Le ‘nuove’ tavole iguvine: considerazioni attorno all’interpretazione testuale di Aldo L. Prosdocimi

Recently the Iguvine Tables have been the object of a global revision concerning the structure of the text as well as some specifc issues. This study resulted in a picture that is absolutely new when compared with former interpretations and thus deserves some refection. The hermeneutical threads that emerge in this work are addressed here: the production of the text, the respect for the text, what the Iguvine Tables share with areas that are geographically close, such as Rome, and, at an ideological level, areas that are chronologically remote, such as the Indo-European tradition. The history of the Tables is redefned as a biography that takes into consideration the main steps of their formation on various levels, from their conception, based on the archetype of a specifc kind of textuality, to the period of their formation, according to the technological and graphic points of view. Finally, the real “novelty” of the work is analysed, that is, the reconstruction and composition of the lustral and piacular cycle, with the actions constituting them, that is, sacrifce and prayer. The new interpretation therefore readdresses both issues that were taken to be givens in previous studies and others that were thought to be beyond doubt thus positioning itself as a veritable benchmark and a new starting point not to be ignored by future scholars wanting to investigate matters concerning the Iguvine Tables