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Unpublished. 

Edition

Ἠουλήῳ κθ´ μέρᾳ πε´.

Diplomatic

ΗΟΥΛΗΩΚΘΜΕΡΑΠΕ

EpiDoc (XML)

<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).

 

(cc) © 2015 Andrey Vinogradov (edition), Irene Polinskaya (translation)
You may download this inscription in EpiDoc XML. (This file should validate to the EpiDoc schema.)