The article presents the discovery of the first and only (until now) Daco-Getic word found in inscriptions. The sources are two epigraphical monuments, both from Tomis: nr. 128 and nr. 36 from Iorgu Stoian's Inscriptiones Daciae et Scythiae Minoris Antiquae, vol.II (Tomis), 1987.

The first quoted, nr. 128, says:

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Heroi sacrum Ti(berius) Claudius Mu- casius v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito) Ηερώϊι (sic!) ΚΑΤΑ Τι(βέριος) Κλαύδιος Μου- κάσιος εὐξάμ[ε- νος καθιέρωσε[ν

The first editor of this inscription, Gr. Tocilescu, in 1895, read in the fourth row of the Greek text the word KATA, in his opinion an adjective of Heros, which he interprets as an abbreviation for κατα(χθόνιος). Though his hypothesis was very doubtful for several reasons, the lack of better explanations made it accepted in the literature. But if one would take a closer look at the monument, he would notice that the lapicida wrote in fact not ΚΑΤΑ, but ΚΑΓΑ, as you can verify yourself on the images below (click to enlarge):

Fig. 1 Nr. 128-Photo and drawing
Click the image to enlarge

The new lecture Ηερώϊ ΚΑΓΑ seems to be the local (Getic) correspondent of the latin syntagm Heroi sacrum. If it were this only inscription I was relying on, I should still have doubts about its lecture and interpretation, but there is another one which comes to ensure their correctitude for good: nr. 36. Here you are its actual lecture:

 

῾Ιερωμένης Δήμητρος ἄρχο[ντες…]             Ποσειδώνιον Νουμηνίου Καλλίμαχον Κα[…Διο-] νύσιον Διοσκουρίδου ΚΑΓΑ Ηρωί[δου ἐτίμησαν]

Fig. 2 Nr. 36-Photo and drawing
Click the image to enlarge

    Though correctly read this time, kaga was still mistaken for a proper name  (even if with question mark).           

    Once we decided that this lecture is correct and that the meaning of the word belongs to the domain of the latin sacrum, both these reasons bring the thracologist to put this word near the oronym Kogaionon quoted by Strabon. Let's see the Geographer's words (about the mountain with cave where Zamolxis retired):  "…καὶ τὸ ὄρος ὑπελήφθη ἱερόν, καὶ προσαγορεύουσιν οὕτως‧ ὄνομα δ᾿ αὐτῷ Κωγαίονον ὁμώνυμον τῷ παραρρέοντι ποταμῷ. So, the mounatin not only was kept as holy by the Dacians, but its name had this very meaning: "The Holy (Mountain)". On one hand, the tomitan inscription gives us the equation kaga = sacrum, on the other Strabon says that Kogaionon=holy. It is too much to be a simple coincidence, especially if we take into account the well known alternance a/o in northern IE dialects.

    Prof. Dan Sluşanschi at the cathedra of Classical Languages of the University of Bucharest agreed with me and wrote an article on a possible etymology of this term. He proposes, as a primary etymon of kaga, the PIE root *∂₃kw- > okw- "eye". Its derivated *(∂₃)kweg(h)- "obvious", was presumable the immediate origin of both Daco-Getian verb of intensive aspect kōgayō, having *kōgayonom as a participle, and of the corresponding noun *kogos which lately became, conformly to already known daco-moesian phonetic laws, *kaga(s). Prof. Sluşanschi's conclusion is: "if καγα = sacrum, Κωγαίονον seems to be = consecratum". There are, of course, other paths to investigate (see for example the root of gk. τάγμα, -ατος=sacrum), which I shall discuss in a future study.

            Note 1. See the articles Sorin Olteanu - Kaga şi Kogaionon-Datele problemei and Dan Sluşanschi- Kaga şi Kogaionon-Analiza filologică şi lingvistică, both in "Traco-Dacica", 1989, tom X, p. 216 and 219. The conclusions I reached in 1989 are now accepted by romanian historiography (see Al. Vulpe,  "Istoria Românilor", vol. I, 1992, p.135)

 

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