ISic020581: ISic020581
- ID
- ISic020581
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- ownership
- Object type
- cup of local manufacture
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text after photograph ;
- Arena: ξιγᾶς (?) ;
- Dubois: ξιγας, Μύσχελος
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Cup of local manufacture.
- Object type
- cup of local manufacture
- Material
- ceramic
- Condition
- complete
- Dimensions
- height: cm, dim: cm, width: cm, depth: cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The inscription is placed on the underside of the foot, arranged in a clockwise layout. On the same surface, in the centre but separate from the text, there is a cross.
- Text condition
- complete
- Letter heights
- Line 1: mm
- Interlinear heights
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Herbessus (?)
- Provenance found
- Found in Montagna di Marzo.
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi ,
- Autopsy
- No Autopsy
- Map
Date
499—480 BCE (499 BC – 480 BC)- Evidence
- lettering, archaeological-context
Text type
commentary
The inscription has been interpreted by the editors as Ξιγας, Μύσχελος, that is, considering the letter in the centre of the vase as part of the text. As Dubois writes, thus interpreted 'Le premier nom Ξιγας est énigmatique'. However, from a comparison with other inscribed vessels (see e.g. ISic020008—ISic020035, ISic020047) the sign in question is more likely a mark placed in the centre of the vase - for reasons that cannot be reconstructed with certainty - and it must not be connected with the actual text, although it was evidently made by the same hand. Moreover, the iota looks more like a scratch than a deliberately engraved letter. The text thus read would be γᾶς Μύσχελυς which would certainly make more sense if placed on a horos but which nevertheless remains the most likely reading of the inscription. Moreover, the Doric γᾶς would be justified by the dialectal influence of Gela on Montagna di Marzo. With regard to the name, according to a suggestion by O. Masson mentioned by Dubois (IGDS I nr. 168b), one could consider the second name as an expressive variant of Μύσκελος (see ISic020487). Such a phenomenon occurs for example in the case of Μύσχων/Μύσκων (cf. Arena, IGASM II(2) nr. 122). The expression could perhaps refer, as recurs in poetry, to Myschelos' native land (cf. Tyrt. 12.33, Thgn. 1213) indicating the origin of the cup (it is only incidentally noted that Myskellos is also the name known from the sources of the oecist of Crotone, cf. Strabo VIII.7.5).
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: -
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Livia Bivona, «Un “urbaniciano” a Thermae», Kokalos 24 (1978): 112–27, at 57, pl. 1
- Laurent Dubois, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile : contribution à l’étude du vocabulaire grec colonial, CEFR 119 (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989), at 168b
- Renato Arena, Iscrizioni greche archaiche di Sicilia e Magna Grecia. Iscrizioni di Sicilia. II. Iscrizioni di Gela e di Agrigento, 2nd ed., vol. 2, 5 voll. (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2002), at 122, pl. XXXIII.2
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Valentina Mignosa
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- Valentina Mignosa
- James Chartrand
- Michael Metcalfe
- system
- Simona Stoyanova
- Last revision
- 5/27/2021