309 



tation, as it is evidently the direction to repeat certain parts of the for- 

 mula. The remaining words, however, did not appear to be Latin at 

 all, and naturally the hypothesis presented itself that they might be 

 Gaulish. The word Gontaurion or Gontaurios, as it was then read, 

 which recurred also thrice, would equally naturally be taken as the 

 name of the spirit or spirits invoked or exorcised. On this basis, M. 

 Pictet tried to raise an interpretation, but his conjectures were too bold 

 to meet with much applause from other scholars. So great, in fact, was 

 the obscurity of the whole subject, and so puzzling the circumstance of 

 Latin words being mixed with, and as it were scattered through, the 

 text of another language, that Mr. Whitley Stokes, in speaking of 

 the inscription in Kuhn's "Beitrage" (III., 74), left it an open ques- 

 tion whether, after all, the would-be Gaulish parts might not be a sim- 

 ple abracadabra, on which all learning and ingenuity would be wasted 

 entirely. 



Dr. Siegfried, who already had interpreted with success other Gaul- 

 ish inscriptions, had his attention soon directed to this puzzle. He 

 began by trying correctly to define the alphabetical value of the charac- 

 ters. He soon found out that the letter at the beginning of the name of 

 the spirit or demon is not G, but D, and he also read some additional 

 Latin words by more correctly defining the value of the letters. This 

 stage of his knowledge of the formula is represented in the transcription 

 given by W. Stokes (/.c), who simply reproduces there Siegfried's reading. 



In December, 1862, Dr. Siegfried made the further discovery that 

 the ninth character from the end in the second line is a not a ; that 

 the end of the third line contains the Latin words, 'pater nam esto ; and 

 that, consequently, the whole last part of the inscription being Latin, 

 the third character in the word hitherto read setuta must be either a h 

 or Cy thus making the Latin word seeuta. The whole, according to his 

 last reading, will therefore be, separating the words : 



his dontaurion anala his his dontaurion 

 deanala his his dontaurios datala ges [so] 

 uim danimauim [s] pater nam esto 

 magi ars secuta te iustina quern 

 peperit sarra. 



Or, written according to the sense : 

 bis 



Dontaurion anala 

 bis bis 



? Dontaurion deanala 



bis bis 



Dontaurios datala 

 ges [sa] vim danima vim [s ?] 

 pater nam esto 

 magi ars secuta te 

 Justina quem peperit Sarra. 



After the second line there is room on the plate ; and for reasons 

 which will appear hereafter, it is likely that two characters have disap- 



E. I. A. PEOC. VOL. VIII. 2 T 



