Lepontii

{{Short description|Ancient Celtic people of the Alps}}

{{Expand Italian|Leponzi|date=April 2012}}

File:Römische Provinzen im Alpenraum ca 14 n Chr.png and north of Gallia Transpadana]]

File:Historische Karte CH Helvet.png (orange) and Rhaetic (green) settlements in Switzerland]] The Lepontii were an ancient Celtic people{{Cite journal|last=Walser|first=Gerold|date=2006|title=Lepontii|journal=Brill's New Pauly|doi=10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e701750|quote=A Celtic tribe in the Central Alps}}John T. Koch (ed.) Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia ABC-CLIO (2005), pp. 1142–1143 {{ISBN|978-1-85109-440-0}} occupying portions of Rhaetia (in modern Switzerland and Northern Italy) in the Alps during the late Bronze Age/Iron Age. Recent archeological excavations and their association with the Golasecca culture (9th-7th centuries BC) and Canegrate culture (13th century BC){{cite book|last1=Percivaldi|first1=Elena|title=I Celti: una civiltà europea|date=2003|location=Firenze|pages=22}} point to a Celtic affiliation. From the analysis of their languageM. Lejeune, Lepontica, Parigi 1971. and the place names of the old Lepontic areas,{{cite book|last1=Sciarretta|first1=Antonio|title=Toponomastica d'Italia. Nomi di luoghi, storie di popoli antichi|year=2010|publisher=Mursia|location=Milano|isbn=978-88-425-4017-5|pages=143–173}} it was hypothesized that these people represent a layer similar to that Celtic but previous to the Gallic penetration in the Po valley. The suggestion has been made that the Lepontii may have been celticized Ligurians.{{cite book|title=The Cambridge Ancient History: Plates, New ed.|date=1988|publisher=University Press|pages=718}}

The chief towns of the Lepontii were Oscela, now Domodossola, Italy, and Bilitio, now Bellinzona, Switzerland. Their territory included the southern slopes of the St. Gotthard Pass and Simplon Pass, corresponding roughly to present-day Ossola and Ticino.

A [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Maps/Periods/Roman/Places/Europe/Rhaetia/1.html map of Rhaetia] shows the location of the Lepontic territory, in the south-western corner of Rhaetia. The area to the south, including what was to become the Insubrian capital Mediolanum (modern Milan), was Etruscan around 600-500 BC, when the Lepontii began writing tombstone inscriptions in their alphabet, one of several Etruscan-derived alphabets in the Rhaetian territory.