ISic004405: Small altar dedicated to Aphrodite

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
ISic004405
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
dedication
Object type
altar
Status
No data
Links
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Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • Text of Tréziny 2018

Physical description

Support

Description
A small limestone altar, with mouldings top and bottom at the front and sides, smooth behind, and a depression in the upper surface.
Object type
altar
Material
limestone
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 4.5 cmwidth: 7.5 cmdepth: 6.6 cm

Inscription

Layout
Three lines of Greek letters are incised into the front face, occupying most of the space between the mouldings, with a more or less consistent left margin and an uneven right margin
Text condition
No data
Lettering

Letter heights
Line 1-3: 3-7mm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation line 1 to 2: 2-4mm
Interlineation line 2 to 3: 0-2mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Megara Hyblaea
Provenance found
Found after the original publication of the Hellenistic temple north of the agora, in excavation of 1968 of the area of the archaic building 'k' (Megara 1), c.20 m north-east of the Hellenistic temple, in re-use in a late wall
Map

Current location

Place
Megara Hyblaea, Italy
Repository
Antiquarium di Megara Hyblaia , MH C22
Autopsy
None
Map

Date

2nd — 1st century BCE (200 BC – 1 BC)
Evidence
lettering

Text type

dedication

commentary

The first line is not entirely clear in (the publication provides a drawing only, no photograph). The curved trace after 'eta' is compatible with a lunate sigma (compare small lunate epsilon in line 2). Based upon searches of LGPN, the female name Μηστρία is attested once from Messene in Greece in the imperial period; the male name Μέστριος is attested 7 times in the region of Macedonia, Thrace and the Black Sea; the male name Μήστωρ is more common, attested already in Homer, and in Sicily at Selinus in the Archaic period (IGDS II.26) (see the extensive discussion of the name by P. Bernard in Bernard Paul, Bopearachchi Osmund. Deux bracelets grecs avec inscriptions grecques trouvés dans l'Asie centrale hellénisée. In: Journal des savants, 2002, n°2. pp. 237-278, at 251-254. Μηστριος is presumably therefore the most likely reading.

Bibliography

Digital editions
  • TM: -
  • EDR: -
  • EDH: -
  • EDCS: -
  • PHI: -
Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Jonathan Prag
Contributors
Last revision
10/13/2022