Dedication to Dionysos

IGCyr113800

Trismegistos ID: 738691

Source Description

Repository

Cyrene Museum, Storeroom of the Italian missions, T 05 1441.

Support

Small white rectangular marble base broken on the right and slightly chipped off at upper and left edges; left and bottom sides preserved (0.113; 0.045;0.004).

Layout

Inscribed on front face in three lines with axial layout; traces of guidelines on top, bottom, and also at middle of the letters.

Letters

0.017 at line 1; 0.09 at line 2; 0.08 at line 3; slight serifs, alpha with dropped bar, kappa with rather large oblique bars, pi with projecting upper bar; without punctuation.

Place of Origin

Findspot.

Date

Middle decades of the second century B.C. (lettering)

Findspot

Found in 2005 by M. Luni at Cyrene : Southern Extra-Mural Sacred zone , West of Theatre 5 , in a half-rock-cut and half-built oikos with niches excavated in the rocky walls.

Present Location

Not seen by IGCyr team.

Text constituted from

Transcription from photograph (SMM).

Bibliography

Marengo, 2010 , pp. 144-146, fig. 8 and 9, whence SEG , 60.1837.

Text

Κ̣άλλι[ς?]  [c. 6 - 7] κατὰ πρό̣[σταγμα τῶ] (vac. 3) Διο[νύσω?] [(vac. 3)]

Apparatus

1 Κ̣άλλι[ς?]  [c. 6 - 7] : Marengo, 2010  Καλλι[---] 

French translation

Kallis [fils d'Un tel] (a consacré ce monument) sur prescription de Dio[nysos?].

English translation

Kallis [son of So-and-so] (dedicated this monument) as prescribed by Dio[nysos?].

Italian translation

Kallis [figlio del tale] (ha dedicato questo monumento) su ordine di Dio[niso?].

The god's name at line 3 is partly lost. Whereas Διός or Διοσκούρων might be restored, the name of Dionysos fits the gap best. Ties between Demeter and Dionysos are attested both by Callimachus and in inscriptions of Roman time (see the commentary at Marengo, 2010 and Luni, 2010 and IRCyr C.499). Such ties explain the presence of a theatre inside an enclosure dedicated mainly to Demeter and Kore.

For line 1, the usual formula has a name and father's name. Given the space available, it seems better to restore the short name Kallis than a compound beginning with Καλλισ-.

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