The most ancient Latin inscription found so far is the so-called Prenestine Fibula, going back to the VII century B.C. It says:

Manios med fhefhaked Numasioi
Manios made me for Numasios

Fhefhaked is a doubled Indo-European preterite (that can be found in the Oscan inscription of Bantia), while the preterite form of later Latin originates from the ancient aorist. The Latin form feced can be found in the Vase of Duenos, which was made a century later. The dative form -oi in Numasioi is typical of the Oscan language (against Latin -o), while the form of the personal pronoun med is Latin indeed (see: Devoto, G.: Storia della lingua di Roma. 2nd ed. Bologna. 1944, 62).

Classical Latin writers mention the fact that archaic Latin could not be easily understood. An echo of this can be found in Horatius (Ep. II, I:53) and Plautus (Ars Poet. 270 ff). Polybios reports that he was unable to read the text of the first treaty between Rome and Carthage. He therefore had to ask for the help of learned Romans (Polybios, III:22). The same is true for the treaties between Romans and Latins that were written in the VI and V century before our era (Dionysus of Halicarnassus IV:26 and IV:28; Plinius, Naturalis Historia, XXXIV:14) and the treaty between Rome and Ardea (Cicero, Pro Balbo, 23.53).

The Vase of Duenos is a good example of an obscure Latin inscription:

iovesatdeivosqoimedmitatneitedendocosmisvircosied
astednoisiopetoitesiaipacarivois
dvenosmedfecedenmanomeinomdzenoinemedmaostatod

The meaning of the last sentence was interpreted as: "Dueno made me on good purpose, Dueno should suffer no harm".

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