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Description:
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The Iguvine Tables (Tabulae Iguvinae) are among the most invaluable
documents of Italic linguistics and religion. Seven bronze tablets
discovered in 1444 in the Umbrian town of Gubbio (ancient Iguvium), they
record the rites and sacral laws of a priestly brotherhood, the Fratres
Atiedii, with a degree of detail unparalleled elsewhere in ancient Italy.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines philological and
linguistic, as well as ritual analysis, Michael Weiss not only addresses
the many interpretive cruces that have puzzled scholars for a century and a
half, but also constructs a coherent theory of the entire ritual
performance described on Tables III and IV. In addition, Weiss sheds light
on many questions of Roman ritual practice and places the Iguvine Tables in
their broader Italic and Indo-European contexts.
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