La question de l’authenticité du lot « Waddington » dans le corpus des lamelles de Styra (IG XII 9, 56) : l’apport de la linguistique

In view of a new edition of the lamellae from Styra (Euboea, IG XII 9, 56, ca. 475 BCE), I address the question of the authenticity of the lot which was purchased by William Henry Waddington (1826–1894). The Waddington lot seems to have disappeared without a trace, except for the description provided by the French archaeologist François Lenormant, who is known to have occasionally forged new epigraphic evidence. However, a careful linguistic analysis of the hapaxes and rare anthroponyms, combined with a reconstruction of epigraphic and onomastic knowledge in Lenormant’s time, reveals that the lamellae of the Waddington batch are authentic. In fact, some anthroponyms that were hapaxes at that time have been found later in Euboea or elsewhere in Greece, while most of the current hapaxes have a plausible formation. I then discuss the problematic cases and I conclude that these are not due to invention, but to the difficulty of reading certain tablets correctly. In conclusion, I also consider the value of Lenormant’s edition as a whole (quality of drawings, proposed readings and supplements).