ISic020742: ISic020742

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
ISic020742
Language
Sikel
Text type
ownership
Object type
cup
Status
No data
Links
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Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • Text after Mussinano 1970

Physical description

Support

Description
Attic black-glazed cup.
Object type
cup
Material
ceramic
Condition
complete
Dimensions
height: 7.1 cm, dim: 13.6 cm, width: cm, depth: cm

Inscription

Layout
The text is scratched on the underside of the foot.
Text condition
complete
Letter heights
Interlinear heights

Provenance

Place of origin
Herbessus (?)
Provenance found
Found during the excavations (Soprintendenza alle Antichità di Siracusa, 1966—1968) in the East archaic necropolis of Montagna di Marzo, on the bottom niche, East grave 31.
Map

Current location

Place
Agrigento, Italy
Repository
Museo Regionale Archeologico Pietro Griffo , 65644, n. sc. 39F
Autopsy
None
Map

Date

500—480 BCE (500 BC – 480 BC)
Evidence
archaeological-context, material-context, lettering

Text type

ownership

commentary

The inscription is on one of the 14 inscribed vessels that were part of the grave goods of tomb East 31 of the archaic necropolis of Montagna di Marzo, part itself of a larger set of objects (on which see Albanese Procelli in Agostiniani, Albanese Procelli 2018, pp. 151-182) belonging to two different burials, one more recent than the other, inside a hypogeic chamber with a platform, which was used for the pottery (and not for the deceased, as in the other hypogeic tombs of this type). The burials were contained in two clay sarcophagi. The vessels found in the tomb can be divided into two groups (Agostiniani, in Agostiniani, Albanese Procelli 2018, 194): large Attic (imported) drinking vessels (cups, 'stemless cups', a skyphos, i.e. luxury vessels, typically related to the consumption of wine in the symposium); vessels of different types, all of a smaller size. To the first group belong 7 vases in total, of which 3 belong to the deceased in the front of the chamber, 4 to the second, in the back. The inscriptions of this first group show what appear to be names, perhaps bimember onomastic formulae, followed by a termination -mi that could be (cf. Agostiniani, in Agostiniani, Albanese Procelli 2018, p. 195) an aphaeretic form of the verb εἰμί, not known in Greek epigraphic culture but perhaps adapted by the writers of Montagna di Marzo in correspondence with syntactic structures proper to their language. The vessel in question is part of the later deposition and has two inscriptions by two different hands, as shown by the difference in the ductus and the different dimensions of the letters. The first engraver writes 'Ιταλο', genitive of Ιταλος, while the second engraver writes towards the centre of the vase 'αρακακαμι', using the supposed ownership formula. An identical situation, albeit with different ductus occurs in two other cups from the same deposition, the first with the names Italos/ara kaka-mi (ISic020743), the second with Ratora arakakami (ISic020745). According to Albanese Procelli and Agostiniani's hypothesis (2018, p. 196) Ἰταλός and ῾Ρατορας are two sodales of the warrior of the later deposition, who had written their names on the cups they used and then dedicated them to the deceased in the funerary ceremony. Moreover, the names may also indicate that they are not Greeks, even though the morphology used (the genitive rather than the aphaeretic formula -mi) is certainly Greek.

Bibliography

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Printed editions
Discussion

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Valentina Mignosa
Contributors
Last revision
10/14/2021