Negau helmets

The village of Ženjak was of great interest to German archaeologists during the Nazi period and was briefly renamed Harigast during World War II.

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 Hariχasti teiva, 'Harigast the priest' (from *teiwaz '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 Hariχasti.

However, Jeremy J. Smith argues that there are major problems with seeing the helmet as conclusive evidence for such a development.

[1][further explanation needed] The four discrete inscriptions on the helmet usually called "Negau A" are read by Markey (2001) as: Dubni banuabi 'of Dubnos the pig-slayer'; sirago turbi 'astral priest of the troop'; Iars'e esvii 'Iarsus the divine'; and Kerup, probably an abbreviation for a Celtic name like Cerubogios.