Camin Stele

The stele takes its name from Camin (Padua), where it was found in 1875, and it has been part of the Museo Civico's collection since 1881. It is a funeral monument made of Nanto stone, a material from the Berici Hills. On the figured mirror - the portion of the stele decorated with a deep engraving technique - a man and a woman are represented facing each other, probably a husband and wife, in the act of greeting each other before making the journey to the afterlife. Both are dressed according to Palaeovenetian fashion: the man wears a flat hat and a short cloak, while the woman wears a tunic down to the calf, boots and a plain cape stretched at the sides, with a veil covering her head. She holds out a small bird to her husband, perhaps an allusion to the soul of the deceased about to leave the world of the living. In the outer frame, imitating the epigraphic tradition typical of the Etruscans, the so-called 'wolf's tooth' decoration can be recognised at the bottom, while at the top there is an inscription in the venetic language, readable from right to left, which reads: pupone.i.e.χorako/.i.e.kupeΘari.s. Puponei ego Rakoi ekupetaris ego “I [am] the equestrian monument of Pupone Rako” The stele is a 'speaking object', an object with a first-person inscription, designed for a person called Pupone Rako (or Pupon Rakos), belonging to the rank of the ekupetari, the owners of horses, to be intended as high aristocracy. Despite the venetic language and the venetic garb, the name Rako (or Rakos) does not belong to this area; on the other hand, it would be the 'venetisation' of the Etruscan name Rachu, typical of the area of Cere or Vetulonia, in southern Etruria. This origin is in line with another element within the inscription, namely the 'punctuation marks': this simply indicates the punctuation between letters, an innovation useful to promote the teaching of writing that appeared in Veneto from the 6th century onwards, a reform that seems to have also begun in southern Etruria. It is even possible that it was this person, emigrating from Etruria to Veneto, who took part in this cultural change. The importance of this find is therefore the considerable amount of information it provides: it tells us about a period in which the venetic world welcomed the Etruscan one, both from a technical point of view (writing) and in terms of so-called 'horizontal mobility' - the fact that several people moved from one society to another, integrating enough to change their names and being depicted according to local customs.