Buyla inscription

The Buyla Inscription
The buckled bowl bearing the Buyla inscription.
Material	Gold
Created	Middle or Late Avar Period (670 AD – 800 AD)
Discovered	1799 near Nagyszentmiklós (today Sânnicolau Mare in Timiș County, Romania)
Present location	Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Buyla inscription is a 9-word, 56-character inscription written in the Greek alphabet but in a non-Greek language. It is found on a golden buckled bowl or cup which is among the pieces of the Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós^[1][2] which are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.^[1][3] The bowl is 12 cm in diameter and weighs 212 g, and has a handle or buckle, perhaps for hanging on a belt. The inscription is found around the outside of a circular design in the middle of the bowl. In the place where the inscription begins and ends, there is a cross. The inscription reads: ΒΟΥΗΛΑ·​ΖΟΑΠΑΝ·​ΤΕϹΗ·​ΔΥΓΕΤΟΙΓΗ·​ΒΟΥΤΑΟΥΛ·​ΖΩΑΠΑΝ·​ΤΑΓΡΟΓΗ·​ΗΤΖΙΓΗ·​ΤΑΙϹΗ.^[4]

Prevailing opinion is that the language of the text is the West Old Turkic (and thus distinct from both Old Turkic and the ancestor of the modern-day Common Turkic languages),^[5][6] and several translations have been proposed, but it has not been deciphered and the exact classification of the language has been a subject of debate.^[1][7][2] Vilhelm Thomsen translated the inscription: "Boila zoapan finished this bowl [this drinking cup], which Boutaoul zoapan made suitable for hanging up."^[8] Nikola Mavrodinov translated it: "Bouila zoapan made this cup; Boutaul Zoapan made this cup suitable for drinking from."^[8] Gyula Németh translated it: "Boila chaban's bowl, which was made to his order; Boutaoul had a buckle made for it, and this is his bowl."^[8] Paul Lazăr Tonciulescu translated it: "Jupan Buila [has] all rights, jupan Butaul [has the right of] entering [in] all towns.^[9]

Description

The treasure of Nagyszentmiklós

The treasure of Nagyszentmiklós, of which the bowl is a part, consists of 23 decorated gold vessels weighing around 10 kg.^[10][11][3] It was found in 1799 on the banks of the Aranca river, near Nagyszentmiklós (today Sânnicolau Mare in Timiș County, Romania),^[12][3][13] in the region of Avar settlement in the Carpathian Basin.^[14] It was also attributed to the lower Danube Bulgars,^[15] but the current view is that the treasure is of Avar origin and closely related to the Avar culture.^{[16][14][15][17]}

The objects were made by specialized craftsmen in the 7th and 8th centuries^[16][18][14] and were hoarded by local lords.^[19][20] The treasure was last "used" and buried in the second half of the 8th century or perhaps in the early 9th century.^[14][20]

Some of the vessels bear runiform inscriptions. Similar characters can be found on a bone needlecase excavated in the Late Avar cemetery of Szarvas (in Békés County, Hungary) and dated to the second half of the 8th century.^[10][21] Based on this evidence, some scholars proposed a similar date for the Nagyszentmiklós inscriptions.^[10][13]

The inscription

The Buyla inscription is engraved in Greek letters on the inner bottom of a round buckled bowl (no. 21 in József Hampel's list), on a flat ring surrounding a lavishly decorated disk.^[22][23]

The inscription has the following text, easily readable, and uses a C-shaped glyph for sigma:^[24][25][23]

† ΒΟΥΗΛΑ • ΖΟΑΠΑΝ • ΤΕϹΗ • ΔΥΓΕΤΟΙΓΗ • ΒΟΥΤΑΟΥΛ • ΖΩΑΠΑΝ • ΤΑΓΡΟΓΗ • ΗΤΖΙΓΗ • ΤΑΙϹΗ

The lower case equivalent is:

† βουηλα • ζοαπαν • τεση • δυγετοιγη • βουταουλ • ζωαπαν • ταγρογη • ητζιγη • ταιση

The transliteration is:

† bouēla • zoapan • tesē • dugetoigē • boutaoul • zōapan • tagrogē • ētzigē • taisē

Paleographic and epigraphic considerations

Some of the letters of the inscription have distinctive shapes. The letters sigma and epsilon have broad arcs.^[26] The base line of delta juts out on both sides.^[27] Beta has also a prominent base line, a form found in the Greek inscriptions from Bulgaria dated to the early 9th century,^[26][28][29] but otherwise it is rarely attested in the Greek-writing world: only^[26][28] on several Cherson coins of the Byzantine emperor Basil I (867-886)^[28][29][30] and also on one inscription of the same emperor, found in Mesembria (today Nesebar, Bulgaria).^[28][31] The shape of alpha is also attested on the 9th century Greek inscriptions from Bulgaria.^[26] On the other hand, omega's unusual shape, with a middle vertical line higher than the rounded sides, is specific for the 6th century Greek inscriptions and the oldest forms of the Greek Uncial script.^[26][32]

Vowels

In this inscription there is a free alternation between ε and αι, η and ι, and ο and ω.^[33][34] These groups became homophones in Koine Greek, merging to /ɛ/, /i/ and /o/.^[33][35] Also ου was read /u/,^[35] υ was read /y/,^[36][34][35] and οι was read either /y/^[36][35] or /ø/.^[37]

Interpretations

In the late 19th century, József Hampel suggested that the treasure of Nagyszentmiklós was buried by Gepids in the 4th or 5th century AD,^[38][39] and attempted to decipher the text of the inscription using the Greek language. Three words end in -γη, which was read by Hampel as the Greek γῆ = "land, country". He concluded that the inscription records two Gepid princes, Bouila and Boutaoul, and the three lands they ruled: Tagro, Etzi and Dygetoi.^[40][41][42] The last toponym was connected with the Getae of the Classical Antiquity.^[43][42] This interpretation was sharply criticized by Vilhelm Thomsen and Gyula Németh, who showed that the language of the inscription cannot be Greek, but an old Turkic language.^[44][45]

Today almost all scholars share the view that the text was written in a Turkic language,^[1][46][2] but it has not been deciphered and the exact classification of the language has been a subject of debate.^[1][7] It has been often compared with the Turkic Bulgar language of the First Bulgarian Empire,^[34][7][29] attested on several 8th-9th century inscriptions found in north-eastern Bulgaria and written in Greek letters.^[47] More recently Eugene Helimski argued the language is close to Proto-Tungusic,^[48] but this proposal was rejected by Marcel Erdal as far-fetched.^[49]

Buyla

It is generally agreed that the first word is the Turkic title buyla or boyla (also spelled boila^[50]) which is attested on several Old Turkic and Danube Bulgar inscriptions^[51][52] and also mentioned by some 9th and 10th centuries Byzantine authors.^[51][53] Some scholars proposed that Buyla should be read as a personal name in this text, as titles were often taken as personal names.^[2][51] There are more vessels in the treasure of Nagyszentmiklós that mention the name Buyla, such as a goblet.

Butaul

Butaul is usually read as a personal name.^[2][54][55] It may be interpreted as "son of Buta" with the final -ul being a development of the Turkic oğul = "son".^[54][55] This etymology was challenged based on the observation that according to the predominant model of construction of Turkic patronymics, the possessive forms oğlu or oğli are expected.^[54][56] Based on the names attested on Old Turkic inscriptions, Erdal posited the reading But Aul.^[54]

Zoapan

In 1900, Karl Brugmann derived the Common Slavic *županъ from župa "district, small administrative region",^[57] an etymology that was accepted by many linguists.^[58]

References

Bibliography

• Alemany, Agustí (2009). "From Central Asia to the Balkans: the title *ču(b)-pān". In Allison, Christine; Joisten-Pruschke, Anke; Wendtland, Antje (eds.). Daēnā to Dîn: Religion, Kultur und Sprache in der iranischen Welt. pp. 3–12.
• Bálint, Csanád (2010). "Avar goldsmiths' work from the perspective of cultural history". In Adams, Noel; Entwistle, Chris (eds.). Intelligible Beauty: Recent Research on Byzantine Jewellery. pp. 146–160.
• Бешевлиев, Веселин (1952). Епиграфски приноси (in Bulgarian). София: БАН. p. 96.
• Beševliev, Veselin (1963). Die protobulgarischen Inschriften. Volume 23 in the series Berliner Byzantinistische Arbeiten (in German). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
• Brugmann, Karl (1900). "Aksl. župa 'Bezirk'". Indogermanische Forschungen. 11: 111–112. doi:10.1515/9783110242539.111. S2CID 170500221.
• Brückner, Alexander (1908). "Über Etymologische Anarchie". Indogermanische Forschungen. 23: 206–219. doi:10.1515/if-1909-0118. S2CID 202507000.
• Curta, Florin (2006). Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250.
• Daim, Falko (2003). "Avars and Avar archaeology. An introduction". In Goetz, Hans Werner; Jarnut, Jörg; Pohl, Walter (eds.). Regna and gentes: the relationship between late antique and early medieval peoples and kingdoms in the transformation of the Roman world. pp. 463–570.
• Erdal, Marcel (1988). "The Turkic Nagy-Szent-Miklós inscription in Greek letters". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 42: 221–234.
• Erdal, Marcel (2007). "The Khazar language". In Golden, Peter B.; Ben-Shammai, Haggai; Róna-Tas, András (eds.). The World of the Khazars. pp. 75–108.
• Fiedler, Uwe (2008). "Bulgars in the Lower Danube region. A survey of the archaeological evidence and of the state of current research.". In Curta, Florin; Kovalev, Roman (eds.). The other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars, Bulgars, Khazars, and Cumans. pp. 151–236.
• Göbl, Robert; Róna-Tas, András (1995). Die Inschriften des Schatzes von Nagy-Szentmiklós: Eine paläographische Dokumentation.
• Helimski, Eugene A. (2000). "On probable Tungus-Manchurian origin of the Buyla inscription from Nagy-Szentmiklós". Компаративистика, уралистика: Лекции и статьи. pp. 268–277.
• Hampel, József (1885). Der Goldfund von Nagy-Szent-Miklós, sogenannter "Schatz des Attila". F. Kilian.
• Petrounias, Evangelos V. (2007). "Development in pronunciation during the Hellenistic period". In Christidis, Anastassios Fivos (ed.). A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. pp. 599–609.
• Pohl, Walter (1988). Die Awaren. Ein Steppenvolk in Mitteleuropa, 567-822 n. Chr.
• Róna-Tas, András (1999). Hungarians and Europe in the early Middle Ages.
• Thomsen, Vilhelm (1918). Une inscription de la trouvaille d'or de Nagy-Szent-Miklós (Hongrie).
• Wroth, Warwick (1908). Catalogue of the Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum. Vol. 2.

This page was last edited on 15 April 2024, at 00:39