Repository
Cyrene Museum, 233.
Support
Sandstone stele, slightly tapering, with plain moulding above (under moulding 0.385-0.43; 1.025;0.25).
Layout
Inscribed on the face, beginning at 0.33 under the moulding.
Letters
0.04-0.055 rather roughly cut; alpha with dropped bar, dotted theta, non-slanting mu, pi with lengthening right stroke, slanting sigma.
Place of Origin
Findspot.
Date
Second to first centuries B.C. (lettering)
Findspot
Found before 1909 at Berenike pleiades; HGL : Selmani district , 'two leagues to the South of Benghazi'.
Later recorded Location
First seen in 1909 by Bates and Norton and photographed by the former at Benghazi: in the English vice-consulate.
Later recorded Location
After World War II, it has been kept in Shahat , Cyrene Museum , where Morelli saw it in 1960.
Last recorded Location
Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1976 in Shahat : Cyrene Museum .
Text constituted from
Transcription from stone (CDL).
Robinson, 1913 Robinson, D.M., 1913, Inscriptions from the Cyrenaica, American Journal of Archaeology (AJA)17, 157-200 - see in bibliography , n. 102, without illustration, whence Sammelbuch Preisigke, F. et al. (eds.), Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten, Strassburg/Wiesbaden1915- - see in bibliography 5926; SECir Oliverio, G., Pugliese-Carratelli, G., Morelli, D., 1961-1962, Supplemento Epigrafico Cirenaico, Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente (ASAA)39-40 (= n.s. 23-24), 219-375 - see in bibliography , 291 (Morelli, as unpublished, without illustration);. Cf. Masson, 1967 Masson, O., 1967, Remarques sur deux inscriptions de Cyrène et de Théra, Revue de Philologie, de Littérature et d'Histoire Anciennes (RPh)ser. 3, 41, 225-231 - see in bibliography , p. 225, footnote 3; Marengo, 1985 Marengo, S.M., 1985, Note di epigrafia cirenaica: edizioni ripetute, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Macerata (AFLM)18, 145-162 - see in bibliography , pp. 150-151; Uhlenbrock, 1999 Uhlenbrock, J.P., 1999, Cyrene papers: the second report. The Oric Bates expedition of 1909, Libyan Studies (LibStud)30, 77-97 - see in bibliography , p. 81 and fig. 5 (photograph by Bates) and Dobias-Lalou, Bulletin Épigraphique Dobias-Lalou, C.Bulletin Épigraphique in Études Grecques (REG)1987- - see in bibliography , 2000.745, whence SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography , 49.2358.
1 Robinson, 1913 Robinson, D.M., 1913, Inscriptions from the Cyrenaica, American Journal of Archaeology (AJA)17, 157-200 - see in bibliography Πολεμίτας : Sammelbuch Preisigke, F. et al. (eds.), Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten, Strassburg/Wiesbaden1915- - see in bibliography Πτολεμίτας
Polemitas fils d'Herakleidas, Thessalien.
Polemitas son of Herakleidas, a Thessalian.
Polemitas figlio di Herakleidas, tessalo.
Dating this stele is difficult because it does not belong to a group of similar inscriptions; the material may explain some differences with the numerous inscriptions of Cyrene; however it is certainly later than the third century suggested in Fraser-Matthews, 2000 Fraser, P.M., Matthews, E. (eds.), 2000, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, IIIB: Central Greece: From the Megarid to Thessaly, Oxford - see in bibliography and may be rather compared with another inscription of the newly founded Euesperides IGCyr071100.
Uhlenbrock published in 1999 a report written by Bates after his surveying expedition of 1909 to Cyrenaica, which preceded the Norton expedition of 1910-1911. From this paper, kept in the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston, we hear that the stele had been found at Selmani, about 10 km South of Benghazi, and was kept in the English Vice-consulate of that city. After World War II, this was erroneously brought to the Cyrene Museum.
A transcription of the inscription would have beed joined to the archives of De Cou, the epigraphist of the Norton mission of 1910, giving way to the diplomatic transcription of Robinson.
Morelli republished the inscription as from Cyrene, without identifying it with the publication of Robinson, and the error was detected by Marengo.
For a mention of another Thessalian in Cyrenaica, see IGCyr130600.
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All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link back to DOI: http://doi.org/10.6092/UNIBO/IGCYRGVCYR and the filename (IGCyr000000 or GVCyr000), as well as the year of consultation.