II.1.1 47. Incertum (dedication?), 550-525 BCE

Monument

Type

Rim and wall fragments, five in all, two joining. 

Material

Clay. 

Dimensions (cm)

H., W., Th., Diam..

Additional description

Attica, Black-Figure skyphos, 550-525 BCE. 

Find place

Berezan. 

Find context

 

Find circumstances

Found in 1985, excavations of Ya.V. Domansky. 

Modern location

Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation. 

Institution and inventory

The State Hermitage Museum, Б.85.97. 

Autopsy

August 2016. 

Epigraphic field

Position

Rim, exterior. Originally inscribed on complete vessel. 

Lettering

Graffito. 

Letterheights (cm)

0.9-1.8

Text

Category

Incertum (dedication?) 

Date

550-525 BCE 

Dating criteria

Ceramic date. 

Edition

ΡΗ

Diplomatic

ΡΗ

EpiDoc (XML)

<div type="edition" xml:lang="grc">
   <ab>
      <lb n="1"/><orig>ΡΗ</orig>
   </ab>
   </div>
 
Apparatus criticus

Translation

 

Commentary

The vase, in my view, is close to Agora XXIII, no. 1475 (possibly by Lydos), 560-550 BCE. It also has a plain black glossed rim and a thin red line below it. The head of the man is similar as well.

Two letters are preserved, which might be the beginning of a personal name, however, most names that begin with this combination of letters are Thracian and attested in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, except, of course, king Ῥῆσος of Thrace, an ally of the Trojans in the Iliad (10.435). LGPN online V4-12116 lists a certain Ῥηβούλας from Odrysai, Thrace in 330 B.C.E. (Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions II 193, 1, = FRA 2574).

Place names such as Ῥήγιον and Ῥηνεία also come to mind, and we know of many dedications, especially at international sites such as Naukratis or Gravisca, where visitors from the Aegean cities left dedications identifying themselves by both their given names and their ethnics. In our graffito, if a personal name came before, i.e. to the left of, the painted image, and the inscription continued to the right of the image, we would perhaps expect a definite article introducing an ethnic.

 

Images

(cc)© 2024 Irene Polinskaya