Repository
Cyrene Museum, 71.801 (American finds).
Support
White medium-grained marble rectangular base with three dowel holes on top, two of them still containing metal tenons; damaged at all corners and a piece (0.10; 0.21;0.065) chiselled away at the lefthand front side; inscribed front side (0.75; 0.21;0.55) is chipped.
Layout
The stone was inscribed twice: only two lines of the former inscription (IGCyr077100) were kept, the upper section being erased and re-inscribed as ll. 1-3 of IRCyr C.447, during the first century B.C.; moreover the left rim of the whole was lost through ulterior chiselling.
Letters
Line 1 0.025, line 2 0.013; alpha with straight bar, wide upsilon, rho with very small loop, smaller omicron.
Place of Origin
Date
Probably first half of second century B.C. (lettering)
Findspot
Found by D. White in 1971 at Cyrene pleiades; HGL : Enclosed sanctuary of Demeter and Kore , area D 12/13.
Last recorded Location
Seen by L. Gasperini in 1972 in Shahat : Cyrene Museum , Storeroom of the American excavations
Present Location
Not seen by IGCyr team.
Text constituted from
Transcription from previous editors and commentators (CDL).
White, 1972 White, D., 1972, Excavations in the Demeter sanctuary at Cyrene 1971. Second preliminary report, Libya Antiqua (LibAnt)9, 171-195 - see in bibliography , p. 185, whence SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography , 26.1825; Gasperini, 1985 Gasperini, L., 1985, Fasi epigrafiche e fasi monumentali: contributi alla storia e all’archeologia di Cirene greca e romana, in G. Barker, J. Lloyd, J. Reynolds (eds.), Cyrenaica in Antiquity (papers presented at the Colloquium on Society and Economy in Cyrenaica held at Newnham College, Cambridge, in March/April 1983), BAR International Series236, Society for Libyan Studies occasional papers1, Oxford, 349-355 [= , 169-178] - see in bibliography , pp. 353-355, whence SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography , 35.1716 (= Gasperini, 2009 Gasperini, L., 2009, Ancora sulla più antica epigrafe officinale di Cirene, in C. Braidotti, E. Dettori, E. Lanzillotta (eds.), Ou pân efémeron: Scritti in memoria di Roberto Pretagostini, Roma, 1041-1050 - see in bibliography , pp. 175-177); Gasperini, 2010 Gasperini, L., 2010, Architetti, scultori e maestranze connesse nelle iscrizioni della Cirenaica romana, in M. Milanesi, P. Ruggeri, C. Vismara (eds.), L'Africa Romana. I luoghi e le forme dei mestieri e della produzione nelle province africane. Atti del 18° convegno di studio, Olbia, 11-14 dicembre 2008, Sassari, 393-403 - see in bibliography , pp. 397-398, whence SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography , 60.1826; Reynolds, 2012 Reynolds, J.M., 2012, Appendix: the inscriptions on stone and lead, in D. White (ed.), The extramural sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene, Libya, final reports VIII: the sanctuary’s imperial architectural development, conflict with Christianity, and final days, Philadelphia - see in bibliography , p. 195, n. A.19; Cf. Rosamilia, 2014 Rosamilia, E., 2014, Firme di scultori della Cirenaica: un'analisi del corpus, in Luni, M. (ed.), Cirene greca e romana, Monografie di archeologia libica36, Cirene Atene d'Africa7, Roma, 89-106 - see in bibliography , n. 12.
1 Κ̣υραναῖοι : White, 1972
White, D., 1972, Excavations in the Demeter sanctuary at Cyrene 1971. Second preliminary report, Libya Antiqua (LibAnt)9, 171-195 - see in bibliography
Κυραναῖοι : Gasperini, 1985
Gasperini, L., 1985, Fasi epigrafiche e fasi monumentali: contributi alla storia e all’archeologia di Cirene greca e romana, in G. Barker, J. Lloyd, J. Reynolds (eds.), Cyrenaica in Antiquity (papers presented at the Colloquium on Society and Economy in Cyrenaica held at Newnham College, Cambridge, in March/April 1983), BAR International Series236, Society for Libyan Studies occasional papers1, Oxford, 349-355 [= , 169-178] - see in bibliography
[Κ]υραναῖοι : Reynolds, 2012
Reynolds, J.M., 2012, Appendix: the inscriptions on stone and lead, in D. White (ed.), The extramural sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene, Libya, final reports VIII: the sanctuary’s imperial architectural development, conflict with Christianity, and final days, Philadelphia - see in bibliography
(vac. 1) [Κ]υραναῖοι
2
(this line ascribed to the inscription of Roman time by J.M. Reynolds)
(La statue de) 〚- - - - - -〛 (a été érigée) par les Cyrénéens.
Oeuvre d'Aristis fils de Tabalbis.
(The statue of) 〚- - - - - -〛 (was set up) by the Cyrenaeans.
Made by Aristis son of Tabalbis.
(La statua di) 〚- - - - - -〛 (fu eretta) dai Cirenei.
Opera di Aristis figlio di Tabalbis.
All lines on this stone were edited as one and the same inscription by White, 1972 White, D., 1972, Excavations in the Demeter sanctuary at Cyrene 1971. Second preliminary report, Libya Antiqua (LibAnt)9, 171-195 - see in bibliography .
The artist's signature at l. 2 of our edition (= l. 5 of IRCyr C.447) was ascribed to the Hellenistic stage by Gasperini, 1985 Gasperini, L., 1985, Fasi epigrafiche e fasi monumentali: contributi alla storia e all’archeologia di Cirene greca e romana, in G. Barker, J. Lloyd, J. Reynolds (eds.), Cyrenaica in Antiquity (papers presented at the Colloquium on Society and Economy in Cyrenaica held at Newnham College, Cambridge, in March/April 1983), BAR International Series236, Society for Libyan Studies occasional papers1, Oxford, 349-355 [= , 169-178] - see in bibliography , a point on which Reynolds was not quite convinced. This line, slightly differing in lettering and spacing from the other ones as it is usual in artist's signatures, could easily be associated with the rest when the whole was re-inscribed and when it became one line among the others. In the first use, the line with Κυραναῖοι was the last one of the main text, so that only the upper lines of the second inscription were cut in the slightly sunk area resulting of the erasure. The signature might of course have been cut into a vacat below at any time, but its lettering seems more similar to that of Κυραναῖοι than to the Roman dedication (so also Rosamilia, 2014 Rosamilia, E., 2014, Firme di scultori della Cirenaica: un'analisi del corpus, in Luni, M. (ed.), Cirene greca e romana, Monografie di archeologia libica36, Cirene Atene d'Africa7, Roma, 89-106 - see in bibliography ).
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