Hundreds of visigothic slate stones (whiteboards) in Western Castilla (Spain).

[o_cossue]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ertydfh110" <ertydfh110 at ...> wrote:
>
> Hello to all,
> 
> I´m from Salamanca in Spain. Although not enough studied, it is one of the places that probably has more visigothic remains in all Spain. 
> 
> I first show you a map where most visigoths established in Spain:
> http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/190/visigodos2.jpg/
> 
> Then I show a map of the province of Salamanca where you can see many visigothic remains (villages, necropolis, coinds, stones) in this province:
> http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/visigodossalamanca.jpg/
> 
> That is as an introduction. What got me in this list, is that 3 kms away from the village where all my ancestors come, there are ruins of an old village which is supposed to be celtic and/or visigoth. 
> 
> This is a picture of it:
> 
> The issue about this place is that in this place there have been found several hundred of visigothic slate stones. Most of them have numbers written in them and are supposed to be about accounting (buy or sell of animals for example). But some of them have something non-numeric written in them.
> 
> For example this one:
> http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/534/piedravisigoda.jpg/
> 
> Could you please take a look and see if there is something written in Gothic?. 
> 
> I also send you a picture taken by me in a close museum with some of the stones:
> http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/696/visigothicwhiteboard.jpg/
> 
> Thanks.
>

Hi, ertydfh110. Salutations from Galicia.

The "Visigothic" slate stones are written in Vulgar Latin, mostly. A important number of the personal names recorded in them are in fact Germanic, and since they are dated in the VIth and VIIth centuries, and they are mostly found in areas settled by Visigoths, you can take for granted that these people were in fact Visigoths. So, and for me these is the VERY IMPORTANT part, the slates provide an invaluable observatory on the daily life of rural communities composed of (Celto-)Roman and Germanic population.

Here is a link to a critical edition (1998): 
http://revistas.um.es/ayc/article/view/60881/58631
http://revistas.um.es/ayc/article/download/60881/58631

And here a link to a study on the anthroponymy:
http://revistas.um.es/ayc/article/download/61031/58771

Both in Spanish, sorry.

An example, on the edition by Velazquez Soriano of the slate #40 (1st quarter VIIth century):

Profesio de ser[uitute]
ego Vnigild(us)? de locum Langa
Tomanca, dum uenisse ad loc[um ]
tum lirigiare ad domo Froilani, ego ad-
duxsi teste ipse Froila fraude ad domo
Desideri, dum istare in domo Desideri,
sit ueniens Froila et dix(it) mici: "leua, leuita,
et uadam(us) ad domo Busa<u>ni et Fasteni [---]
sucisit fuim(us) ad domo Busauni [. . ?] unam ra[---]
[---] pro Froilane et dixsit nouis: "uadam(us)
ad fragis, ad uinias p[o]stas et pono te ibi in fragis et leuaui
de domo Desideri p[---]rales duos, dolabra una,
etc.


BTW,I lived for two years in Salamanca when I was just 2-4 years old. Great (though few :-) memories.

Cheers,
Cossue.

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