. On one of the helmets ("Negau B"), there is an inscription in a
northern Etruscan alphabet. The date of the inscription is unclear, but it may be as old as 350–300 BC (Teržan 2012). It is read,
right-to-left, as: ///--> : : Many interpretations of the inscription have been proffered in the past, but the most recent interpretation is by Tom Markey (2001), who reads the inscription as , 'Harigast the priest' (from 'god'), as another inscribed helmet also found at the site bears several names (mostly
Celtic) followed by religious titles. Markey believes the text is
Germanic mediated through
Rhaetic which accounts for some of the difficulties in the reading, such as the lack of a declensional ending in the first element . In any case, the Germanic name is almost universally read. Formerly, some scholars have seen the inscription as an early incarnation of the
runic alphabet, but it is now accepted that the script is North Etruscan proper, and precedes the formation of the Runic alphabet. This inscription has been of particular interest to
historical linguists, since it has been argued that it provides the earliest attestation of
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift), the sound shift which distinguishes the Germanic languages from other
Indo-European languages. If is a Germanic cognate of Latin 'god', it would reflect Grimm's shift > . This would be the earliest attestation of the shift, which would have relevance for the dating. However,
Jeremy J. Smith argues that there are major problems with seeing the helmet as conclusive evidence for such a development. The four discrete inscriptions on the helmet usually called "Negau A" are read by Markey (2001) as: 'of Dubnos the pig-slayer'; 'astral priest of the troop'; 'Iarsus the divine'; and , probably an abbreviation for a Celtic name like Cerubogios. ==See also==