Support
Small marble block broken off at left (0.44; 0.29;0.16).
Layout
Inscribed on the face.
Letters
0.028.
Place of Origin
Date
Admittedly Hellenistic
Findspot
First seen by D. Morelli in 1960 at Cyrene pleiades; HGL : in a a rock-cut chamber uphill opposite the Stepped Portico (see commentary).
Present Location
Not found by IGCyr team.
Text constituted from
Transcription from previous editor.
Morelli in 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 , 256 (no image).
(Untel) fils de Polianthès (a consacré ce monument) à [---] Sôter.
(So-and-so) son of Polianthes (dedicated this monument) to [---] Soter.
(Il tale) figlio di Polianthes (ha dedicato questo monumento) a [---] Sotere.
This inscription is known only from Morelli's transcription. His description of the provenance is inaccurate, as he speaks of «una delle tombe a monte della strada di Batto». Those rock-cut chambers, being inside the city walls, cannot be tombs. They were used as troglodytic habitations in modern times and may have also been so in antiquity, but are deprived of any archaeological context. One of them was also used as an interim shelter for antiquities at the beginning of World War II (see Goodchild, 1976 Goodchild, R.G., and Reynolds, J.M. (ed.), 1976, Libyan studies: select papers of the late R.G. Goodchild, London - see in bibliography , p. 321). The position of this stone might be late outcome of those events.
The date of this inscription is very uncertain, as is the use of the epithet Σωτήρ, either for Apollo or Zeus, the cult of whom expanded under the Ptolemies. In this prospect, it was conventionally decided to place it into the Hellenistic period. A formula with the dative does not seem to allow a third possibility, with Soter as epithet of one of the Ptolemies themselves: such dedication have ὑπέρ and the genitive.
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