Inscriptions of Greek Cyrenaica; Greek Verse Inscriptions of Cyrenaica. Second Edition

This second edition of the Inscriptions of Greek Cyrenaica (IGCyr) and the Greek Verse Inscriptions of Cyrenaica (GVCyr) updates two corpora published online in 2017, the first collecting all the inscriptions of Greek (VII-I centuries B.C.) Cyrenaica, the second gathering the Greek metrical texts of all periods (VI B.C.-VI A.D.). These new critical editions of inscriptions from Cyrenaica are part of the international project Inscriptions of Libya (InsLib). They now include all the inscriptions known to us in June 2023, coming from this area of the ancient Mediterranean world, assembled in a single online and open access publication. The IGCyr corpus assembled 920 inscriptions from Greek Cyrenaica (VII-I centuries B.C.). Most of these inscriptions had been published previously, sometimes in versions which could be improved, while 125 of them were unpublished. IGCyr2 now provides 955 inscriptions, with 43 new items and 8 deleted ones, which are now considered fragments belonging to other inscriptions or to another period. Among the new entries, 28 are unpublished. The GVCyr corpus assembled 56 Greek metrical inscriptions from Greek and Roman Cyrenaica; 48 out of them had been published already, but they had never been studied together. GVCyr2 has now 59 entries, with 1 unpublished fragment. The old numbers have not changed, the new entries have new numbers. A large amount of new Arabic translations appears for the first time in this edition. Most of these texts have been re-read by Catherine Dobias-Lalou, who as a member of the French archaeological mission in Libya from 1976 was able to examine most of the material available in Shahat (Cyrene), Susa (Apollonia) and paid shorter visits to Tulmaytha (Ptolemais), Tocra (Taucheira), Benghazi (Euesperides/Berenike) and other locations. Further improvements have been provided by Gianfranco Paci and Silvia Maria Marengo, who have both studied the inscriptions from Cyrenaica for many years; it has also been possible to draw on the archive of earlier epigraphists of the Italian mission held by the University of Macerata. IGCyr2 now takes advantage of new issues by Emilio Rosamilia (Mission of the University of Urbino), both published and unpublished, and of the newest results of the mission of the University of Chieti, headed by Oliva Menozzi (Stefano Struffolino for epigraphy). The GVCyr corpus, where texts from the Greek period are not the most numerous, profited from Joyce Reynolds' documentation, including some unpublished items. For GVCyr2 we add two recent finds and a formerly neglected fragment. Documents that are both prose and verse have been inserted into the GVCyr corpus (except for GVCyr2 033 and IGCyr2 097100, which are distinct entries; the same for GVCyr2 042 and IRCyr2020 C.415). The publication, online, of all these inscriptions in one single new critical edition has been made possible by Lucia Criscuolo, Alice Bencivenni and the University of Bologna, which is hosting both editions of the IGCyr-GVCyr corpora. The collection is made up of transcriptions, squeezes and illustrations for the majority of the texts, held in the archives of the Centre de recherche sur la Libye antique de Sorbonne-Université Lettres, in the personal archive of Catherine Dobias-Lalou and in the archives of the University of Macerata. Some of the remainder are illustrated in photographs held in the archives of the Libyan Department of Antiquities at Shahat (Cyrene) and also in the archives of other foreign missions. Furthermore Catherine Dobias-Lalou took advantage of the IRCyr project archive in London, which was generously put at her disposal. We did not include, as being part of other collections, the inscriptions painted on vases (see the AVI), captions on coins and marks on amphoras and tiles. The Inscriptions of Greek Cyrenaica project is publishing these materials in two online EpiDoc corpora: IGCyr2 and GVCyr2, which can be consulted separately, or cross-searched. Each inscription record presents metadata description, bibliography, Greek text, apparatus, translation into modern languages (English, French, Italian and partly Arabic) and commentary, together with the fullest available collection of illustrations. The corpora are presented as two series of documents; but, as with the IRT and IRCyr corpora, they also include geographical information linking to various projects gathered on the website Heritage Gazetteer of Libya developed by the Society for Libyan Studies in London (now British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies). The Advanced Search page, in addition, will offer the opportunity to browse the Prosopographia Cyrenaica, a long awaited study, carried out by the late André Laronde, which is currently being completed.