ISic030049: Fragment of a Latin inscription on bronze
- ID
- ISic030049
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- unknown
- Object type
- lamina
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text based upon photograph;
- line.2: The first character is probably an S or else an X; direct inspection is required
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Small fragment of bronze plaque, broken on all sides, with some degree of surface corrosion
- Object type
- lamina
- Material
- bronze
- Condition
- fragment
- Dimensions
- height: 3.15 cm, width: 2.2 cm, depth: 0.65 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Latin letters on two lines
- Text condition
- incomplete
- Letter heights
- Lines 1-2: mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Ietas
- Provenance found
- Found in 1986, in a mediaeval layer (above that of ISic030050) in the area of the agora, in the area of the altar in front of the so called podium temple (part of the west portico complex of the agora)
- Map
Current location
- Place
- San Cipirello, Italy
- Repository
- depot of the Zurich Ietas excavation , I.4
- Autopsy
- None
- Map
Date
late Republican or early imperial (200 BC – 100 BC)- Evidence
- archaeological-context
Text type
commentary
The fragment is one of three metal fragments reported by Isler from the Ietas excavations; cf. ISic030048 and ISic030050. The form of the fragment strongly suggests a public/official document, which would be the first surviving example of a formal document on bronze in Latin from the island (together with ISic030050). The state of preservation of this fragment is different from that of the other Latin fragment, and from the limited evidence available the letter forms appear different also; although found in the same location, the two fragments are reported form different later, mediaeval, layers. It is plausible to assume that they are fragments of two separate public documents originally displayed somewhere in the agora in the Roman period. The (X?)XX with supraline presumably records a numeral, potentially a monetary sum, of 20,000+, although a board of magistrates (XXvirate or similar) is perhaps not inconceivable (but even less likely the moment the numeral is more than 20), the supraline being used to mark such numerical abbreviations of magistrate names also.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: -
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Discussion
- Hans Peter Isler, «Monte Iato: la venticinquesima campagna di scavo», Sicilia Archeologica 28, fasc. 87–89 (1995): 19–38, at 20 with 37 n.11
- Hans Peter Isler, ‘Grabungen auf dem Monte Iato 1995’, Antike Kunst 39, no. 1 (1996): 52–64, at 54 n.8
- Hans Peter Isler, «L’agora ellenistica di Iaitas», in Agora greca e agorai di Sicilia, a c. di Carmine Ampolo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2012), 229–37, at 234 with n.41
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Simona Stoyanova
- system
- Last revision
- 5/20/2021