Fragment of an Epitaph Jonathan Prag Jonathan Prag John Fell OUP Research Fund ERC Advanced Grant no.885040 Jonathan Prag original data collection and editing Marta Fogagnolo editing, translation and commentary James Cummings conversion to EpiDoc James Chartrand site construction and encoding Valeria Vitale editing of geo data Michael Metcalfe museum data collection Alex Antoniou EpiDoc editing Simona Stoyanova standardisation of template and tidying up encoding system automated or batch processes I.Sicily ISic003289 645556 316272 http://sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk/inscription/ISic003289 10.5281/zenodo.4358063 Licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 licence. Italy Sicily Catania Museo Civico di Catania 644 Ancient Greek

Two joining fragments of marble plaque damaged on all sides.

marble plaque 19 31 4.3 chiselled

A with broken bar, squared E (except at l. 3 where it is lunate), lunate Σ, cursive Ω. At ll. 2 and 4, Π and Τ are crossed by slanting bars, which could indicate an abbreviation. Small H and Ο above Τ and Π at l. 4, small curved signs at the upper right of T at l. 2, T and Ν at l. 4. Small curved signs below Υ and inside Ω and Α at l. 2, which could be now decoration marks, now abbreviation marks.

Lines 1-4 33-37 Interlineation line 1 to 2 not recorded Catina Catania 37.49223, 15.07041 6th — 9 century CE Original discovery not recorded, but probably from Catania; Tardìa, Cod. Bibl. Comunale Palermo Qq C 17 a, f. 136r mentions the inscription as coming from Catania, communicated to him by Torremuzza 21 November 1766. Observed by Libertini in Museo Biscari, later by Korhonen in Magazzino superiore, Collezione Biscari (formerly sala VII 288). None

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ISicily glyphs authority list

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 English Italian Ancient Greek Latin Hebrew Phoenician Punic Oscan Elymian Sikel Sikan funerary James Cummings autogenerated EpiDoc output from database Alex Antoniou Epidoc editing Simona Stoyanova normalised Unicode Simona Stoyanova updated list of languages Simona Stoyanova restructured bibliography Updated Zenodo DOI renumbered files, uris and references Marta Fogagnolo revised the text encoding, added dimensions, translations and commentary 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
ΖΙΕΙΑΔOMA ἐτ ῶν μ υἱὸς Ἰσιδώρα ς κατ ετέθει δὲ καὶ Ἰσιδωρ ΥΤΗ τ ῶν Καταν ῶν ΠΟΖΗΛ
Text based on photograph Korhonen: [---]ZIEIAΔΣIIΛIII[---] Libertini: υἱὸς Ἰσιδώρ(ας); Korhonen ET(---) M υἱός, Ἰσιδώρα +[---]. The small curved sign at the upper right of Τ could be an abbreviation for ων (see l. 4): ἐτ(ῶν) and the small sign above the Μ could indicate the numeral Libertini: ἐτέθει δὲ καὶ Ἰσιδώρα; Korhonen: [κατ]ετέθει (i.e. κατετέθη) δὲ καὶ Ἰσιδώ[ρ-] According to Korhonen the first letter could also be a Κ. The small curved sign above the T and the N could be an abbreviation for ων (τ(ῶν) Καταν(ῶν), i.e. τῶν Καταν(αίων), see also Korhonen)

… at the age of 40. The son of Isidora … were lied down and Isidor- … of the inhabitants of Catania…

… all’età di 40 anni. Il figlio di Isidora … sono stati sepolti e Isidor- … degli abitanti di Catania…

The epitaph is very fragmentary and the several abbreviations make it difficult to read. Palaeography suggests a date to the first Byzantine era. The text must have been an epitaph as suggested by the verb [---κατ]ετέθει (i.e. κατετέθη) at l. 3, which is used to indicate the act of burial. At l. 2 and l. 3 the female name Ἰσιδώρα can be read (but, as Korhonen points out, the second mention could also have been the masculine name Ἰσιδώρος), while at l. 4 the reading τ(ῶν) Καταν(ῶν) (i.e. τῶν Καταναίων) is likely and connects this inscription the city of Catania.

191 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10000028 Libertini 1930 318 no.10 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10001871