V 155. Kalamita.Graffito on a wall, XVth century C.E.
Monument
Type
Wall block.
Material
Limestone.
Dimensions (cm)
H.32.0, W.76.0, Th.15.0.
Additional description
On the front - multiple graffiti, including images of ships. Fully preserved.
Place of Origin
Kalamita.
Find place
Inkerman.
Find context
Kalamita fortress, Tower V, internal face.
Find circumstances
1968, restoration works.
Modern location
Sevastopol, Crimea.
Institution and inventory
National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos, 126/36504.
Autopsy
September 2008.
Epigraphic field
Position
Below the image of ship 1.
Lettering
Graffito; letters of unequal height. Alpha with a loop, minuscule mu. Ligature omicron-nu.
Letterheights (cm)
2.2–4.0.
Text
Category
Commemoration.
Date
XVth century C.E.
Dating criteria
Palaeography, archaeological context.
Editions
Unpublished.
<div type="edition" xml:lang="grc">
<ab>
<lb n="1"/> <rs type="month" ref="iul">Ἠουλήῳ</rs> <num value="29">κθ</num> μέρᾳ
<num value="85">πε</num>.
</ab>
</div>Translation
29th of July, on the 85th day.
Commentary
The inscription cuts across the oars of a ship graffito, suggesting it was made at a later date.
The sequence omega-kappa-theta-mu cannot represent any Greek word. The only possible way to interpret it is to extract the number 29 from it. Since the name of the month can be read before it, 29 would refer to the day of the month. The eighty fifth day is of course not a day of the year, but must be the last day of a sailing trip. Judging by the duration of the journey, the ship must have travelled from the Mediterranean, perhaps from Italy. A colloquial form μέρα is known from the XIIth century (Trapp, s.v.).
Romanchuk and Bykov (1981, 143–146, fig. 2, 6) believe that this part of the Tower was built in the XVth century (see also Myts 2009, 183).
© 2015 Andrey Vinogradov (edition), Irene Polinskaya (translation)
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