ISic020939: Graffito naming Hera

No image available

ID: ISic020939
Status: draft
Language: Ancient Greek
Object type: patera
Text type: dedication

Edition

Apparatus criticus

Text after photograph

Physical description

Support

Description: No data
Object type: patera
Object condition: fragment
Dimensions: height: 2.5 cm, diameter: 9 cm

Material

Description: fired clay

Inscription

Layout: No data
Text condition: complete
Technique: scratched
Pigment: No data
Lettering: No data
Letter heights: Line 1: mm
Interlinear heights

Provenance

Place of origin: Kamarina
Provenance found: Reportedly found near one of the graves in the necropolis of Contrada Rifriscolaro, together with other fragments. The vessel formed part of a seizure carried out by the Carabinieri in 1974 and lacks a secure archaeological context.

Current location

Place: Ragusa,
Repository: Museo Archeologico Ibleo
Autopsy: None
Map

Date

Last quarter of the 5th century to the 4th century BCE (425 BCE - 301 BCE)

Evidence: No data

Text type

dedication

commentary

The complete name of Hera is scratched on the exterior of the rim of a fragmentary black-glaze patera. Scerra regards the graffito as one of the few secure pieces of evidence for cult practice at Kamarina and notes that no earlier evidence for the worship of Hera had been identified in the city. Comparable vase graffiti giving the complete name of the goddess are known from Gela. The vessel type was current from the last quarter of the fifth century through much of the fourth century BCE, but the absence of a secure archaeological context prevents a more precise dating. However, the orthography of the inscription—with open long /ɛː/ represented by epsilon and aspiration by het—would favour an earlier date, between the mid-sixth and early fifth century BCE. Scerra considers that the graffito could record a devotional act performed by a Geloan settler after the refoundation of Kamarina in 461 BCE, while also suggesting that the cult may have reached the city earlier. The inscription supports the presence of devotion to Hera but does not by itself demonstrate the existence of a formal sanctuary.

Bibliography

Digital editions

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

Printed editions

Saverio Scerra, «Le necropoli di età greca dall’Irminio a Camarina : vecchi dati, recenti acquisizioni e nuove considerazioni su popolamento, commerci e culti», in Ollus leto datus est : architettura, topografia e rituali funerari nelle necropoli delli Italia meridionale e delle Sicilia tra antichità e medioevo : atti del convegno internazionale di studi Reggio Calabria, 22-25 ottobre 2013 1: Dalla preistoria all’ellenismo, a c. di Carmela Malacrino e Simonetta Bonomi (Reggio di Calabria: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria, 2018), 465–74, at 472-473, figs. 7-8

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Valentina Mignosa

Contributors

Last revision

7/31/2026