ISic003013: Statue of Demeter with inscribed base
- ID
- ISic003013
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- dedication; list of magistrates
- Object type
- statue
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
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Apparatus criticus
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A limestone statue of Demeter, holding a large torch in right hand and a piglet in her left. The rear of the stone is cut straight and the statue is in full relief rather than free-standing, with the stone left intact below to form a pedastal.
- Object type
- statue
- Material
- limestone
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 62 cm, width: 30.3 cm, depth: 17 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The text is engraved over six lines on a flat field 30.3 cm wide and 12-13 cm high. The left and right sides of this field are cut smooth, the upper and lower edges are uneven. The lower right and left corners are slightly damaged. The inscription is intact apart from damage to the middle of line 1 where the upper front edge of the plinth has been damaged. There is a clear vacat to the bottom and right of the text. The first line is larger and extends to left and right of the rest of the text. Lines 2-6 have a consistent left margin.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 8-13mm
- Lines 2-6: 5-9mm
- Interlinear heights
- : ?mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Borgellusa di Avola
- Provenance found
- Contrada Bargalluzzo (Borgellusa di Avola), Oct. 1954, chance find
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 54224
- Autopsy
- Depositi, mag. B
- Map
Date
2nd century BCE (so Manganaro 2009) (200 BC – 100 BC)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The statue is one of three found together close to the coast at Contrada Borgelusa di Avola, in the immediate vicinity of the site of a first-century BC Roman villa (which had an earlier Hellenistic building underneath). The other two statues are Kore and a youthful Herakles. Demeter holds a huge torch in her right hand and piglet in left. The inscription lists five prostatai (guardians of the shrine)of Damater (Demeter). The first three names are Latin / Roman: Gaius Orceius, Gaius Sulpicius, and Lucius Caulius. Gentili (1954) records the discovery; a Roman villa was subsequently excavated in the immediate vicinity. Manganaro (2009) is the most recent discussion, dating the statue to the second century BC.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645361
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 71000788
- PHI: 331248
- Printed editions
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 34.0981
- G.V. Gentili, «2792. Avola. Ritrovamenti vari.», Fasti Archaeologici 9 (1954): 204 fasc.2792.
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Per la storia dei culti nella Sicilia greca», Cronache di archeologia e di storia dell’arte 16 (1977): 148–64, at 159 ph
- G. M. Bacci, «Avola (1980-1983) - Villa ellenistico-romana in contrada Borgellusa», Kokalos 30–31, fasc. 2.2 (1985 1984): 711–13, at 713
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Noto greca e romana:fonti storiografiche,epigrafi e pseudo-monete», in Contributi alla geografia storica dell’agro netino. Atti delle Giornate di Studio. Noto, Palazzo Trigona, 29-31 maggio 1998, a c. di F. Balsamo e V. La Rosa (Rosolini, 2001), 73–96, at 86 no.V
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Divinità femminili nell’area peloritana e siracusana e l’emergenza di italici nella sicilia tardo ellenistica», Sicilia Antiqua 6 (2009): 111–16, at 114 ph
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Simona Stoyanova
- system
- Last revision
- 3/21/2023