Guerriero di Castiglione From Sicily 500 BCE
(February 27, 2024) This stone was originally placed over a doorway or hall entrance of a temple. It is now at the Museo Archeologico Ibleo di Ragusa in Sicily, Italy. It was found at the nearby Necropoli di Castelluccio. It is promoting the proper involvement of the motion powers with the life powers which is the main religious characteristic of the Aegean Island sub-culture.
The sculpture consists of two creatures, one behind the other. Both combine the lion headed sphinx and the horse. The background image has the heads of both while the foreground image has the horse's head and the sphinx' rear. The sphinx represents the life power class of powers, specifically the sun god Hu and his life network (sky-shell). The horse represents the motion class of powers which originate in the movements of the astrological night sky and inner emotions. Here the sphinx and the horse are connected showing their connection and involvement with each other.
The large shield and rider are just there to hide the connection of the sphinx and horse.
The text says:
- Astrology-magic can grease the Weaver's (Ayu) irrigation with this
- Openings (through sky-shell) are not emotionally-affected by the same patrollers (planets)
- Nothing of the network-birds is from Yahu's activity
- Activate the life-threads and the bursting-forth of activity
References
Photo from: https://www.ecodisicilia.com/2023/09/05/ragusa-si-presenta-il-guerriero-di-castiglione/
Museum site on Google maps:
Translation of Text
(February 27, 2024) This lettering style is Aegean Island
Translation of the Text in Akkadian (Med Text 61)
(read right to left. Capital letters on object. Small letters are inferred Inner vowels. Verbs are italic bold) - Tu IPu UTu IKu A (Med 61.1)
- Pu UBu Šu Ne'u Ya (Med 61.2) Maltese Š
- E Pa'u YaHu Ṣu E (Med 61.3)
- Ṣu Qu U Ga'u Ṣu (Med 61.4)
(Dual use letters are E/H, I/Y, U/W, and '/A in which vowel appears at beginning of words except for Yahu which is keeping its traditional Hebrew transliteration)
In English
- Astrology-magic can grease the Weaver's (Ayu) irrigation with this
- Openings (through sky-shell) are not emotionally-affected by the same patrollers (planets)
- Nothing of the network-birds is from Yahu's activity
- Activate the life-threads and the bursting-forth of activity
Previous Interpretation
(February 27, 2024) The previous interpretation was that this was a dedicatory plaque for Pyrrinos from his father Pyttikas. A proper word by word translation was never given though. The letter assignments were wrong, the translation procedure was wrong, and the translation was wrong (names are not a translation because they can mix any arbitrary set of letters).
The museum label at the Museo Archeologico Ibleo di Ragusa describes the image as:
The slab in the center represents a knight armed with a spear and shield, on a high steed advancing towards the left, while the two ends of the block are decorated with the heads of a bull and a sphinx. The rear face and the internal corner of the lower face appear chiseled, perhaps for reuse of the block.
In the lower surface there are two rectangular-shaped recesses which must have been used for the installation of the support piers and between these there is depicted in high relief a horse in profile walking in the opposite direction to the main figurative scene.
The museum label describes the text as:
Pyrrinos
In the inscription we read in the letters the name Pyrrinos, the person to whom the monument is dedicated, together with that of his father Pyttikas.Pyrrinos and the Aramaean character depicted in the center riding the steed, symbol of equestrian aristocracy, the unnaturally rounded head, with full perspective, surmounts the entire composition which is created in bas-relief, a large circular shield represented frontally, overlaps the part central part of the horse and the left leg of the rider seen in profile.