ISic001031: Dedication recording board of magistrates

I.Sicily with the permission of the Assessorato Regionale dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana - Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana

ID: ISic001031
Language: Ancient Greek
Text type: dedication; list of magistrates
Object type: base
Status: draft
Links: View in current site

Edition

Apparatus criticus

Text after Pugliese Carratelli 1956

Physical description

Support

Description: Large quadrangular block of offwhite limestone, in the form of a base. Intact on all sides, but extensive minor damage to the exposed edges. The base is finished smooth. A modern spike projects from the base, presumably for an earlier display mounting. The front face is recessed , with a projecting moulding across top and bottom, and the inscription filling the recessed face. The recessed face, with mouldings above and below, is continued onto the front half of each of the left and right sides (to a depth of 19.5 cm on the left, 19 cm on the right); the rear portion of each side of the block returns to the 'original' surface level, and is only roughly picked flat, implying that the block was inserted into a wall or monument, projecting out for only half its depth. The top is flat, with a central panel front to back that is smooth (c.30 cm wide); the right side of the top is slightly lower front to back and also smooth, while the left portion is more roughly finished. There are no indications of fixing holes of any sort on the upper surface.
Object type: base
Material: limestone
Object condition: damaged
Dimensions: height: 25 cm, width: 52.5 cm, depth: 41.5 cm

Inscription

Layout: Line 1 is inscribed across the upper moulding (which is heavily damaged); the remainder of the text is engraved on the recessed front face, in two columns. The spacing between the columns after the first line is very irregular; column 2 has a half-line gap after line 2, meaning that the lines in the two columns are vertically out of synch after this point.
Text condition: partly_illegible
Technique: chiselled
Pigment: No data
Lettering: Neatly carved and regular letters, mostly without serifs, but some terminal wedges. Alpha with straight bar; epsilon on occasion has a slightly shorter mid-bar; zeta in form of I with wide horizontals; theta has short detached cross-bar; kappa has full-length arms; mu has vertical first and last, full length mid-strokes; xsi has three equal horiztonal bars; omicron is only slightly smaller than the other letters; pi has extended horizontal; rho has small rounded closed eye; sigma has horizontal top and bottom, with slihgtly variable mid-strokes; phi has small oval eye, with vertical often extended; omega is notably variable, always closed, but ranging from tear-drop to full circle on or even above and detached from the base line.
Letter heights: Line 1: 18mm; Line 2-23: 11-15 (with omicron down to 9 and phi up to 20)mm
Interlinear heights: Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Acrae
Provenance found: First published by G. Amati in 1827, on the basis of apographs of the Danish scholar Børge Thorlacius made when travelling in Sicily. This and other inscriptions were in the possession of the Baron Gabriele Iudica, who was responsible for their discovery in ancient Akrai.

Current location

Place: Palazzolo Acreide, Italy
Repository: Museo Archeologico Gabriele Judica , 2238
Autopsy: Prag, 2023-05-11
Map

Date

Later third or second century BCE on palaeographic grounds. (250 BC - 101 BC)

Evidence: lettering

Text type

dedication; list of magistrates

commentary

Bibliography

Digital editions

Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Jonathan Prag

Contributors

Last revision

11/3/2025