The Umbri were an ancient people, considered an Italic people, attested during the Iron Age in inner central Italy, approximately between the middle Tiber river and the central Apennines. A region called Umbria still exists and is now occupied by Italian speakers. It is somewhat smaller than the ancient Umbria. Most ancient Umbrian cities were settled in the 9th-4th centuries BCE on easily defensible hilltops. Umbria was bordered by the Tiber and Nar rivers and included the Apennine slopes on the Adriatic. The ancient Umbrian language belongs to the Osco-Umbrian branch of the Italic languages, an Indo-European subfamily that also includes the Latino-Faliscan languages.
Origins Ancient sources Herodotus, writing in the 5th-century BCE, provides the earliest literary mention of the Umbrian people, stating that they inhabited the region prior to the supposed migration of the Tyrrhenians from Lydia and into Italy.Herodotus. The Histories. 1.94. However, modern scholars agree that Herodotus' account is not based on real events. Moreover, there is no archeological evidence for a migration of the Lydians into Etruria. Ancient Roman writers thought the Umbri to be of Gaulish origin; Cornelius Bocchus wrote that they were descended from an ancient Gaulish tribe. Livy suggested that the Insubres, another Gaulish tribe, might be connected; their Celtic name Isombres could possibly mean "Lower Umbrians," or inhabitants of the country below Umbria. Similarly Roman historian Cato the Elder, in his masterpiece Origines, defines the Gauls as "the progenitors of the Umbri". Plutarch wrote that the name might be a different way of writing the name of a northern European tribe, the Ambrones, and that both ethnonyms were cognate with "King of the Boii". The presence of the same Ambrones among the Celto-Ligurian populations of Northern Italy, seems to strengthen the connection between the Umbri and the Celts of the Po Valley.
Pliny the Elder wrote concerning the folk-etymology of the name:
Geographical area
Roman and Greek historians alike agreed that the ancient Umbri once occupied a very large area of central and northern Italy, which stretched from the Apennine Mountains to Ravenna, Mantua, Ancona, Ariminium and the Tyrrhenian coast north of the Fiora River, before the expansion of the Etruscans and Gauls confined them to Sabina and the Apennine valleys. According to ancient Greek historians, the Sabellian people, namely the Sabines and the Samnites, and the tribes which sprung from them, as the Marsi, Marrucini, Peligni, Picentes, Hirpini, and others, were originally an Umbrian people.Strabo, Geography, book 4, 7 BCE, p. 465, Alexandria, Their expansion was in a southward direction, according to the rite of Ver Sacrum.
Archaeological sites
The Umbrians are associated with the culture of Terni, protohistoric facies of southern Umbria, dated between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age (10th century BC - 7th century BC). Although archaeological evidence is still limited and scattered, it remains difficult to completely understand how the Umbrian tribes developed their economy, culture, and social identity. This is especially true when compared to the more advanced Tyrrhenian and Adriatic regions. The lack of solid information is particularly clear for the earliest period, covering the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (1300 to 1000 BC). With the start of the Iron Age, the historical settlements of the Umbrians were continuously occupied almost without interruption through to the Roman period and beyond. These settlements include the modern towns of Terni, Colfiorito, Spoleto, Todi, Gubbio, Spello, Amelia, Matelica, and Pitino.
The area near Terni, called Interamna Nahars in ancient times, is very important for learning about ancient Umbria. Archaeologists found many signs of large settlements with early town features from the beginning of the Iron Age. Close by, Maratta Bassa has remains of buildings from the 6th century BC with roofs made of flat and curved tiles. A Latin inscription says the city was founded in 672 BC.
The most interesting finds come from two cemeteries at Acciaierie and S. Pietro in Campo, where about 2,000 tombs were discovered from the 10th to 4th centuries BC. At first, people cremated their dead, but by the 8th century BC they began burying them in graves. Many tombs belonged to warrior leaders and had rich gifts similar to those from southern Etruria. The graves were marked with stone circles or mounds, a tradition common in central Italy.
Assisi, called Asisium by the Romans, was an ancient Umbrian site on a spur of Mount Subasio. Myth relates that the city was founded by Dardanus in 847 BC. Perugia and Orvieto were instead of Etruscan origin. According to the geographical distribution of the Umbrian territory, they are located on the left side of the Tiber River, which is part of the ancient Etruria. Umbri were on the opposite side of the river.
Language The Umbrians spoke an Italic language related to Latin, although the Umbrian language was more specifically a member of the Osco-Umbrian branch of Italic rather than the Latino-Faliscan branch to which Latin belongs. There are about thirty inscriptions written in the Umbrian language. They include public writings, religious messages, boundary marks, ownership signs, funeral writings, artist names, and coin writings. The most important are the Iguvine Tablets—seven bronze plates written in Umbrian using two alphabets: the Etruscan alphabet and the Latin alphabet. They were found in Gubbio near an old Roman theater in the 1400s.
Religion
Iguvine Tablets
The Iguvine Tablets were discovered in 1444 at Scheggia, near Gubbio, Italy. Composed during the 2nd or 3rd centuries BC, they describe religious rituals involving animal sacrifice. The modern Festival of Ceri, celebrated every year in Gubbio on May 15 in honor of Bishop Ubald or Ubaldo of Gubbio (1084–1160), shares certain features with the rites described in aforementioned Iguvine tables mentioned above, and so may be a survival of that ancient pre-Christian custom. It is also celebrated in Jessup, PA, a town with a large number of immigrants from the Gubbio area, as Saint Ubaldo Day.
Deities Numerous deities are described in the Iguvine Tablets, many likely as subordinates to other more important gods such as Jupiter or Mars. These potentially lesser divinities are often mentioned with epithets, usually the names of other gods. For instance, the divine entity ("the one-who-terrifies") is variously recorded as "" ("") and "" (""). Likewise, the goddess ("the one-who-protects") is recorded in the Iguvine Tablets as "," implying an association with the god . These Umbrian deities may have served as deified representations of general ideas associated with other gods. If this theory is accepted, then the goddess would have personified the concept of protection and would have been invoked when another good was propriated for their protective capabilities. De Cazanove compares these Umbrian onomastic formulae to the "books of the priests" ("") mentioned by Aulus Gellius that supposedly include phrases such as "Salacia of Neptune" ("") or "Maia of Vulcan" ("").Aulus Gellius. Attic Nights. 13.23.2.
The linguist Francesco Burroni suggests that Umbrian may derive from earlier , itself possibly from Proto-Indo-European , which perhaps derives from , whence also possibly the Roman god Ceres. Likewise, the philologist Michiel de Vaan suggests that Umbrian derives from Proto-Italic , which he considers to be a "male counterpart to Ceres." According to de Vaan, the term —an adjectival form of the theonym—probably derives from an earlier form . However, the historian Barbette Spaeth doubts the accuracy of this comparison, noting that—unlike Ceres—the Umbrian divinity is largely associated with war. Another possibility, suggested on the basis of Paelignian , maintains that the Umbrian term derives from Proto-Indo-European , whence also perhaps Sanskrit ("troop," "horde").
The Iguvine Tablets describe a sacrifice to the gods Jupiter, Mars, and an obscure deity named . Etymologically, the name of this deity has been connected to the Proto-Indo-European root ("to grow"). Alternatively, his name may be related to Latin ("to vow") and derive from the Proto-Indo-European root ("to promise, vow"), perhaps indicating that the domain of the deity pertained to vows. may correspond to the Roman deity Quirinus, a member of the hypothetical Roman Archaic Triad, which may indicate that the Umbrian religion possessed a similar tripartite conceptualization of its chief divinities. Various other Umbrian deities are grouped into triads. For instance, the goddesses Prestota S̀erfia and Tursa S̀erfia are connected with the god S̀erfus Martius.
Both the Umbrian and Roman triads may reflect Proto-Indo-European trifunctionality, a hypothesis advanced by the philologist Georges Dumézil which argues that Proto-Indo-European religion conceptualized a set of three divinities each associated with military, priestly, and social functions. Within Umbrian and Roman religion, the martial and priestly roles were fulfilled by Mars and Jupiter respectively, although may have fulfilled the societal role in Umbrian religion. However, the archaeologist Olivier de Cazanove argues that the similarities between Roman and Umbrian tripartism may only exist at the surface level, as the three deities are mentioned within the context of a particular ritual function that itself may be unrelated to any known Roman ceremony. Moreover, even if the Umbrian triad reflects a Proto-Indo-European tradition, the extent to which it was directly inherited from the Proto-Indo-European religion or borrowed from neighboring cultures is unclear.
List of deities