Faliscan inscriptions in the Field Museum (Chicago, IL)

Two terracotta tiles inscribed with Faliscan funerary inscriptions are part of the collection of Italic antiquities in the Field Museum in Chicago, IL. The tiles were discovered in 1886 during excavation of tomb no. 7 in the first cemetery of S. Antonio, located near Corchiano in the Ager Faliscus. A few years after discovery, the tiles disappeared and were thought to have been lost. It turns out that Martin Ryerson, a collector for the Field Museum, purchased the tiles and other artifacts from an antiquities dealer in Rome and shipped them to the Field Museum in 1895. In 2017, photographs of the tiles were placed on the Field Museum’s website. Rediscovery of the inscribed tiles in the Field Museum’s archives allows us to confirm the readings of the inscriptions, to correct errors in early copies of the inscriptions, and to reassess the inscriptions’ significant paleographic and linguistic features.