The inscriptions are dated 600 B.C. and were discovered by Heinrich Dressel in 1880 on the Quirinal written on the outside of a kernos that is now in the Berlin State Museums.

The inscription is ordered from right to left, articulated in three sentences, with no spaces between words. The inscription is particularly difficult to understand because it is written in an unfamiliar language and especially because of the lack of spaces between the letters, which may allow for different interpretations for the phrases. The Dueno vase is a trilobate, that is, it consists of three vases joined together (as can be seen in the image). In it there is thought to have been an ointment that acted as a love potion.

The inscription reads:

IOVE|SATDEIVOSQOIMEDMITATNEITEDENDOCOSMISVIRCOSIED / ASTEDNOISIOPETOITESIAIPACARIVOIS / DVENOSMEDFECEDENMANOMEINOMDVENOINEMEDMALOSTATOD
The transcription of which in archaic Latin could be:

iovesat deivos qoi med mitat nei ted endo cosmis virco sied
asted noisi opetoi tesiai pacari vois
duenos med feced en manom einom duenoi ne med malos tatod
iurat deos qui me mitat ni in te comis virgo sit.
At te nisi [OPETOITESIAI] pacari vis.
Bonus me fecit in [MANOM EINOM] bono. ne me malus tollito.
In Italian, the most accredited translation is as follows:

He who sends me prays to the gods that no virgin be your companion.
If thou wilt not be satisfied by the work of Toteria.
A good man made me, and for my sake into the hands of that good man let no evil return.
Analysis and interpretation
Edit
The Dueno vase belongs to the category of so-called “speaking objects” of Etruscan tradition: in the archaic Latin world it was a widespread custom to engrave on handcrafted objects a first-person phrase, through which the object itself seemed to explain its characteristics or the name of the client or the person to whom it was given as a gift. Dueno’s vase was probably made by a woman for a lover who had rejected her; at the same time, the craftsman who made it wants to distance himself from the anathema, and he writes this clearly in the third sentence.

The inscription engraved on the Dueno vases bears archaic alphabetical forms, which are still affected by Greek and Etruscan influences. Unlike other examples of archaic Latin, such as the inscription on the Fibula prenestina, the three inscriptions have no punctuation marks, and some letters are dashed in peculiar forms:

The letter M is incised with the addition of a fifth final stroke;
the F has a third horizontal stroke;
The straight stroke of the Q is vertical and not diagonal;
The P and R are almost identical: the only difference between the two is that the curved stroke of the P does not join at the bottom with the vertical shaft.
Linguistically, too, the inscription has some peculiarities: the name Tutera (or Toteria), probably that of the patron, is spelled “Toitesiai,” with the S in place of the R, revealing that the inscription predates the period of rotacism. The meaning of the word “duenos” is debated: currently, it is thought to be an archaism of the adjective “bonus.” However, there are those who read into it the name Dueno, which would be that of the craftsman who actually made the vase, according to the typical tradition of “talking objects”: hence the name by which it is known to most.