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TheBernzinc tablet orGobannus tablet is a metal sheet found in 1984 inBern,Switzerland. As it was only analysed after the death of the workman who had found and removed the tablet from its site, its original archaeological context can no longer be precisely determined. According to the scant information available to archaeologistRudolf Fellmann, it was found in Thormenboden forest within what appears to be a Gallo-Roman context, a layer dominated by Roman roof tiles at a depth of roughly 30 centimetres.[1] It is inscribed with an apparentlyGaulish inscription, consisting of four words, each on its own line, the letters formed by little dots impressed onto the metal:
The dedication is toGobannus, a Gallo-Roman god, the name simply meaning "theSmith".Brenodor is probably a placename,Brenno-duro- "town ofBrennus"; compareSalodurum >Solothurn,Vitudurum >Winterthur, Gaulish-duron "town" deriving from PIEdhur- "door".
Nantaror may refer to theAare valley (containing as first elementnanto- (Modern Welshnant) "deep valley with a stream/river"), andDobnoredo seems to be an epitheton ofGobano, maybe composed ofdubno- "world" (Old Irishdumhan (Modern Irishdomhan, cf.Dumnorix,Donald (GaelicDomhnall) andrēdo- "travel" (Old Irishriad), orrēdā "chariot" i.e. "world-traveller" or "world-charioteer", so that the inscription may mean approximately "to Gobannus, the world-traveller, dedicated by the people of Brennoduron in the Arura valley".[2]
Since the inscription consists of four proper names, it cannot straightforwardly be considered in the Gaulish language. The datives in-o may be either Gaulish or Latin. Use of theGreek alphabet, however, seems to suggest that when the tablet was inscribed, Roman influence was not yet overwhelming, and Gaulish probably was still in wide use. That the tablet does date to Roman Gaul is suggested by the final Ρ of ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ: it was at first written as a Latin R, the additional stroke having been removed again as a scribal error. Mixing of Greek and Latin letters is also attested from a number of Gallo-Roman coins. The discovery of the tablet had a significant important on determining the etymology of the city ofBern, suggesting that the modern city continues to use a toponym of Celtic origin (possibly*berna "cleft") that pre-exists any Latin or German names.[3]
The tablet is made ofzinc, and on grounds of this it was considered a forgery for some time, since production of zinc is unattested in this region prior to the 16th century. The alloy, however, turned out to be different from modern zinc, containinglead andiron, as well as traces ofcopper,tin, andcadmium.[4] It was concluded that the zinc of this tablet was collected from a furnace, where the metal is known to have aggregated,Strabo calling itpseudoarguros "mock silver" (in 1546,Georg Agricola rediscovered that a white metal could be condensed and scraped off the walls of a furnace when zinc ores were smelted), but it is believed that it was usually thrown away as worthless. Since the tablet is dedicated to the god of the smiths, it is not unlikely that such zinc remnants scraped from a furnace were collected by smiths and considered particularly smithcraft-related.