ISic003387: Funerary inscription for Nikasis, son of Aristokrates
- ID
- ISic003387
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- block
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Line.1: The lower portion of a vertical stroke can be made out before the kappa, but nothing more.
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A slightly tapering rectangular block of yellow grey limestone: height 440 mm (the front face is preserved to a maximum height of 435 mm); width 305 mm at the top, 320 mm at the base (measured across the front); depth 275 mm. All four faces are finished, although the left face is somewhat less well finished than the others. The base is rough and unfinished; the top has a roughly worked surface set back from the edge on all four sides, which implies either that a continuation of the stone was subsequently removed from the upper part of the block, or that another stone was previously attached to the top of the block. A painted red band, 85 mm high and slightly proud of the surface, begins some 40 mm below the top of the stone and runs horizontally across the front and right faces of the stone (but there is no trace of this on the rear or left sides). On the front face, below the red band, there is a very lightly recessed field, 205 mm high. This field contains two lines of Greek letters in very light relief . The inscribed field is bordered below by a series of uneven horizontal striations, and there is blank space below this to the base of the stone (the lower edge of the front face is damaged and irregular). There is light damage to all the edges of the stone, including a significant chip to the left margin of the front face and two substantial gouges in the upper left of the front face of the stone, extending from the red band into the inscribed field.
- Object type
- block
- Material
- limestone
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 44 cm, width: 32 cm, depth: 27.5 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Two lines of Greek letters in very light relief, centred in a slightly recessed field in the middle of the front face.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 35mm
- Line 2: 32-33mm
- Interlinear heights
- Not measured: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Syracusae
- Provenance found
- Original discovery not recorded.
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 104851
- Autopsy
- basement corridor
- Map
Date
Hellenistic, 3rd century (by letter form) (300 BC – 200 BC)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
In addition to the damage to the upper left edge of the inscribed field, it is also clear from line 2 that the left edge of the text is more heavily weathered and therefore fainter (the initial alpha is visible in strongly raking light, but very faint). In line 1, the lower portion of a vertical stroke can be made out before the kappa, but nothing more. The spacing of line 1 makes it effectively certain that two letters are missing before the kappa. The most plausible restoration is Νικασίς, of which a dozen instances are known, predominantly of the Hellenistic period and including examples from Rhodes and western Greece (which puts it in the broader Sicilian orbit). The form Νικασίς is not attested in Sicily itself, but the more common name Νικασίων is well attested in Sicily, with one instance at Adranon, two at Akrai, one at Henna, two at Lipara, and one at Tauromenion. The patronym, Ἀριστοκράτης, is extremely common, including ten instances in Sicily.
The use of relief lettering and bichromatic colouring on alternate letters are both extremely rare in classical epigraphy. Attested examples of both features are discussed in detail in Prag 2017. Relief lettering is not otherwise attested in Sicily (except on a couple of examples of engraved river stones), and the clearest parallels can be found in late Hellenistic funerary epigraphy from western Greece (Corcyra, Ambracia, Apollonia, etc.). Bichrome painted letters are also found in a funerary inscription from Lilybaeum (Marsala) - ISic003662 - but are generally very unusual. A number of examples are attested in funerary inscriptions from ancient Lycia.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645658
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Association pour l’encouragement des études greques, « Bulletin épigraphique », Revue des études grecques, 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/797735566, at 2018.0516
- J.R.W. Prag, ‘Un Unpublished Funerary Inscription with Bichrome Painted Relief Lettering from Hellenistic Syracuse (I.Sicily 3387)’, Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 203 (2017): 119–30.
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- system
- Simona Stoyanova
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021