Support: White marble block, re-cut for a chancel post in a church with a vertical groove in the then right side (dimensions given as for the inscription w: 0.24 × h: 0.68 × d: 0.235).

Layout: Inscribed on the face in two lines.

Letters: 0.025, no serifs; the surface is worn out by the later use and the letters are now very shallow; symmetrical nu, slantering sigma, horse-shoe omega.

Date: Perhaps second half of fourth or first half of third century BC (lettering).

Findspot: Found in 1932 at Cyrene ➚, probably in the East Church.

Place of origin: Unknown

Last recorded location: Cyrene Museum, inv. number unknown. Observed by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1979 on the terrace of the ancient Cyrene Sculpture Museum and again in 1997 in Shahat: in the courtyard of the Cyrene Museum.

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

French translation

Iasôn [---].

English translation

Iason [---].

Italian translation

Iason [---].

Commentary

As the stone was recut also at left, we cannot know whether line 1 began with the name Iason. Line 2 begins further right, perhaps because its content was shorter or for another reason related to the layout. With such poor rests, it is impossible to trace the type of text that was inscribed here.

There has been a verbal tradition that this chancel post came from Al Marj and it was said so in IGCyr. However, a photograph preserved in the IRCyr archive, taken at Cyrene and showing it with other finds from Cyrene (IRCyr2020 C.745 and IGCyr062830²) weakens that view. Furthermore, the design of the post shows that it belonged rather to the 1st phase of the East Church at Cyrene (for which see Ward-Perkins – Goodchild – Reynolds 2003, pp. 149 and fig. 106).

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All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link back to DOI: https://doi.org/10.60760/unibo/igcyrgvcyr2 and the filename (IGCyr000000 or GVCyr000), as well as the year of consultation.

Images

Fig. 1. Drawing from squeeze of igcyr123800 Unclear

Fig. 2. Face of igcyr123800 Unclear

Fig. 3. View of igcyr123800 Unclear

Maps