IThera029

Findspot and Location

  • Country: Greece
  • Region: Santorini
  • Settlement: Ancient Thera
  • Repository: Archaeological site of Ancient Thera

Support

Material: stone.
Object type: rock face.

Layout

Hiller transcribed the inscription in three lines. By the time of the autopsy in 2002, the text was barely legible through direct examination. The ductus of the first two words of line 1 follows the upper edge of the rock before continuing with an undulating course across the entire surface. The writing field measures approximately 1.70 m in length and 0.80 m in height.

Execution: chiselled.

Palaeography

Letters of the archaic alphabet of Thera: Epsilon: extended vertical stroke, oblique bars. Aspiration: represented as a closed rectangular with orizontal crossbar. Eta: represented as a closed rectangular with orizontal crossbar. Iota: three-bar form. Lambda: sharp angle at the top. Mu: fourth bar shorter. Ny: short and widely spaced third bar. Pi: hook-shaped. Rho: round bowl. Rho: rigid bowl. Koppa: vertical stroke extending into the bowl. San: used for a sibilant sound. Different hands can be identified.

Provenance and Discovery

Place:Archaía Thíra (36.36349, 25.47804)

Date:Beginning of the 7th century BCE

Findspot:found near the gymnasium; Hiller read the inscription again in 1902 (Suppl. p. 307)

Coordinates:36.36167, 25.48153

Last recorded location: in situ; Last seen by A. Inglese in 2003 in situ; rubbing (due to the graffito's size, the rubbing had to be taken in multiple segments).

Edition


1. Πhειδιπίδας ο̄ἶπhε Τιμαγόρας καὶ Ἐνπhέρης καὶ ἐγο̄ιπh[- - -]
2. Ἔνπυλος τάδε πόρνος
3. Ἐνπεδοκλῆς ἐνεϙόπτετο τάδε ϙο̄ρκḥε͂το μὰ τὸν Ἀπόλο̄

Apparatus


line 1.
Hiller: Πhειδιπ[π]ίδας ὦιπhε. Τιμαγόρας καὶ Ἐνπhέρης καὶ ἐγὤιπh[ομες]
line 2.
Hiller: Ἔνπυλος τάδε πόρνος
line 3.
Hiller: Ἐνπεδοκλῆς ἐνεϙόπτετο τάδε ϙὠρκ[h]ε[ῖ]το μὰ τὸν Ἀπόλ[λ]ω

Commentary

The context points to an erotic sphere. Scholarly discussion has focused on the meaning of the graffiti, particularly regarding the presence of the verb οἴφω. Some scholars (Brelich 1969; Patzer 1982; Sergent 1984; 1986) interpret it within an initiatory framework, while others (Marrou 1975; Dover 1978; 1988; Bain 1991) see it as having merely an obscene connotation.

Bibliography

To consult the full bibliography of the project, visit our Zotero library.

Images

Composite image created from separate rubbings of the same inscription (rubbings inv. nos. EpiLab-rtv-rub-029, EpiLab-rtv-rub-030, EpiLab-rtv-rub-031, made in October 2003). © Greek Ministry of Culture / Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades. Reproduction authorized for this use only. Any further use requires permission

Apograph (Inglese 2008, fig. no. 11)

Editorial Team

Editor: Alessandra Inglese

Principal Investigator: Alessandra Inglese

Funder: CHANGES - Theme 5. Humanities and Cultural Heritage as Laboratories of Innovation and Creativity, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, Associazione Centro di Eccellenza DTC

Alessandra Inglese: original data collection and edition

Valentina Mignosa: encoding, editing metadata and geo data, website content creation, HTML transformation, website design and styling, interactive mapping implementation

Marika Griffo: rubbings digitisation

Simone Lucchetti: rubbings digitisation

Luigi Tessarolo: website construction, design and styling, interactive mapping implementation

Virgilio Costa: methodological and digital consultancy

Publication Details

Authority: ThERA (Theran Epigraphic Rubbings Archive) project

Licence: Licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 licence

Encoding model / validation: EpiDoc encoding model and validation framework adapted from ISicily

Download

To consult the full TEI EpiDoc XML source of this inscription, click here.