I 17. Tyras. Dedication to Egyptian gods, II-I century B.C.E.

Monument

Type

Base. 

Material

Marble, gray. 

Dimensions (cm)

H. 9.5, W. 24.0, Th. 16.2.

Additional description

The left side is broken off. The front is well worked and smoothed, but not polished; the top and bottom are well worked with the use of tooth chisel. The back is roughly picked. 

Place of Origin

Tyras. 

Find place

Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. 

Find context

Unknown. 

Find circumstances

Found in Akkerman in 1891 by F.I. Knauer, professor of the University of Kiev. The monument was in the possession of a local resident, Grigory Antonov, according to whom the stone had been discovered in the digging of a pit on his property near the fortress, to the southeast of it.  

Modern location

Moscow. 

Institution and inventory

State Historical Museum, 25519, оп. 5/I. 

Autopsy

A.I. Ivantchik, September 2009. 

Epigraphic field

Position

On the front. Broken off on the left. Margins: right 0,7; top 1,5; bottom 5,2. H. 2.8, W. 22.8

Lettering

Neatly cut letters following ruled lines; small serifs. Alpha with broken crossbar; kappa with short diagonals, round omicron, slightly smaller than other letters; pi with short right hasta; ypsilon with outward curving diagonals; Average distance between lines: 0,3cm. 

Letterheights (cm)

1.1-1.2

Text

Category

Dedicatory inscription. 

Date

II-I century B.C.E. 

Dating criteria

Palaeography. 

Editions

L1. Latyshev 1892, 58, n° 1; 2. Latyshev 1895d, 82; 2.1. IOSPE IV, 1; 2.2. IOSPE I2, 5; 2.2.1. Bricault 2005, I, 188, No. 115/0101. 

Edition

[---]ς Κρατίνου Σαράπιδι, ῎Ισιδι,
[---] θεοῖς συν<ν>άοις χαριστήριον.

2: orig. ΣΥΝΑΟΙΣ

Diplomatic

[---]Σ ΚΡΑΤΙΝΟΥΣΑΡΑΠΙΔΙ᾿ΙΣΙΔΙ
[---]ΘΕΟΙΣΣΥΝΑΟΙΣΧΑΡΙΣΤΗΡΙΟΝ

2: orig. ΣΥΝΑΟΙΣ

EpiDoc (XML)

<div type="edition" xml:lang="grc">
   <ab>
      		<lb n="1"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>ς 
      		       Κρατίνου 
            Σαράπιδι, ῎Ισιδι,
      		<lb n="2"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/> θεοῖς συν<supplied reason="omitted">ν</supplied>άοις 
            χαριστήριον.
   </ab>
   </div>
Commentaries

Sonni 1893, 53-55; Latyshev 1893a, 140-142. 

 
Apparatus criticus

2: [᾽Ανούβιδι ?] θεοῖς συν〈ν〉άοις χαριστήριον Bricault

Translation

[- - -], son of Kratinos, to Sarapis, Isis [- - -], the gods sharing a temple, a thanks offering.

 

Commentary

The stone was passed on to the Imperial Archaeological Commission in 1891, and from there to the State Historical Museum in Moscow, in 1892.

At the start of line 1, we expect the personal name of the dedicant, and at the start of the second - the name of Anubis or Harpokrates, worshipped together with Sarapis and Isis. Such restoration had been proposed by V.V. Latyshev, but he refrained from filling the lacuna, allowing for either possibility and even for both names together (which I consider impossible). Bricault opts for Anubis, even if with a question mark, and this seems the most likely. An attempt of Sonni to downdate the inscription to the Roman period is unconvincing (cf. Latyshev 1893).

The inscrtiption testifies to the spead of the cult of Egyptian gods in the Northern Black Sea area in the hellenistic period. The earliest testimonies for the region (in Histria and Chersonesos) date to the III century C.E. See for more detail, Ivantchik, Samoylova 2007.

 

Images

 

(cc) © 2017 Askold Ivantchik (edition), Irene Polinskaya (translation)
You may download this inscription in EpiDoc XML. (This file should validate to the EpiDoc schema.)