IThera038

Findspot and Location

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

Support

Material: stone.
Object type: rock face.

.

Layout

The graffito has a complex structure. In line 1, written from bottom to top, the editor of IG XII.3.545 read some letters in the upper part of the rock which he himself described as uncertain (omicron, koppa, san, my), of which only the san was reproduced in the apograph. Lines 2 and 3 are difficult to read: the uncertainty arises because the graffito shows the letters of ϙοραϙος arranged obliquely with a descending ductus. In the following line there is a mark with the same orientation, which could resemble a san with diverging vertical bars. The adjective ἀγαθός, with a slightly ascending ductus, is perpendicular to ϙοραϙος. Line 4 presents additional retrograde letters.

Execution: chiselled.

Palaeography

Letters of the archaic alphabet of Thera: Koppa (l. 2): vertical stroke extended into the bowl (and touching its upper limit). Epsilon: vertical stroke slightly protruding at the bottom, oblique bars. Iota: composed of three bars. Omicron: in ll. 1, 2, and 3, smaller than the other letters

in l. 4, same size as the other letters. Rho: angular bowl. San: used for the sibilant sound.

Provenance and Discovery

Place:Archaía Thíra (36.36349, 25.47804)

Date:7th century BCE, while line 6 appears to have been added later, around the 6th century BCE

Findspot:between the temple of Apollo Carneus and the wall, Hiller

Coordinates:36.36192, 25.48083

Last recorded location: in situ; Last seen by A. Inglese in 2003 in situ; rubbing

Edition


1. [Δ]εκσίλος̣ [- - -]Α
2. ϙορ̣αϙος ἀγαθός
3. Προμο̣[- - -]

Apparatus


line 1.
Hiller: [Δ]εκσίλο[ς]
line 2.
Hiller: ϙόραϙς ἀγαθός
line 3.
Hiller: Προμο[- - -]

Commentary

According to Masson, the inscription is a graffito that introduces the name Ϙόραξ at Thera, a "sobriquet" derived from a name of an animal (Ϙόραξ, crow), curiously written in the nominative. Gallavotti reads Ϙόρακος [καὶ] πρόμο[ς]; Dobias-Lalou hypothesizes that the final -ος letters are shared by both words. Gasperini notes an archaic graffito from Cyrene in which there is a dedication to Apollo Korax. The scholar refers in this regard to Callimachus (Hymn. Ap. 65-68), who recalls that Apollo, in the form of a crow, guided Battus at the time of Cyrene's foundation to indicate the site to him. According to Inglese, although the dating of the graffito is uncertain, it cannot be ruled out that this name was used in Thera after the colonial expedition (631 BCE). For a comprehensive overview of the matter see Inglese 2008, pp. 247-249.

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-040, EpiLab-rtv-rub-041, 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. 33)

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.