Ikuvine Tablets (3rd-1st centuries BC) 


Copy of one of the Ikuvine Tablets
Museo Civico, Gubbio
Image courtesy of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell' Umbria


These seven bronze tablets, which contain the longest surviving Umbrian inscription, were found in 1444, probably near the Roman theatre of Gubbio.  The farmer who found them sold them to the Commune in 1456 in return for two years’ grazing rights. 

The tablets were probably inscribed at different times after the Roman conquest (late 3rd century BC).  Four of them use an Etruscan alphabet, and these are presumably the oldest.  The fifth uses both this and the Latin alphabet; and the other two use only the latter.  This move to the Latin alphabet is symptomatic of growing Roman influence after the conquest.

The texts describe the ritual life of the Umbrian city of Ikuvina, and they may have been  inscribed on the bronze tablets (perhaps copied from older models) as part of a campaign during the reign of the Emperor Augustus to revive ancient rituals and to embed them in the culture of Roman Italy.

According to traditional (not necessarily literal) translations, a sacred fraternity, the Atiedian Brothers, managed the religious rituals described, which included those for the purification of the people and of the sanctuary (which may have been on Monte Ingino or Monte Ansciano).  These rituals involved the observation of the flight of birds (the taking of the auspices), followed by ceremonial processions during which specific animals were sacrificed to specific divinities at each of the city gates. 

  • The texts reveal a complex pantheon of divinities, many of which seem to be unique to the city.  The most important seem to have been a triad: Jupiter Grabovius, Mars Grabovius and Vofonius Grabovius (see Umbrian Religion).

  • Three gates were specified, two of which are lost.  The third (Porta Vehia) might have been on the site of today’s Porta San Marziale. 

The tablets say something about the magistracies of Ikuvina:

  • The word “uhteretie” or magistracy is used twice as a dating device, in reference to the period of office of first Titus Castricius and then Caius Cluvius.   This office is also mentioned as a representative of the civic authorities in the ritual sacrifices. 

  • The other magistrate that appears in the tablets is the “kvestur”, who polled the celebrants at a ritual dinner to establish whether it had been correctly prepared.  This title seems to relate to the Roman “quaestor”, which literally means “the man who asks questions”.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the text is the curse placed on the enemies of the Ikuvines.  These include:

  • the people of Tadinum - the precursor of Gualdo Tadino, which was perhaps already a Roman colony when the text was composed;

  • the Etruscans - probably the Perugians; and

  • the "Narcans" - perhaps the inhabitants of the Roman colonies at modern Narni and Terni on the River Nar (Nera).

Read more:

A. Ancillotti and R. Cerri, "The Tables of Iguvium", Perugia (1997)

J. Wilkins in Section 5.2 of C. Malone and S. Stoddart (Eds.), "Territory, Time and State", Cambridge (1994)