A Good Works Translation from the 1985 Larzac Publication Sequence

The Larzac lead tablet is one of the great occult Continental Celtic texts: a long Gaulish magical inscription on lead, written across four faces by two hands. The dossier gives the source text, a bounded English guide, and the main apparatus zones without turning the damaged Gaulish into a false smooth curse.

Translation

The Larzac tablet preserves a long Gaulish magical text in two hands, with named women, spell-work, underworld language, binding vocabulary, and damaged formulae spread across four faces. The safest English form is a source dossier: four face displays, notes on the two hands, and English guidance only where the evidence can bear it.

The main reader layer has four controlled zones:

The opening formula on face 1a.
The Severa and Tertionicna counter-magic lane on face 1a.
The named-women catalogue on face 1a with a cautious face 1b addendum.
The short N-hand text on face 2b.

The rest of the tablet is preserved as source text and apparatus because the syntax, damage, and competing interpretations remain too unstable for clean prose.

Opening Formula, Face 1a Lines 1-4

Cautious rendering:

With respect to the spell-work of these women,
with respect to their names below or in the underworld,
this is the spell-work of a seer or sorceress,
one who strikes or curses seer-women.

This rendering follows the Lambert and Dupraz lane for the opening. Marichal's source text reads bnarcom at line 1, but the expected Gaulish form bnanom, "of women," remains an important apparatus reading. The word sanander- can point either to what is written below on the tablet or to an infernal, underworld direction. The word uidluias may be a common word for a seer or sorceress, or may stand near a proper-name lane.

The opening is best understood as a magical introduction: the text sets its own spell-work against the spell-work of women named below.

Severa and Tertionicna, Face 1a Lines 4-8

Cautious rendering:

... Adsagsona,
Severa and Tertionicna,
the lissati- and liciati- women:
look on them or act on them from below.

Let her release whoever they have fixed by defixio,
by the harmful death-song,
against their names ...

This is an interpretation guide, not settled syntax. Lejeune and Lambert make Severa and Tertionicna central to the long M-hand text. They may be one woman with a two-part name, but the stronger reading treats them as two associated women, because the repeated lissina and licina forms appear to distribute the action between them.

The name or epithet Adsagsona remains sensitive. The uodui uoderce phrase is difficult; Lambert's lane permits a "look from below" or magical action sense. The verb field around nitixsintor belongs with fixing, binding, or defixio, but the English should not erase the uncertainty around pone, lunget, and duscelinatia.

Named-Women Catalogue

Cautious rendering:

Here begins the group below, bound up with the spell-work:

Banonia, daughter of Vlatucia;
Paulla, in magical relation with Potitos;
Aiia, daughter of Adiega;
Potita, mother of Paulla;
Severa, daughter of Valens, in magical relation with Paullus or Paulla;
Adiega, mother of Aiia;
Potita, in magical relation with Primius ... Abesia.

The face 1b addendum continues the same kind of name-map, but with heavier damage:
Rufena Casta, in magical relation with ...;
Vlationicnos / Aucitiona / Potita material;
Vlatucia, mother of Banonia.

This is the most readable body of the tablet. The secure kinship anchors are matir, mother, and duxtir, daughter. Lejeune stresses that these woman-to-woman relations are not an ordinary paternal genealogy. They belong to a magical setting and may use family language for ritual grouping, initiation, or hostile classification.

The word dona is kept as "in magical relation with." It should not be flattened into a normal marriage word in the house voice. Fleuriot sometimes gives a smoother social rendering, but the Good Works display keeps the magical relation visible.

N-Hand Short Text, Face 2b Lines 1-6

Cautious rendering:

Aia ... Cicena ...
let her not escape / let there not be escape ...
from the harm or spell-action ...
where the underworld of the dead is,
not spell-casting ...
not the underworld/death power of the dead.

The second hand, N, wrote this shorter text after partially erasing earlier M-hand writing. Aia and Cicena are personal names. Aia may or may not be the same woman as the Aiia or Aia of the M-hand catalogue; Cicena is not found in that catalogue.

Line 2 contains the special sign often called Tau Gallicum. The source text displays it as {tau}. The raw page extraction represented the same sign as O, but Marichal's letter table treats it as a barred theta-equivalent sign, not ordinary Latin O.

The best religious vocabulary in this short text is antumnos, the otherworld or underworld, and nepon, probably the dead or dead persons, though an indefinite sense remains possible. The word uodercos may point toward an underworld or death-power epithet, but the source text keeps it untranslated.

Face 2a Reading Guide

Face 2a is not given a smooth English paragraph. Its safe value is a zone map:

Lines 1-3: damaged mouth-binding or mouth-silencing language, anchored by onda bocca
Lines 4-5: judgment, dead or no-one vocabulary, and the defixio-field problem around nitixsintor
Lines 6-10: the lissatim, liciatim, and rodatim spell-action series tied to the women and Severa.
Lines 10-13: obscure anandognam / andognam and bocca material, complicated by N's inverted aia overstrike.

The face is important because it confirms the same magical field as the more readable parts of the tablet, but it should not be made into continuous English.

Face 1b Reading Guide

Face 1b contributes three useful zones:

A catalogue addendum around Rufena Casta, Vlationicnos, Aucitiona, Potita, and Vlatucia / Banonia.
A Severa and Tertionicna confirmation through the lissina / licina split.
Lower formula material around ne incitas biontutu, anatia nepi anda, possible incors onda [bocca], donicon, and incarata.

The lower lines are especially damaged. They belong in the apparatus, not in reader prose.

Notes on the Two Hands

The first hand, M, wrote faces 1a, 2a, 1b, and the lower part of 2b. The second hand, N, wrote the shorter six-line text at the top of 2b and a failed or superposed aia start on 2a. Vernhet and Marichal treat N as a separate writing event, and Lejeune treats N as a less practiced hand than M.

This matters for translation. N's text on 2b should not be merged into M's long text, and M's damaged continuation below N on 2b should not be used to complete N's syntax.

Notes on Display

The source text below uses Marichal's sector layout as its base. Damaged text remains damaged. Apparatus-sensitive points remain visible:

bnarcom / bnanom
adsagsona / adsagona
dona / bona
alias / aiias
tertionicnim and related Tertionicna forms.
antumnos
uodercos
biietutu and biiontutu
The {tau} display marker in 2b line 2.

No first-English claim is made for this dossier. Existing public English material already includes summaries, lexical notes, partial transcriptions, and translated excerpts. The value here is the whole-source, cautious, apparatus-aware presentation.

Colophon

This page presents a source-close Good Works dossier for the Larzac lead tablet, RIG L-98, a long Gaulish magical text from L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac. The English is not offered as a complete fluent translation of the whole tablet. It gives bounded reader renderings for the best-controlled zones and keeps damaged, disputed, and apparatus-heavy material visible in the notes and source text.

The working source base is the 1985 Etudes celtiques publication sequence available through Persee, especially Robert Marichal's palaeographic source edition, with Michel Lejeune, Leon Fleuriot, Pierre-Yves Lambert, and Emmanuel Dupraz used as attributed interpretation controls. The Cambridge ASNC face-1a page is used only as a public teaching control, not as the source base for the whole tablet.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: Marichal 1985, Larzac Lead Tablet

Gaulish source text from Robert Marichal's palaeographic edition of the Larzac lead tablet in the 1985 Etudes celtiques publication sequence. The source text is presented by face and hand, with Good Works display notes for damaged and disputed readings.

Face 1a

Source: Marichal page 107, figure 5.

1 insinde · se · bnarcom bricto[
2 neianom anuana sanander[
3 na · brictom · uidluias uidlu[
4 tigontias · so · adsagsona · seue[
5 tertionicnim · lidssatim liciatim
6 elanom · uoduiuoderce lunget
7 [?]utonid pone · nitixsintor si[
8 duscelinatia inteanon · anuan[
9 esi · andernados brictom · bano[
10 flatucias · paulla dona potiti [
11 iaia · duxtir · adiegias poti[
12 atir paullias · seuera du[
13 ualentos dona paulli[?]us[
14 adiega · matir · alias
15 potita dona prim. [?]. [
16 abesias

Source notes:

1: bnarcom may represent expected bnanom.
4: adsagsona / adsagona remains apparatus-sensitive.
5: tertioni- is preferred, but related Tertionicna forms remain graphically sensitive.
6: elanom may be eianom; lunget may be luriget.
7: ponc / pone remains open.
8: inteanon may echo the in eianom anuana formula, but the source display keeps Marichal's form.
10, 13, 15: dona / bona remains open in apparatus.
14: alias may be aiias.

Face 2a

Source: Marichal page 109, figure 6.

1 . . . ]a · senit conectosf. . .
2 . . jonda bocca nene. [. . .
3 . . jirionti onda boca ne[..
4 . on barnaunom pone nit
5 ixsintor sies eianepian
6 digi ne lisatim ne licia
7 tim · ne rodatim · biont
8 utu semnanom sagitiont
9 ias seuerim lissatim licia
10 tim anandognam acolut[
11 utanit andognam[
12 da bocca [
13 diom ne[

Source notes:

2: nene. may be nenec.
3: jirionti may belong to an irionti / erionti lane.
4: the opening is uncertain.
5: cies was corrected to sies in the source discussion.
6: digi is preferred over digs.
10: acolut is uncertain because N's inverted aia overwrites the area.
13: diom may be drom.

Face 1b

Source: Marichal page 111, figure 7.

1 etic eiotinios cuet[
2 rufena casta dona [
3 uonus coetic diligentir · c[
4 ulatiomicnom aucitidnim[
5 aterem potiti ulatucia rat.
6 banonias ne · incitas · biontutu in
7 das mnas ueronadas brictas lissina.
8 seuerim licinaue · tertioni[
9 elabi tiopritom biietutu sesme[
10 ratet seuera tertionena
11 ne incitas biontutus ... du[
12 anatia nepi anda
13 incorsonda
14 donicon. s
15 incarata

Source notes:

3: c[ after the interpunct is only possible.
4: aucitidnim has damaged internal letters.
6: the fragment after line 6 is now lost.
8: tertio[ may be tertiore[.
9: elabi may be eiabi.
10: tertionena may stand for erroneous tertionicna.
13: incorsonda may be incorsorida; Lambert separates a possible incors onda [bocca] lane.
14: donicon is preferred to dorecon, but remains obscure.

Face 2b

Source: Marichal page 113, figure 8.

Second hand, N:

1 aia [ . . . ] cicena [
2 nitianncobue{tau}li{tau}at [
3 iasuolsonponne
4 antumnos · nepon
5 nesliciatia neosuode
6 neiauodercos · nepon ·

First hand, M:

7 su.biiontutu semni
8 anom adsaxs nadoc[
9 suet petidsiont sies
10 peti sagitiontias seu[
11 . . ]im tertio lissatim[
12 ,.]s anandognaf. . [
13 ... lictontias.

Source notes:

1: extra strokes appear around the first a and around cicena.
2: {tau} marks the special dental sign often called Tau Gallicum; the raw page extraction represented it as O, but it is not ordinary Latin O.
4: antumnos is palaeographically preferred over an antucanus-type lane.
6: uodercos has probable r.
7: biiontutu is visible only under strong or oblique light.
11: .]im may be .]em.
13: the ending may continue the -ontias pattern.

Source Colophon

Source text and apparatus were prepared from the Larzac publication sequence in Etudes celtiques 22 (1985), available through Persee: Michel Lejeune, introduction, pp. 95-96; Alain Vernhet, archaeological context, pp. 96-103; Robert Marichal, palaeography and source edition, pp. 104-118; Michel Lejeune, approach to the text, pp. 118-138; Leon Fleuriot, analytic interpretation, pp. 138-155; and Pierre-Yves Lambert, continuous interpretation, pp. 155-177. Local Good Works controls include the captured article records, page payloads, figure plates 5-8, and maximum available Persee page renders for Marichal pages 107, 109, 111, and 113.

Emmanuel Dupraz, Sur la formule d'introduction du Plomb du Larzac (2013), is used as a focused control for face 1a lines 1-4. Cambridge ASNC, Mnamon, CNRS Editions, Wikipedia, and other public records are used as access, object-identity, and public-baseline controls. They are not treated as substitutes for Marichal's source edition or Lambert's interpretation.

The source-close English rendering is a New Tianmu Anglican Church Good Works Translation made from the inspected Gaulish source text and the named scholarly apparatus. It preserves source layout, hand distinction, damaged readings, disputed forms, and the special {tau} sign rather than replacing them with a continuous English curse.

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