ISic004389: terminus marker?

Apparatus criticus

• Text from autopsy

Physical description

Support

Description

A block of yellow-orange local calcareous stone ('tufo arenaria'), intact left and below, but seemingly broken on top and on the right. Roughly finished on the reverse.

Object type

block

Material

limestone

Condition

damaged

Dimensions

height: 33 cm, width: 48 cm, depth: 10 cm

Inscription

Layout

Two lines of Greek text, with a deep horizontal line above each (same depth as the letters). Although the stone is broken top and right, there is no clear evidence that the text continued beyond what is preserved (the surface is preserved beyond the text, and the 'guidelines' also stop with the preserved text. A cross precedes line 1.

Text condition

complete

Lettering

Letter heights

Line 1: 70-75mm

Line 2: 60-70mm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line 1 to 2: 20-30mm

Provenance

Place of origin

Megara Hyblaea

Provenance found

Part of the initial museum collection, without date of acquisition, noted by Orsi (Taccuino 1, p.78) as from Cantera, i.e. Megara Hyblaea

Map

Current location

Place

Siracusa, Italy

Repository

Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 223

Autopsy

Currently in the small store room behind the medagliere of the museum

Date

Evidence

lettering

Text type

terminus

commentary

This stone is a second example of a text known and published from Megara Hyblaea, found in 1965 and published by Manni Piraino in 1975 (ISic003698). This example, although clearly found before 1888, as it was on display in the 'sala cristiana' of the original museum in Siracusa, and noted by Orsi in his first 'taccuino', was first published here and in Prag 2021 (noted in Tréziny 2018: 275 n.11, where J. Craig should read J. Prag). Its interpretation remains uncertain, but given the existence of two such stones, some form of property or boundary marker, perhaps in relation to church land, seems most likely.

Bibliography

Digital editions

• TM: -
• EDR: -
• EDH: -
• EDCS: -
• PHI: -

Printed editions

• 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 Taccuino 1, p. 78

Discussion

• Henry Tréziny, Mégara Hyblaea. 7, La ville classique, hellénistique et romaine, CEFR 1/7 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2018), at 275
• J.R.W. Prag, ‘Paolo Orsi, «un Modestissimo Cultore Della Epigrafia»: Paolo Orsi’s Contribution to Sicilian Epigraphy as Illustrated by the Newly Published Taccuini’, Rendiconti Dell’Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei. Classe Di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche Series 9, volume 32 (2021): 121–54, at 145-147 fig. 9

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

10/13/2022