Liber Linteus [SEP] material used
Liber Linteus
The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis (Latin for "Linen Book of Zagreb", also rarely known as Liber Agramensis, "Book of Agram") is the longest Etruscan text and the only extant linen book, dated to the 3rd century BCE. It remains mostly untranslated because of the lack of knowledge about the Etruscan language, though the few words which can be understood indicate that the text is most likely a ritual calendar.
The fabric of the book was preserved when it was used for mummy wrappings in Ptolemaic
, only two unified (though fragmentary) texts are available in Etruscan:
- The "Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis", which was later used for mummy wrappings in Egypt. Roughly 1,200 words of readable text, mainly repetitious prayers, yielded about 50 lexical items.
- The "Tabula Capuana" (the inscribed tile from Capua) has about 300 readable words in 62 lines, dating to the fifth century BC.
Some additional longer texts are:
- The lead foils of Punta della Vipera have about 40 legible