IGUANODON

iguanodon, a large extinct herbivorous land reptile from the wealden formation of western europe, almost completely known by numerous skeletons from bernissart, near mons, belgium. it is a typical representative of the ornithopodous (gr. for bird-footed) dinosauria. the head is large and laterally compressed with a blunt snout, nearly terminal nostrils and relatively small eyes. the sides of the jaws are provided with a close series of grinding teeth, which are often worn down to stumps; the front of the jaws forms a toothless beak, which would be encased originally in a horny sheath. when unworn the teeth are spatulate and crimped or serrated round the edge, closely resembling those of the existing central american lizard, _iguana_--hence the name _iguanodon_ (gr. iguana-tooth) proposed by mantell, the discoverer of this reptile, in 1825. the bodies of the vertebrae are solid; and they are convexo-concave (i.e. _opisthocoelous_) in the neck and anterior part of the back, where there must have been much freedom of motion. the hindquarters are comparatively large and heavy, while the tail is long, deep and more or less laterally compressed, evidently adapted for swimming. the small and mobile fore-limbs bear four complete fingers, with the thumb reduced to a bony spur. the pelvis and hind-limbs much resemble those of a running bird, such as those of an emu or the extinct moa; but the basal bones (metatarsals) of the three-toed foot remain separate throughout life, thus differing from those of the running birds, which are firmly fused together even in the young adult. no external armour has been found. the reptile doubtless frequented marshes, feeding on the succulent vegetation, and often swimming in the water. footprints prove that when on land it walked habitually on its hind-limbs. [illustration: skeleton of _iguanadon bernissartensis_. (after dollo.)] the earliest remains of _iguanodon_ were found by dr g. a. mantell in the wealden formation of sussex, and a large part of the skeleton, lacking the head, was subsequently discovered in a block of ragstone in the lower greensand near maidstone, kent. these fossils, which are now in the british museum, were interpreted by dr mantell, who made comparisons with the skeleton of _iguana_, on the erroneous supposition that the resemblance in the teeth denoted some relationship to this existing lizard. several of the bones, however, could not be understood until the much later discoveries of mr s. h. beckles in the wealden cliffs near hastings; and an accurate knowledge of the skeleton was only obtained when many complete specimens were disinterred by the belgian government from the wealden beds at bernissart, near mons, during the years 1877-1880. these skeletons, which now form the most striking feature of the brussels museum, evidently represent a large troop of animals which were suddenly destroyed and buried in a deep ravine or gully. the typical species, _iguanodon mantelli_, measures 5 to 6 metres in length, while _i. bernissartensis_ (see fig.) attains a length of 8 to 10 metres. they are found both at bernissart and in the south of england, while other species are also known from sussex. nearly complete skeletons of allied reptiles have been discovered in the jurassic and cretaceous rocks of north america. references.--g. a. mantell, _petrifactions and their teaching_ (london, 1851); l. dollo, papers in _bull. mus. roy. d'hist. nat. belg._, vols. i.-iii. (1882-1884). (a. s. wo.) iguvium (mod. gubbio, q.v.), a town of umbria, situated among the mountains, about 23 m. n.n.e. of perusia and connected with it by a by-road, which joined the via flaminia near the temple of jupiter appenninus, at the modern scheggia. it appears to have been an important place in pre-roman times, both from its coins and from the celebrated _tabulae iguvinae_ (see below). we find it in possession of a treaty with rome, similar to that of the camertes umbri; and in 167 b.c. it was used as a place of safe custody for the illyrian king gentius and his sons (livy xlv. 43). after the social war, in which it took no part, it received roman citizenship. at that epoch it must have received full citizen rights since it was included in the tribus clustumina (_c.i.l._ xi. e.g. 5838). in 49 b.c. it was occupied by minucius thermus on behalf of pompey, but he abandoned the town. under the empire we hear almost nothing of it. silius italicus mentions it as subject to fogs. a bishop of iguvium is mentioned as early as a.d. 413. it was taken and destroyed by the goths in 552, but rebuilt with the help of narses. the umbrian town had three gates only, and probably lay on the steep mountain side as the present town does, while the roman city lay in the lower ground. here is the theatre, which, as an inscription records, was restored by cn. satrius rufus in the time of augustus. the diameter of the orchestra is 761⁄2 ft. and of the whole 230 ft., so that it is a building of considerable size; the stage is well preserved and so are parts of the external arcades of the auditorium. not far off are ruins probably of ancient baths, and the concrete core of a large tomb with a vaulted chamber within. (t. as.) of latin inscriptions (_c.i.l._ xi. 5803-5926) found at iguvium two or three are of augustan date, but none seem to be earlier. a latin inscription of iguvium (_c.i.l._ xi. 5824) mentions a priest whose functions are characteristic of the place "l. veturius rufio avispex extispecus, sacerdos publicus et privatus." the ancient town is chiefly celebrated for the famous _iguvine_ (less correctly _eugubine_) _tables_, which were discovered there in 1444, bought by the municipality in 1456, and are still preserved in the town hall. a dominican, leandro alberti (_descrizione d'italia_, 1550), states that they were originally nine in number, and an independent authority, antonio concioli (_statuta civitatis eugubii_, 1673), states that two of the nine were taken to venice in 1540 and never reappeared. the existing seven were first published in a careful but largely mistaken transcript by buonarotti in 1724, as an appendix to dempster's _de etruria regali_.[1] the first real advance towards their interpretation was made by otfried muller (_die etrusker_, 1828), who pointed out that though their alphabet was akin to the etruscan their language was italic. lepsius, in his essay _de tabulis eugubinis_ (1833), finally determined the value of the umbrian signs and the received order of the tables, pointing out that those in latin alphabet were the latest. he subsequently published what may be called the _editio princeps_ in 1841. the first edition, with a full commentary based on scientific principles, was that of aufrecht and kirchhoff in 1849-1851, and on this all subsequent interpretations are based (breal, paris, 1875; bucheler, _umbrica_, bonn, 1883, a reprint and enlargement of articles in fleckeisen's _jahrbuch_, 1875, pp. 127 and 313). the text is everywhere perfectly legible, and is excellently represented in photographs by the marquis ranghiasci-brancaleone, published with breal's edition. _language._--the dialect in which this ancient set of liturgies is written is usually known as umbrian, as it is the only monument we possess of any length of the tongue spoken in the umbrian district before it was latinized (see umbria). the name, however, is certainly too wide, since an inscription from tuder of, probably, the 3rd century b.c. (r. s. conway, _the italic dialects_, 352) shows a final -_s_ and a medial -_d_-, both apparently preserved from the changes which befell these sounds, as we shall see, in the dialect of iguvium. on the other hand, inscriptions of fulginia and assisium (ibid. 354-355) agree very well, so far as they go, with iguvine. it is especially necessary to make clear that the language known as umbrian is that of a certain limited area, which cannot yet be shown to have extended very far beyond the eastern half of the tiber valley (from interamna nahartium to urvinum mataurense), because the term is often used by archaeologists with a far wider connotation to include all the italic, pre-etruscan inhabitants of upper italy; professor ridgeway, for instance, in his _early age of greece_, frequently speaks of the "umbrians" as the race to which belonged the villanova culture of the early iron age. it is now one of the most urgent problems in the history of italy to determine the actual historical relation (see further rome: _history, ad. init._) between the [greek: 'ombroi] of, say, herodotus and the language of iguvium, of which we may now offer some description, using the term umbrian strictly in this sense. under the headings latin language and osca lingua there have been collected (1) the points which separate all the italic languages from their nearest congeners, and (2) those which separate osco-umbrian from latin. we have now to notice (3) the points in which umbrian has diverged from oscan. the first of them antedates by six or seven centuries the similar change in the romance languages (see romance languages). (1) the palatalization of _k_ and _g_ before a following _i_ or _e_, or consonant _i_ as in _ticit_ (i.e. _dicit_) = lat. _decet_; _muieto_ past part. passive (pronounced as though the _i_ were an english or french _j_) beside umb. imperative _mugatu_, lat. _mugire_. (2) the loss of final -_d_, e.g. in the abl. sing. fem. umb. _tota_ = osc. _toutad_. (3) the change of _d_ between vowels to a sound akin to _r_, written by a special symbol q (_d_) in umbrian alphabet and by rs in latin alphabet, e.g. _teda_ in umbrian alphabet = _dirsa_ in latin alphabet (see below), "let him give," exactly equivalent to paelignian _dida_ (see paeligni). (4) the change of -_s_- to -_r_- between vowels as in _erom_, "esse" = osc. _ezum_, and the gen. plur. fem. ending in -_aru_ = lat. -_arum_, osc. -_azum_. to this there appear a long string of exceptions, e.g. _asa_ = lat. _ara_. these are generally regarded as mere archaisms, and unfortunately the majority of them are in words of whose origin and meaning very little is known, so that (for all we can tell) in many the -_s_- may represent -_ss_- or -_ps_- as in _osatu_ = lat. _operato_, cf. osc. _opsaom_. (5) the change of final -_ns_ to -_f_ as in the acc. plur. masc. _vitluf_ = lat. _vitulos_. (6) in the latest stage of the dialect (see below) the change of final -_s_ to -_r_, as in abl. plur. _arver_, _arviis_, i.e. "arvorum frugibus." (7) the decay of all diphthongs; _ai_, _oi_, _ei_ all become a monophthong variously written _e_ and _i_ (rarely _ei_), as in the dat. sing. fem. _tote_, "civitati"; dat. sing. masc. _pople_, "populo"; loc. sing. masc. _onse_ (from *_om(e)sei_), "in umero." so _au_, _eu_, _ou_ all become _o_, as in _ote_ = osc. _auti_, lat. _aut_. (8) the change of initial _l_ to _v_, as in _vutu_ = lat. _lavito_. owing to the peculiar character of the tables no grammatical statement about umbrian is free from difficulty; and these bare outlines of its phonology must be supplemented by reference to the lucid discussion in c. d. buck's _oscan and umbrian grammar_ (boston, 1904), or to the earlier and admirably complete _oskischumbrische grammatik_ of r. von planta (strassburg, 1892-1897). some of the most important questions are discussed by r. s. conway in _the italic dialects_, vol. ii. p. 495 seq. save for the consequences of these phonetic changes, umbrian morphology and syntax exhibit no divergence from oscan that need be mentioned here, save perhaps two peculiar perfect-formations with -_l_- and -_nci_-; as in _ampelust_, fut. perf. "impenderit," _combifianciust_, "nuntiaverit" (or the like). full accounts of the accidence and syntax, so far as it is represented in the inscriptions, will be found in the grammars of buck and von planta already mentioned, and in the second volume of conway, _op. cit._ _chronology._ (i.) _the relative dates of the tables._--at least four periods in the history of the dialect can be distinguished in the records we have left to us, by the help of the successive changes (a) in alphabet and (b) in language, which the tables exhibit. of these only the outstanding features can be mentioned here; for a fuller discussion the reader must be referred to _the italic dialects_, pp. 400 sqq. (a) _changes in alphabet._--observe first that tables i., ii., iii. and iv., and the first two inscriptions of v. are in umbrian character; the latin alphabet is used in the _claverniur_ paragraph (v. iii.), and the whole of vi. (_a_ and _b_) and vii. (_a_ and _b_). what we may call the normal umbrian alphabet (in which e.g. table i. _a_ is written) consists of the following signs, the writing being always from right to left: [symbols: a a, b b, d d] (i.e. a sound akin to _r_ derived from _d_), [symbols: e e, f v, z z, h h, i i, k k] and g, [symbols: l l, m m, n n, p p, r r, s s x t] and d, v u and o, [symbols: f f, s s] (i.e. a voiceless palatal consonant.) in the latin alphabet, in which tables vi. and vii. and the third inscription of table v. are written, _d_ is represented by rs, _g_ by g, but _k_ by c, _d_ by d, _t_ by t, _v_ and _u_ by v but _o_ by o, s by s, though the diacritic is often omitted. the interpunct is double with the umbrian alphabet, single and medial with the latin. tables vi. and vii., then, and v. iii., were written later than the rest. but even in the earlier group certain variations appear. the latest form of the umbrian alphabet is that of table v. i. and ii., where the abbreviated form of _m_ (^) and the angular and undivided form of _k_ ([symbols: k not k] are especially characteristic. nearest to this is that of tables iii. and iv., which form a single document; then that of i. (a) and (b); earliest would seem that of ii. (a) and ii. (b). in ii. _a_, 18 and 24, we have the archaic letter _san_ (m = _s_) of the abecedaria (e. s. roberts, _int. gr. epig._ pp. 17 ff.), which appears in no other italic nor in any chalcidian inscription, though it survived longer in etruscan and venetic use. against this may be set the use of [symbol: o] for _t_ in i. _b_ 1, but this appears also in iv. 20 and should be called rather etruscan than archaic. these characteristics of ii. _a_ and _b_ would be in themselves too slight to prove an earlier date, but they have perhaps some weight as confirming the evidence of the language. (b) _changes in language._--the evidence of date derived from changes in the language is more difficult to formulate, and the inquiry calls for the most diligent use of scientific method and critical judgment. its intricacy lies in the character of the documents before us--religious formularies consisting partly of matter established in usage long before they were written down in their present shape, partly of additions made at the time of writing. the best example of this is furnished by the expansion and modernisation of the subject-matter of table i. into tables vi. and vii._a_. hence we frequently meet with forms which had passed out of the language that was spoken at the time they were engraved, side by side with their equivalents in that language. we may distinguish four periods, as follows: 1. the first period is represented, not by any complete table, but by the old unmodernised forms of tables iii. and iv., which show the original guttural plosives unpalatalized, e.g. _kebu_ = lat. _cibum_. 2. in the second period the gutturals have been palatalized, but there yet is no change of final _s_ to _r_. this is represented by the rest of iii. and iv. and by ii. (_a_ and _b_). 3. in the third period final _s_ has everywhere become _r_. this appears in v. (i. and ii. and also iii.). table i. is a copy or redraft made from older documents during this period. this is shown by the occasional appearance of _r_ instead of final _s_. 4. soon after the dialect had reached its latest form, the latin alphabet was adopted. tables vi. and vii._a_ contain an expanded form of the same liturgical direction as table i. it is probable that further research will amend this classification in detail, but its main lines are generally accepted. (ii.) _actual date of the tables._--only the leading points can be mentioned here. (i.) the latin alphabet of the latest tables resembles that of the _tabula bantina_, and might have been engraved at almost any time between 150 b.c. and 50 b.c. it is quite likely that the closer relations with rome, which began after the social war, led to the adoption of the latin alphabet. hence we should infer that the tables in umbrian alphabet were at all events older than 90 b.c. (ii.) for an upper limit of date, in default of definite evidence, it seems imprudent to go back beyond the 5th century b.c., since neither in rome nor campania have we any evidence of public written documents of any earlier century. when more is known of the earliest etruscan inscriptions it may become possible to date the iguvine tables by their alphabetic peculiarities as compared with their mother-alphabet, the etruscan. the "tuscan name" is denounced in the comprehensive curse of table vi. b, 53-60, and we may infer that the town of iguvium was independent but in fear of the etruscans at the time when the curse was first composed. the absence of all mention of either gauls or romans seems to prove that this time was at least earlier than 400 b.c.; and the curse may have been composed long before it was written down. the chief sources in which further information may be sought have been already mentioned. (r. s. c.) footnote: [1] a portion of this article is taken by permission from r. s. conway's _italic dialects_ (camb. univ. press, 1897). ijolite (derived from the first syllable of the finnish words _jiwaru_, _jijoki_, &c., common as geographical names in the kola peninsula, and the gr. [greek: lithos], a stone), a rock consisting essentially of nepheline and augite, and of great rarity, but of considerable importance from a mineralogical and petrographical standpoint. it occurs in various parts of the kola peninsula in north finland on the shores of the white sea. the pyroxene is morphic, yellow or green, and is surrounded by formless areas of nepheline. the accessory minerals are apatite, cancrinite, calcite, titanite and jiwaarite, a dark-brown titaniferous variety of melanite-garnet. this rock is the plutonic and holocrystalline analogue of the nephelenites and nepheline-dolerites; it bears the same relation to them as the nepheline-syenites have to the phonolites. it is worth mentioning that a leucite-augite rock, resembling ijolite except in containing leucite in place of nepheline, is known to occur at shonkin creek, near fort benton, montana, and has been called missourite.