ISic003698: I.Sicily inscription 003698

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: ISic003698
Language: Ancient Greek
Text type: terminus
Object type: block
Status: No data
Links: View in current site

Edition

Apparatus criticus

Text after photograph and information from H. Tréziny ;
line.2: Manni Piraino: .Κ.[- -]
line.3: Manni Piraino: [- -]Η.[- -]

Physical description

Support

Description: A block, 57 cm in diameter, suggests possibly to be approximately half of a column drum, with text on the flat surface of the top of the 'drum'.
Object type: block
Material: limestone
Condition: No data
Dimensions: height: cm, width: cm, depth: cm

Inscription

Layout: unclear whether the original text covered the entire upper face or not, being very weathered.
Text condition: incomplete
Letter heights: Line 1-2: 75mm
Interlinear heights: Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Megara Hyblaea
Provenance found: Found in 1965, east of the Hellenistic walls
Map

Current location

Place: Megara Hyblaea, Italy
Repository: Antiquarium di Megara Hyblaia
Autopsy: None
Map

Date

4th-7th century CE (AD 300 – AD 700)

Evidence: No data

Text type

terminus

commentary

An extremely similar text is preserved in the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi, inv. 223 = ISic004389, found before 1888 in the area of the site of Megara Hyblaea. Manni Piraino believed that she could see traces of a third, and possibly a fourth line below, but Professor Tréziny does not consider these to be visible. The existence of two near identical blocks of this form clearly disproves Manni Piraino’s original hypothesis that this was a funerary inscription. The form of the text, with Greek capitals forming what seem to be opaque abbreviations, separated by substantial horizontal lines, has more in common with a number of other boundary markers from eastern Sicily, usually assumed to belong to late antiquity (See ISic001404 (Museo Archeologico Regionale di Adrano, inv. 480) and ISic001338, ISic004424, ISic004425, ISic004426 and 004427, all from the area inland of Catania). Several other blocks with Christian symbols were found in the vicinity of the Faro Cantera (see Tréziny 2018, pp. 283-284, figs. 423, 424). The precise interpretation of the letters, however, remains obscure.

Bibliography

Digital editions

Printed editions

‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 26.1096
M.T. Manni Piraino, «Koiné alfabetica fra Siracusa, Megara Iblea e Selinunte?», Kokalos 21 (1975): 121–53, at 152-153 no.19 tav.34.2

Discussion

Henry Tréziny, Mégara Hyblaea. 7, La ville classique, hellénistique et romaine, CEFR 1/7 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2018), at 275

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Jonathan Prag

Contributors

Last revision

7/6/2021