ISic020766: ISic020766
- ID
- ISic020766
- Language
- Sikel
- Text type
- ownership
- Object type
- kylix
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text after Agostiniani, in Agostiniani, Albanese Procelli 2018.
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Kylix.
- Object type
- kylix
- Material
- ceramic
- Condition
- complete
- Dimensions
- height: cm, dim: , width: cm, depth: cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The text is placed on the underside of the foot of the vessel.
- Text condition
- complete
- Letter heights
- Line 1: mm
- Interlinear heights
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Herbessus (?)
- Provenance found
- Found during the excavations (Soprintendenza alle Antichità di Siracusa, 1966—1968) in the area of the archaic necropolis, grave 188.
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Agrigento, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Regionale Archeologico Pietro Griffo ,
- Autopsy
- None
- Map
Date
500—450 BCE (500 BC – 450 BC)- Evidence
- archaeological-context, material-context, lettering
Text type
commentary
The inscription was found in grave 188, where two other inscriptions were discovered on two different bowls (MMA 64-65, ISic020757-ISic020758). The text could be a ownership formula, in particular, a so-called iscrizione parlante, indicating the name of the owner of the vessel (I am X's vessel), like μαρεσκακαμι and αρaκακαμι on the vessels from tomb East 31 of the Archaic necropolis of Montagna di Marzo (see ISic020739, ISic020740 ISic020741, ISic020742, ISic020742, ISic020743, ISic020744, ISic020745).
The onomastics seem to refer to an indigenous environment and the ending -(a)emi could be interpreted (cf. Agostiniani, in Agostiniani, Albanese Procelli 2018, p. 195) as 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. In this case we would therefore have 'da(e)dena' as the name (nominative?) + -(e)mi (I am), an epigraphic formula that could be comparable to the Greek ownership inscriptions.
Worthy of mention is the correction, apparently by the same hand, of alpha into epsilon in two cases in the text. It betrays an extemporaneous writing but also it may show - unless it is an error due to the alliterative nature of the formula itself - that the writer has doubts about the graphic rendering of the phonemes /a/ and /e/. If the -(a)emi ending corresponds to what we see with μαρεσκακαμι/αρaκακαμι, then this particular correction could be a sign of a gradual shift to the more regular -εμι in relation to the Greek verb, and this could (together with data from the archaeological context that for now remains elusive) speak in favour of a later date for this inscription than the ones in the tomb East 31. The name could perhaps have ended in -a and hence the confusion over the vowel of the final part of it when merged with the verb εἰμί. This in turn could have led to the slip of the first vowel, originally /e/ but written as /a/ because of the attraction of the final.
Finally, it is worth noting the use - at least according to the editor's apograph - of the two types of alpha, the arrow-shape type and the one with the horizontal stroke , both replaced by epsilon. This would again (see ISic020745) speak in favour of the probable use of the two alphas in a complementary manner in the Sikel alphabet of Montagna di Marzo (and elsewhere): the first alpha, the arrow-shaped one, is part of the original root of the indigenous name, the second is instead part of the desinence of the name in contact with the verb εἰμί. Were both replaced with epsilon by mistake? Or perhaps a gradual change occurs in the indigenous vowel system due to the influence of the Greek language? There is no certain answer to this phenomenon, but it is certain that the corrections and the numerous paloegraphic and vocalic 'variants' that the corpus from Montagna di Marzo presents must be studied as a single system, with particular attention to diachrony (when the archaeological context allows it) and looking not only at the phenomena that characterise the letter alpha but also at those related to the evident changes in the ductus of other 'distinctive' letters, such as rho, upsilon and sigma.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: -
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Discussion
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
- 10/14/2021