ISic002128: Dedication of a marble basin
No image available
- ID
- ISic002128
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- dedication
- Object type
- basin
- Status
- draft
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text of Ferrua
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A large stone krater, or vase, with simple pedestal foot, rim, and two handles. Judged by Ferrua to be a compact local limestone, rather than a marble. The text is heavily worn and not entirely legible
- Object type
- basin
- Object condition
- complete
- Dimensions
- height: 77 cm, width: 80 cm, depth: cm
Material
- Description
- limestone
Inscription
- Layout
- Three lines of text, on one side of the basin, with line 1 on the outside of the rim, and lines 2-3 on the belly of the krater below the rim.
- Text condition
- deteriorated
- Technique
- chiselled
- Pigment
- No data
- Lettering
Large, quite finely cut Greek letters: Alpha with straight bar, Epsilon with shorter middle bar, theta and omicron full size, xsi of the form of a Z with split and curled diagonal, standard four-bar sigma, omega of classical form, partly open.
- Letter heights
- Line 1: mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Syracusae
- Provenance found
- First seen and described by Ottavio Gaetani (1566-1620), who observed it in the chapel of Castello Maniace (Ortygia), but who recorded that it had previously been transported there by the spanish commander, from the church of St. John (i.e. the catacombs of S. Giovanni); it was then moved to the Duomo in 1644 and after the earthquake of 1693 replaced the old baptismal font.
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Sicilia
- Repository
- Duomo di Siracusa
- Autopsy
- None
Date
Possibly Hellenistic in date? (250 BC - 1 BC)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
This is a preliminary record, reporting the reading of Ferrua, and some of the primary bibliography. Fresh autopsy is required. The inscription has an unfortunate history, recounted fully by Ferrua, such that it was rapidly transformed into a text associated with a later Christian tradition and supposely recording its dedication as a font for baptism (through the insertion by Gualtherus/Mirabella, of the word βαπτισματος into line 1). Consequently, although included in CIG by Kirchhoff, it was completely omitted by Kaibel (on the view that it was 8th century or later), and has been almost entirely ignored since. As Ferrua notes, on this occasion Torremuzza was a much more reliable witness than Gualtherus. The text clearly contains reference to a dedication (ἀνάθημα) and to the object itself, τὸν κρατῆρα. Line 2 appears to contain the name of the dedicant. Line 1 likely contained the name of the divinity to whom the object was dedicated
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: -
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- G. Gualtherus, Siciliae obiacentium insular et Bruttiorum antiquae tabulae cum animadversionibus Georgii Gualtheri (Panormi, 1624), at 204
- G. Gualtherus, Siciliæ obiacentium insular. et Bruttiorum antiquæ tabulæ, cum animadversionib (Messanae: apvd Petrvs Bream, 1624), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Gualtieri1624, at 98
- Gabriele Lancillotto Castelli principe di Torremuzza, Siciliae et objacentium insularum veterum inscriptionum nova collectio (Panormus: Excudebat Cajetanus Maria Bentivenga, 1769), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Castelli1769, at cl.17 no.1
- Gabriello Lancellotto Castelli Principe di Torremuzza, Siciliae et objacentium insularum veterum inscriptionum nova collectio prolegomenis et notis illustrata, et iterum cum emendationibus, & auctariis evulgata, 2nd (1st is 1769) (Palermo: typis regiis, 1784), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Castelli1784, at cl.17 no.1
- Giuseppe Maria Capodieci, Antichi monumenti di Siracusa (Siracusa, 1813), https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Antichi_monumenti_di_Siracusa, at vol. 1, §25, pp. 121-126
- E. Curtius, A. Kirchhoff, and H. Roehl, Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum IV. Pars XXXIX. Inscriptiones locorum incertorum. Pars XL. Inscriptiones christianae. Indices (1877)., vol. 4, 4 vols, Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin: Ex Officina Academica, 1877), at 8886
- Antonio Ferrua, «Nuovi studi nelle catacombe di Siracusa», Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 17 (1940): 43–81, at 74-81
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 3/2/2026