ArtFire

This piece represents the Piacenza Liver, a bronze sculpture of a sheep's liver discovered in Piacenza, Italy in 1877. The sculpture dates from c.100 BC and was used in the practice of haruspicy, the method of predicting the future by reading the entrails of animals. . The bronze pendant is 1 7/8" wide and approximately 1" long. It is hung on 1.5 mm leather cord which measures 17" including the hand forged bronze clasp. The necklace includes brass beads, handmade bronze beads, beads made in Africa from recycled glass, and greenheart trade beads made in Venice between the 17th and 19th centuries. The name comes from the dark green glass core under the red exterior. The script is Etruscan.

The Etruscan alphabet, which originated in what is now northern Italy around 700 BC, was derived from a form of the ancient Greek alphabet and eventually developed through Latin into the English alphabet we use today. Despite the fact that Etruscan can be "read" since the alphabet and pronunciations are known, only a few hundred words can be understood. Most of the surviving examples are in the form of inscriptions, such as tombstones, and consist largely of names of people and places.

I-157

As I reached the pictures in the "New Scientist" article I knew I had stumbled on what I had been looking for. Bronze has a feeling of antiquity about it that seems suited to fragments of text, and I wanted to incorporate script into the pieces I was making, but in all the texts I was looking at the meaning had to be considered. Here were "Eight Scripts That Still Can't Be Read", and they were both enormously varied and visually intriguing. From the organic feel of Linear A to the impossible precision of Rongo-rongo, from the almost familiar pictures of Olmec, Proto-Elamite, and the Phaistos Disc to the abstract lines and squiggles of Meroitic, all were visually and intellectually engaging in a different way than known text could be. They say something, but they are more cultural artifact than simple text. Even if one turns out to be a warehouse inventory I won't be disappointed because their meaning goes beyond their translation. So here is my "Undeciphered Texts" collection.

bronze, leather, brass, glass