ISic003403: Fragment of a monumental Greek inscription
Edition
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Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A large block of compact limestone (described by Orsi as 'calcare di Canicattini'), rectangular, chiselled roughly flat on each side. Note that Orsi's measurements in the Taccuini report a depth of 90 cm, but he also states that when it was removed from its location in the Ortygia fortifications it was 'segata' prior to transportation to the museum; so the inference must be that the rear two-thirds of the block were cut away prior to transportation.
- Object type
- block
- Object condition
- fragment
- Dimensions
- height: 37 cm, width: 71 cm, depth: 30.5-31.5 cm
Material
- Description
- limestone
- Type > subtype
- inorganic.stone > unverified
Inscription
- Layout
- A single line of monumental letters across the broad face of the block, with more space above (11.5cm) than below. Traces of red paint on a white plaster ground visible in the kappa.
- Text condition
- incomplete
- Technique
- chiselled
- Pigment
- Rubrication, red
- Lettering
Elegant deep (14mm), v-cut letters of regular form. Kappa with short equal arms; sigma deep with slightly outward curving top and bottom strokes; alpha wide with straight bar.
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 185-205mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: NAmm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Syracusae
- Provenance found
- Ortygia, extracted from the wall bordering the last canal/ditch linking the great and small harbours, on the corner looking towards the great harbour, in late 1888, at which point noted and recorded by Orsi, and transfered to the museum 4 December 1888; recently relocated in store in the archaeological park of Neapolis.
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Sicilia
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi
- 12254
- Autopsy
- Prag 2026-09-17, in storage in the Neapolis archaeological park.
- Map
Date
3rd century BCE (300 BCE - 201 BCE)- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
The style of the lettering (in scale, letter types, and the use of red paint on a white ground) shows considerable similarity with the monumental blocks recovered from Castello Eurialo (ISic002747). Attribution to building works by Hieron II is obviously tempting, but far from certain.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 644948
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: 140309
- Printed editions
- Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, Istituto nazionale di archeologia e storia dell’arte (Italy), e Reale Accademia d’Italia, «Notizie degli scavi di antichità », Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità , 1876, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1646037, at (1889), 371
- G. Kaibel, Inscriptiones Graecae Siciliae et Italiae, additis graecis Galliae Hispaniae, Britanniae, Germaniae inscriptionibus, Inscriptiones Graecae consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae Editae. Volumen XIV., XIV (Berlin: Georgius Reimerus, 1890), at 15b
- Paolo Orsi, I Taccuini. I. Riproduzione anastatica e trascrizione dei Taccuini 1-4, a c. di Gioconda Lamagna e Giuseppina Monterosso, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Monumenti Antichi. Serie Miscellanea 20 (Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, 2018), at Tacc. 2, p. 74
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 9/23/2026
- License
- Commons CC-BY 4.0