The Stele of Kaminia, preserved at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, is one of the three most illustrious inscriptions of antiquity that have guided generations of Italians to the Hellas in search of the past.Created in the 6th century B.C. as a tomb marker, and recovered between 1883 and 1885 on the island of Lemno, it was originally a couple of metres high but today only the upper half remains, with the profile of a man holding a spear and shield, who had distinguished himself in society for his virtues as a fighter. Around the figure and on the right side of the stone, two hundred letters of the Greek alphabet were engraved: a total of thirty-three words on eleven lines written in alternating directions, from top to bottom and then from bottom to top, or from right to left and then vice versa. But the language written in Greek is neither Greek nor Indo-European and belongs to the same family as Etruscan and Rhaetic, which was spoken and written in an area on the borders of Austria, Switzerland and Germany.Archaeologists, historians and linguists dealing with the Kaminia stele and its context are grappling with an unresolved question. Indeed, the question is whether the inhabitants of Lemno, as witnessed by the stele and other inscriptions, are of the same lineage as the Etruscans who migrated from Anatolia, with one group settled in Lemno and another arriving in Etruria, or whether they were Etruscans who came to Lemno from Italy to establish a colony or trading station and pirates in the Aegean. It is not easy to know what happened. The community that wrote on stone and terracotta in the Lemnian language is indistinguishable from other possible social and ethnic groups on the island, with whom they may have shared the same material and figurative culture, technologies, religious and funerary rites, and ways of life. If the Tyrrhenians of Lemno came from Etruria, they did not maintain contact with the motherland, according to the complete absence of objects manufactured in Italy. For the hypothesis of migration from Anatolia, we are completely unaware of the place of origin, culture and traditions. «No one has seen the truth, there is only opinion» (Simonide di Ceo).The history of the stele, and of the people of which it was an expression, is narrated in this book, which presents four texts signed by Carlo De Domenico, Riccardo Di Cesare, Germano Sarcone and Emanuele Papi, director of the Italian Archaeological School of Athens, in addition to the introduction by Emanuele Papi.
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