be seen in the inscription voramos ednoum and an apparently horned deity of the Cortonenses in the newly discovered dedications Deo/Cornuto Cordono.