The sentence above is one of my favourites but also one that i can't fully translate. I'm stuck on Ates and Edaes and their role in the sentence. I have some of the following possible translations:
Archpriest Ates, descending from the noble family line of Midas, leads the people and rules this place.
Father archpriest, descending from the noble family line of Midas, leads the people and rules here.
The last part Edaes is not that important actually since, you get the point...It's probably the equivalent of Da or Deuro/Edo in Greek, which just leaves the problematic if it means "here" or "this place" or "this land". However, i dunno if Ates is a name or the honourable way to say father like in Greek Atta (later Πάτερ - don't confuse with πατήρ). Atta is the same in Hittite, Lydian and Latin, so my question is if Phrygian shares the same. On the other side, shouldn't this sentence tell us the name of this noble religious leader? ATES is written with one T which would lead us that it's a name if the Lydian version didn't have the same spelling.
The little experience I have with epigraphy makes me inclined to believe that a name is to be expected in that position.
If the person's name happens to means also "Father", that might as well happen, although that wouldn't be that common (would it?).
The formula "father archpriest" without the proper indicator of person would indicate perhaps a "sacred precinct", over which authority is exerted by the institution of the archpriestly dynasty (all "father archpriests" are expected to descend from Midas!). While that is not beyond the realm of possibility, I think the first possibility is more likely.
I second Khshayathiya, I believe Ates to be a name.
I also believe the inscription rather to contain a dedication (to Midas), not a genealogy (of Midas), and I suggest the gramatical case is dative. Vanaktei seem to have a cognate in Greek or loaned from one language to another. A Greek word for ruler was anax (see Homer), from an earlier *wanax (the Linear B tablets have words like like wa-na-ka). For lavagetaei the Greeks had a parallel lawagetas (in Linear B ra-wa-ke-ta). The title was, if we follow Michel Lejeune, Midas Wanax Lawagetas.
Woodard also considers MIDAI a dative. Now, what function this dative had remains to be discussed.
It would be useful to know the date of the inscription in order to assess the likelihood of casual syncretism having occurred. After all, Greek has the Genitive absorb the Ablative, while in Latin it seems the Dative was competing for the same position (with all plural endings, for example, being identical). Perhaps something similar is happening in Phrygian?
In several ancient languages dedications are usually in dative (e.g. Augusto in Latin or Theois in Greek; in my native language I can formulate something like "dedicated to X" using the dative so for me it's easy to understand). I suggested the dative also because it's customary for such inscriptions, but also because those endings in -i suggest it.
Now that I look at the inscription again (and taking the time to look at the verbal morphology chapter in Woodard :P ) your suggestion does, indeed, make a lot of sense:
Ates {ΑΡΚΙΑΕFΑΙΣ : ΑΚΕΝΑΝΟΓΑFΟΣ} offered <this inscription> to Midas, the laFagetes and Fanax.
ΛΑFΑΓΤΑΕΙ : FΑΝΑΚΤΕΙ would be attributes of Midas. The apparent redundancy is not bothersome in epigraphical context, particularly of the religious type (see Latin DDD: do dono dedico).
ΕΔΑΕΣ would be a preterit verbal form (with augment). Woodard argues the final Σ is actually a mark of the 3rd person singular. Stranger things have happened...
EDIT: I'm too lazy for my job... I should have looked at the end of the chapter. Woodard gives this interpretation: “Ates . . . has dedicated [this monument] to Midas, lavagtas and vanax”
Thank you guys! Usefull input! This seems to be a controversial inscription. I'm pretty sure ATES is the name. Now Lawaktaei Wanaktei are verbs not adjectives Lawagetas and Wanax as some assumed. So Midas is the one who rules and leads the people or something like that.
Arkiewais is a title according to Neroznak and in combination with Akenanogawos ATES is a religious figure. According to Lubotsky "This becomes comprehensible if we assume that Ates had a religious function and not a secular one". That's why i guessed Arkiewais cognates with greek Archiereus (where -eus in this case is pronounced as -ephs).
It seems that ATES has dedicated a facade, but i haven't understood yet how they conclude this.
Btw, Chibuldios, this is a Palaeophrygian inscription, so usually it is not suspected that the words are loadwords from Greek like we can say about "Ouranion" and others that appear in neo-Phrygian inscriptions.
As for Akenonagawos i had a theory that it could break up as greek cognates a-genan-agawos (genos + agawos) which would make it something like "the same noble family" but i seem to be alone on this.
In the beginning I agreed with your translation, but now I am inclined to agree with the others, who make ΛΑFΑΓΤΑΕΙ and FΑΝΑΚΤΕΙ appositions (that is nouns, not adjectives) of ΜΙΔΑΙ. In favour of that plead a number of arguments:
1. the typology of inscriptions, the set language and fairly rigid formulae, which usually include the following elements: Dedicator + items identifying the dedicator + Dedicand (usually divine or semi-divine) + items identifying the dedicand + verbum dandi sive facendi. 2. the comparison with Greek, in which LaFagetes and Fanax are nouns, not verbs (although the first term, does, indeed, contain a verb) 3. the ending in -I, similar in all three words of the sequence, which is what one would expect from a Dative
Against your position, considering the sequence ΛΑFΑΓΤΑΕΙ : FΑΝΑΚΤΕΙ as being formed by two verbs, pleads IE comparison, where verbal endings were divided into two series, principal endings and secundary endings: mi/si/ti : m/s/t. That in Attic dialect one has the ending -ei for III singular is simply a phonetic accident: e-ti > e-si (asibilation of intervocalic t) > e-i (intervocalic s drops) > ei (contraction). Other inscriptions plead against such a phenomenon having occurred in Phrygian. One has, for example, the form egeseti (possibly a future tense), where you can clearly see the principal ending -ti. It is therefore more likely that ΕΔΑΕΣ is the verbal form, because the final Σ is easier to explain away than a final EI.
The old Phrygian inscription corpus is nevertheless relatively late, i.e. ~ 800 BC, which is a time where Phyrgian and Greek were arguably in contact (if not directly, surely through intermediary Anatolian languages). However I said loanword or cognate, the latter meaning it's only a parallel development (as suggested by Brixhe among others).
I don't understand why you say this inscription is controversial or that those two words are verbs. Virtually all scholars I consulted seem to agree this is a dedication and almost all consider lavaktaei and vanaktei adjectives or nouns in the same oblique case as Midai. Perhaps there are some disagreements on what each word would exactly mean (but that's mostly because the information is too scarce to allow a definitive answer). My current bibliography for this topic (directly consulted or following other scholars' bibliography) is:
Michel Lejeune, "A propos de la titulature de Midas", Athenaeum 47 (1969), 179-192
Claude Brixhe, Michel Lejeune, Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes (1984)
Frank de Graaf, "Midas Wanax Lawagetas" in Thracians and Mycenaeans (Brill, 1989), 153-155
J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams (eds.), Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture (1997), see the article "Phrygian language", 418-420
Claude Brixhe, "Phrygian" in Roger Woodard's The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor (2008), 69-80
Thanks Chilbudios. I appreciate your help. I use the same database often to lookup words. Unfortunately bibliography on Phrygian is usually rare and what you find is bits and pieces of information. I don't remember exactly were i read wanaktei and lawaktaei should be the verbal form instead of the adjective, but sound wise it could be correct. I think this was concluded by the fact it is a -ei ending. In any case the point is made about what it is said on the inscription.
As for Midai, i believe as well it is dative.
Now, you're right about Palaeophrygian. The dating is at a time when they could have been in contact with Ionians. Basically, it is very probable. However, i remember that it is considered that most cognates found at that time (800-600) like 'auto' (which we have in many forms attested in Phrygian) are not loadwords from Greek, but shared words of a Greco-Phrygian group.
Ofcourse, that link doesn't seem correct. At least the way he breaks it up is a bit...i dunno.
In any case look his translation...You can translate it in so many ways, that are similar but you don't know what is correct.
"ATES: ARKIA EFAIS AKENANO TAFOS: MIDAI: PAFAPa TAEI:
FANA Ki TEI: EDAES [Translation: To Attys or father, ates, (Etr. ATES)
the archon (Etr. ARCIA, Gr. archon) he spoke out (L. effor-fari; Etr.
EFA, EFAN, EFAS, EFE) of Akenano, name : Akenanos, another form of Cernnunos? or Ascanios
of Taphos? alternatively, of the tomb (Gk. taphi [taΦη], burial,
internment; taphos [taΦoς], grave, tomb): Midas or alternatively, Media
(L. Medi-orum, the Medes), or the middle (L. media, subst. i.e., media
via, middle way) or, as a verb, he healed (L. medeor-eri): he feared
(L. paveo, pavere; It. paura, fear; Fr. peur, dread; Etr. PAF, PAFA)
the pine-wood (L. taeda-a, pine-wood, a torch, esp. as used at
weddings): Taei; the holy place, temple grounds (L. fanum-i; Etr. FANI)
who, which, what, that, wherefore, whereby (L. qui, quae, quod; It.
chi; Fr. qui; Etr. KI, Ki) of the god (L. deus, divus, di, divi, dea,
diva; It. dio, dia; Fr. dieu, dieux, deese; Etr. TEI, TEIS, TEIFA) you
will produce, bring out (L. edo-edere-didi-ditum, fut. edes; Etr. ETA,
ETES, ETO); alternatively it could be Hades, Hell. Hades' name in
Etruscan, as seen in the Tomb of Orcos, is ATAI.]
It's confusing, isn't it? Some other inscriptions are translated safely, but because some forms are not widely attested in many forms (e.g some verbs) it is hard to know the tense, the usage etc.
Btw, I saw a site once where a guy used Lydian and Latin to make translations on Phrygian and trust me, it was not far from other suggested translations that were based mainly on Greek cognates. I find that fascinating!
Flipper, I'd be careful about that xanga.com site. To me looks like pseudo-science, i.e. fetching whatever words from whatever languages to create a meaning. Many people like to decipher such puzzles (here we are ), however there are disciplines such as paleography, epigraphy, linguistics, it's not some sort of "anything goes".
But you're right that in poorly known languages (like Phrygian) the interpretation is burdened by the poor attestation of forms, by a relatively large number of hapaxes, by relatively unknown linguistic environments, circumstances which generally make scholars to take all these hypotheses cum grano salis, no matter how seductive they are.
Yes indeed Chibuldios. I've seen a lot of such attempts. And this sentense can be a nice bate for "anything goes". I just googled one of the sentence's words and i found it.
My God, the above postings are terrific! Just wish I could converse with them? But, of course my knowledge of languages is as "brief" as a Brazilian bikini!
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