The Text
The tablet is equipped with a bilingual inscription: one in the Croatian language, carved in an older, rounded Glagolitic, and a Latin inscription, carved with Caroline.
The Latin text can be easily read:
- TECHNA ET FILIUS EIUS BRATOHNA
- ET IUNNA NEPUS EIUS
It's evident that the grave of 3 generations is in question, carrying old Croatian baptismal names. These are the grandmother Těha, her son Bratohna and her grandson Juna.
On the Glagolitic inscription, carrying the Old Croatian text, the names TĚHA and JUNA can easily be read, but BRATOHNA is missing. In the middle of the inscription 8 letters are found, two of which look unknown to Fučić, so he read the sequence as:
| S | ? | ? | Ъ | V | Ъ | K | Ъ |
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
The unknown letter (6) is according to Fučić old Glagolitic 'I', with a duplicated horizontal line separating the upper element from the lower. As for the unknown letter (7), the diagonal line in the eye of the letter N (14) in the word JUNA has led Fučić as a lead to the diagonal line in the letter (7), and notice that a carver has made an obvious mistake, carving at the wrong place a following semivowel. Now, after the word TĚHA word SINЪ "son" can be read, which matches to FILIUS "son" from the Latin text—and in the remaining group of letters VЪKЪ one should assume contracted NU in order to read VЪNЪKU "grandson", in order to match the word from Latin text.
The Glagolitic inscription of the Valun tablet is thus:
| T | Ě | H | A | S | I | N | Ъ | V | Ъ | (NU) | K | Ъ | JU | N | A | |||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
Read more about this topic: Valun Tablet
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“Don Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?
Claudio. Yes, and text underneath, “Here dwells Benedick, the married man?””
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)