Support: Part of a white marble panel, broken off at left and right and above (w: 0.28 × h: 0.215 × d: 0.07).

Layout: Inscribed on the face.

Letters: Line 1-2: 0.04; line 3: 0.015; carefully cut, with small serifs; smaller circular letters, not really slanting sigma, upsilon with tall vertical stroke and open upper part.

Date: Perhaps second half of third or rather beginning of second century BC (lettering).

Findspot: Found probably before World War II at Cyrene ➚: place unrecorded, but plausibly from the Sanctuary of Apollo.

Place of origin: Findspot.

Last recorded location: Cyrene Museum, 152. Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1979 in Shahat: Cyrene Museum.

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

French translation

[---] (scil. a consacré) à Apollon au titre de la d[îme?].

[Oeuvre d'Untel] fils de [---]oniskos.

English translation

[---] (scil. dedicated) to Apollo as a t[ithe?].

[Work of So-and-so] son of [---]oniskos.

Italian translation

[---] (scil. ha dedicato) ad Apollo come d[ecima?].

[Opera del tale] figlio di [---]oniskos.

Commentary

Although very fragmentary, this inscription consists clearly of a dedication with an artist's signature in smaller characters below.

At line 2, the restoration was chosen on behalf of its high frequency in Cyrenaean inscriptions. It is associated with an artist's signature in IGCyr019000². At first view it is not quite impossible that the text read [ἐκ τῶ]ν ἰδ[ίων] 'at his own expense', which would be used for honoring a person with a statue. However such formulas occur only later and exclusively for building or reparing works.

At line 3, we restore the most common formula. There also exists at Cyrene at least one instance with ἔ[ργον] (see IGCyr108400² with the commentary). In the latter case, the ending of genitive would belong to the sculptor's name. In the preferred reading, the father's name of the sculptor ended with -ονίσκος. No such name is hitherto attested in Cyrene. As no ethnic is mentioned, thie sculptor was plausibly a Cyrenaean.

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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. Squeeze of igcyr125700 Dedication to Apollo and artist's signature

Maps