Blocks from a monumental Greek text

Blocks from a monumental Greek text Jonathan Prag Jonathan Prag John Fell OUP Research Fund ERC Advanced Grant no.885040 Jonathan Prag original data collection and editing James Cummings conversion to EpiDoc James Chartrand site construction and encoding Valeria Vitale editing of geo data Michael Metcalfe museum data collection Simona Stoyanova standardisation of template and tidying up encoding system automated or batch processes Marta Fogagnolo editing and commentary I.Sicily ISic001283 492888 39101652 140773 316194 http://sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk/inscription/ISic001283 10.5281/zenodo.4385750 Licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 licence. Italy Sicily Catania Museo Civico di Catania 256 264 Ancient Greek

Two blocks of ceramic, presumably belonging to the same text. The surface of (b) is slightly more corroded than that of (a), but the dimensions are very similar.

fired clay block

It is unclear without further study whether the letters were incised after firing (as Korhonen suggests), or actually moulded prior to firing (as their form would appear to suggest). chiselled

Catina Catania 37.49223, 15.07041 later third to early first century BCE Original discovery not recorded, but assumed to come from Catania, or elsewhere in eastern Sicily. 2006.04 256 34 34 13

Letters very regular, with a deep square profile: alpha with a straight cross-bar; kappa with full length arms that are detached from the vertical; rho with a very small loop. Traces of guidelines.

Lines 1-2 110 Interlineation line 1 to 2 not recorded Observed by Müller in Collezione Biscari, formerly in sala VI.64, now in magazzino del cortile 264 34 34 14

Letters very regular, with a deep square profile: Alpha with a straight cross-bar, Οmicron very slightly smaller than the other letters, sigma with horizontal top and bottom strokes; no guidelines visible.

Lines 1-2 100-120 Interlineation line 1 to 2 not recorded Observed by Benndorf-Schönein in Collezione Biscari, formerly in sala VI.72, now in magazzino del cortile

Encoded following the latest EpiDoc guidelines

Taxonomies for ISicily controlled values

ISicily glyphs authority list

Julian Calendar

English Italian Ancient Greek Latin Hebrew Phoenician Punic Oscan Elymian Sikel Sikan unknown James Cummings autogenerated EpiDoc output from database Simona Stoyanova normalised Unicode Simona Stoyanova updated list of languages Simona Stoyanova added EDCS numbers Simona Stoyanova restructured bibliography Updated Zenodo DOI renumbered files, uris and references Marta Fogagnolo revised the text encoding, added dimensions and commentary Jonathan Prag edited the edition (metadata) I.Sicily with the permission of the Assessorato Regionale dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana - Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana I.Sicily with the permission of the Assessorato Regionale dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana - Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana

ΚΤΙ ΑΡΤ

ΤΑΣ ΟΣΤ

Text based on photographs Kaibel joins frA with frB and reads Ἀρτ[εμίδωρ]ος

The two fragments belong to a monumental inscription. The technique is peculiar and requires further study as to whether the letters were formed pre-firing or afterwards: the deep square profile suggests pre-firing, but also the possibility that the blocks were either used as moulds or that the letters were filled with another material. It is unclear why Korhonen suggests that the technique is different between the two blocks. The absence of guidelines on block B is due to the additional corrosion to the surface.

According to Korhonen, the letters ΚΤΙ could be part of κτίσις or of a derived word.

14.0459 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10001072 3 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10000028 3.5732e (fr.a only) https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10001252 Benndorf, Schöne 1867 410 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10002347