PIECE OF THE MONTH. The Graphite of the Fontcalent Hermitage

The Graphite of the Fontcalent Hermitage

The discovery of this unique document was one of the reasons why, in 1971, the first and only archaeological excavation was carried out at the Ermita de Fontcalent site. The excavation, directed by Enrique Llobregat Conesa, then director of the Provincial Archaeological Museum, did not obtain the expected results in terms of the contextualisation of the piece, as no structures or material to which it could be associated were found at the site of its discovery.

The decontextualisation of the piece only allows us to establish its chronology on the basis of palaeographic criteria, a particularly complex analysis which is currently still under debate.

One of the peculiarities of this graphite is the unusual nature of its lettering, which is particularly difficult to identify. This led researchers such as E. Llobregat (1970) to look for parallels, which in his case turned out to be some inscriptions on slate, studied and published by the master Gómez Moreno, in collaboration with M. Casamar. These inscriptions on slate were original from Avila and their handwriting turned out to be a late minuscule, with a chronology of the 6th century A.D., their transcription and translation being as follows:

"...ratus/bir onestus/commans/aput XP..."
"(Repa)ratus, honoured baron, you stand by Christ".

From the time of its first publication in 1970, the graffito attracted the attention of other researchers, and in 1971 it was transcribed again by E. Büchner, who used extra-Peninsular parallels for his analysis. Büchner identifies the graffito as a cursive script from the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century AD.

"...ratus/bir onestus/commane(n)s/aput XP v[i]am ..."

In his transcription, Büchner tries to give a more temporary meaning to the text by using the expression commane(n)s aput ... viam to refer to a provisional stay or residence, as opposed to the religious sense that Llobregat had given it (RABANAL and ABASCAL, 1985, 200). In 1985, and supporting Büchner's thesis, M. A. Rabanal and J. M. Abascal introduced a slight modification, leaving the following transcription:

[Hono?]ratus/bir onnestus/commane(n)s/aput XP v[i]am..

The last of the known transcriptions is that of Joseph Corell in 1999. This author proposes in a novel way that it is a Visigothic script with a series of characteristics that could be dated to the 6th century A.D. His transcription, also particular, is closer to the first of the theses, that of E. Llobregat.

[Hono]ratus/bir onnestus/commane(n)s/aput XP (Christum) - v(ixit) a(nnis) XX [---]
"Honoratus, an honest man, rests in Christ. He lived 20 (?) years"

 

author:
Teresa Ximénez de Embún