<rs type="textType">Epitaph</rs> of Koison Greek Verse Inscriptions of Cyrenaica Università di Bologna GVCyr001 738897 gvcyr001 https://igcyr.unibo.it/gvcyr001

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 Cyrene Museum 236

Two adjacent fragments pasted together of a limestone stele, broken above, chipped off below, with irregular depth ( 0.53 0.80 0.04 (right) - 0.17 (left) ).

 Inscribed on front face in two lines (l. 1 ascending along the left edge, l. 2 descending along the right edge) ( 0.53 0.72 ). 0.06-0.075; boustrophedon, alpha with oblique central bar joining the second stroke very low (sometimes at its end), epsilon with three oblique and equal bars, three-stroke iota, dissymmetrical nu, san for sibilant. Findspot. First third of sixth century B.C.

Found before 1937 by Oliverio at Cyrene: North necropolis.

Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1976 in Shahat: Cyrene Museum.

Marked-up according to the EpiDoc Guidelines version 8

Digital or digitized photographs Digitized other representations Arabic English French German Ancient Greek Transliterated Greek Modern Greek Hebrew Italian Latin Cyrenaica Libya Shahat Transcription from stone (CDL). checked tagged w and names, It. translation, overall check tagged verse lemma, text, apparatus, biblio, commentary, Fr. and Engl. translations file created
Bibliography

From †Oliverio's papers , n. 14, fig. 25-26, whence SEG, 20.745 ; , n. 4 ; , n. 1 ; CEG, n. 164 . Cf. , p. 31 (= , pp. 452-454 ).

Text Κοίσōνος στάλα ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι
Apparatus

Κοίσōνος στάλα Κοίσōνος Hiller von Gaertringen's reading per epistulam Ἀλϙίσονος Oliverio's reading ϙ inverted Κοίσōνος στάλα · φθι Κοίσōνος στάλα το͂ Κάρνιος εἰμ' ἐπὶ τύμβōι· ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι μένōι δ'ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι νούσōι δὲ φθιμένōι μνάμαν μ'ἔστασαν ἑταῖροι

La stèle de Koisôn a été dressée par ses compagnons.

The stele of Koison was erected by his companions.

La stele di Koison è stata eretta dai suoi compagni.

لوح كويسون التذكاري [---؟] كان قد نصب من قبل أصحابه.

Commentary

This being the only inscription written boustrophedon, we catch from , p. 413 that it was already exposed at the time in room 2 of the then Antiquarium (today Office of the Department of Antiquities).

As both short ends of the stone are broken off, its original dimensions and placement are impossible to infer, except from the content.

As the word 'stele' and the verb meaning 'to erect' show, this was a standing stone to be read looking from the centre alternatively to one and the other longer side. The verb being usually at the end of a sentence and the deceased person's name being an important information at the beginning of the text, it can be inferred that the first line is to be read at left from below upwards and the second line from above downwards.

Depending on the following formula, the first word 'stele' should be used at the accusative, in relation with the verb 'to erect' or at another case if the text had two sentences.

Metrical analysis: Peek's preferred restoration, producing only one dactylic hexameter, supposes a moderate loss of the upper part. This reading is quite possible. However we left the question open in the translation for an alternative reading, supposing that more than one half of the stone might be lost. This would provide a distich made of two dactylic hexameters, a solution for which Peek also offered less cautious restorations.