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Further Comments on Archaic Greek Inscriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

L. H. Jeffery
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Extract

In JHS LXIX (1949), 25 ff., I commented on various Greek inscriptions, mainly archaic. This is a second series on the same lines. The inscriptions are listed geographically, if possible under the relevant headings of Inscriptiones Graecae; when the inscription discussed is not in IG, the heading is bracketed.

[IG I2.] Attica. Graffiti on Attic ‘SOS’ amphorae (Fig. 1).

In Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen I (1923), 127, Pfuhl described a type of amphora of which stray examples have been found in many parts of the Mediterranean world, in contexts of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. The clay and paint resembled that of Attic pottery, some of the examples had actually been found in Attica, and, though describing it as ‘eine noch ungelöste Frage’, he was inclined to agree with those archaeologists who called the ware Attic. This was later proved beyond doubt by the American excavators of the Athenian Agora, when they found there numerous examples of the whole series, from its start in Geometric times to its decline during the sixth century. They are described thus by R. S. Young: ‘Their decoration is conventional and very simple; the body is glazed, with reserved bands around the shoulder, and the neck is reserved and decorated with wheels, concentric circles, or diminishing triangles between wavy lines.’ A typical and often-quoted example, showing the wavy-line-and-circle (‘SOS’) decoration of the neck, is that carried by Dionysus on the François Vase, painted by Kleitias c. 570.

They are big enough to carry wine or oil; after Solon's legislation they can have carried only oil to the far parts where they have been found. Their size made them useful, when empty, for urn-burials; most of our examples come from cemeteries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 50 , November 1955 , pp. 67 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1955

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References

1 Young, R. S., Hesperia Suppl. II (1939), 178 ff., 210 f.Google Scholar; AJA XLVI (1942), 50 f. (pottery from Phaleron).

2 Op. cit. 210.

3 Pfuhl, op. cit. III, pl. 52, 217.

4 I have not included here the amphora found in the necropolis at Thera (Thera II 64 and 189; IG XII 3, 984); it bears on the shoulder, r. to l., the letters αγλ, but neither gamma nor lambda is Attic. They are the normal Ionic forms, used also in Theran.

5 PhW 1890, 918.

6 Cited here by kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.

7 Cited here by kind permission of Dr. K. Kübler.

8 Cited here by kind permission of J. M. Cook, co-Director of the Anglo-Turkish excavations at Smyrna.

9 AM VIII (1883), 141 ff. The photograph Plate 10, b is by courtesy of M. Mitsos, Ephor of the Epigraphical Museum, Athens.

10 Rams were sacrificed to Amphiaraus (Pausanias I 34, 5), to Trophonius (Pausanias IX 39, 6) and to Calchas (Strabo 284) by those wishing to consult the oracles of these heroes; also to Pelops at Olympia (Pausanias V 13, 2). Odysseus offered a black ram and ewe to Erebus before calling up the dead (Od. X 527, 572; Pausanias X 29, 1). Cf. Baumgarten, op. cit. 144 f.

11 Op. cit. 145, n. 2.

12 Pausanias III 187.

13 The most detailed treatises are those of R. Wuensch, Defixionum Tabellae Atticae, IG III 3, Appendix (1897), and A. Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae; (1904).

14 IG XII 9, 56; Audollent, no. 80. These tablets are certainly of the fifth century, but the circumstances of their discovery do not warrant the conclusion that they are defixiones; see IG ad loc. Otherwise Audollent gives only his no. 45 (from the Piraeus), which, by appearance, could equally well be of the fourth century. No certain fifth-century examples from Attica were known to Wilhelm, in ÖJh VII (1904), 105 ff.Google Scholar, where he established the dates of various fourth-century examples; but he described (p. 120) Wuensch, op. cit., no. 38 as being equally possibly of the fifth century. In Beiträge (1909), 211, 307 he referred to the fifth-century examples from Gela and Camarina (here nos. 13–18).

15 Dunbabin, The Western Greeks 330.

16 For a good discussion of the subject, see Audollent, op. cit. lxvii ff. and 499 ff.

17 Neue Fluchtäfeln (RhM IV (1900)), 84.

18 Defixionum Tabellae Atticae, xx. In Die Ilias und Homer (1916), 450 ff., Wilamowitz suggested that the ὲφὲσια γρὰμματα were in fact uncomprehended and mangled relics of the original ritual words used in the pre-Greek cult of Artemis at Ephesus; it was possible, he argued, to see a similar survival of Carian in the ritual of Apollo at Didyma (Clem. Alex., Strom. V 8, 48, 4) and of Lycian in the song of the Delian maidens (Hymn to Apollo, 157 ff.). I owe this reference to Sir John Beazley.

19 Wessely, , Griech. Zauberpapyrus v. Paris u. London (1888), 52 ff. = Audollent lxxxiv ff.Google Scholar

20 The first letter of νοασονι̣ has been taken for Corinthian beta, and a nick in the bronze after the final nu for iota, which is not certain; hence the reconstructed epithet Βοὰσων the Helper. See IG IV, ad loc.; Rouse, , Greek Votive Offerings (1902), 232, n. 12Google Scholar; Neugebauer, loc. cit. For the apotropaic power of the frog, cf. Fraenkel, , JdI I (1886), 52.Google Scholar

21 Published here by kind permission of A. Chrestou, Ephor of the Museum.

22 The big toe may be shown separated from the rest on statues made about the middle of the sixth century and after (e.g. Richter, Kouroi, pl. 57, figs. 205–6); but it is not possible to reconstruct the Boeotian fragment in such a position.

23 Kretschmer, , Glotta IV (1913), 200 ff., fig. 5Google Scholar, whence the facsimile here Fig. 4, 2. The latter part of the text is given here from Johnson's careful commentary, which gives photographs of details, but not a revised facsimile.

24 Apulien (1914), 268 ff., pl. 31, 4.

25 Ribezzo, , RIGI 1920, 237 ff.Google Scholar; Whatmough, , Prae-Italic Dialects II (1933), 292Google Scholar, n. xxviii, and p. 565. Kretschmer's attempt to translate the whole as Greek is not generally accepted, though it is thought that the first word may well be the Greek name.

26 Whatmough, op. cit. 537 f.

27 IGA 550, SGDI 1657.

28 Op. cit. no. 186. Cf. Ribezzo, , RIGI, 1936, 222 and 1937, 54.Google Scholar

29 Op. cit. no. 195a.

30 Thucydides VI 6.

31 Herodotus IV 164.

32 I have to thank the staff of the Museum, especially Mme Seniha Morali, for much kindness in helping me to examine the stone, and for the photograph given here, Plate 10.

33 The thickness is as given in previous publications; the stele is now encased in plaster, so that I could not check it.

34 REG XIV (1901), 127 ff.

35 Lechat, , REG XIV (1901), 417Google Scholar; Mendel, loc. cit.; Cook, A. B., Zeus III (1940), 667 f.Google Scholar

36 Wilamowitz, and Jacobsthal, , Nordionische Steine (1909), 63 f. (Mandron)Google Scholar; DGE 714–5 (Samos); 723–4 (Miletus and Didyma).

37 Richter, Ancient Furniture (1926), fig. 5.

38 Bluemel, , Kat. Skulpt. Berlin Mus. II 1 (1940), 20 f., no. A19, pl. 44.Google Scholar

39 Langlotz, , FGB 137, pl. 86B.Google Scholar

40 Head, HN 2 266 f.

41 Riemann, , Kerameikos II (1940), 24 ff., no. 25Google Scholar, with full bibliography; Johansen, , The Attic Grave Reliefs of the Classical Period (1951), 50 ff.Google ScholarCf. also the Thasian stela (c. 300 B.C.) published by Devambez, P., BCH LXXIX (1955), 121 ff., pl. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Johansen, op. cit. 75 ff.

43 My thanks for permission to publish are due to the General Direction of Turkish Museums; I wish also to express my gratitude to Professor Ekrem Akurgal and Mr. J. M. Cook, who drew my attention to these fragments.

44 Milet I 3, no. 31; Kern, Imagines 8.

45 SBAk Berlin 1901, 909 f.

46 Athens: Hesperia XVII (1948), 86 ff.; Thasos: Pouilloux, J., Recherches sur l'histoire et les cultes de Thasos I (1954), no. 7.Google Scholar

47 Didyma: SGDI 5504–5, 5508, and no. 4 below; Samos: Buschor, Altsamische Standbilder 26 ff.

48 P. 120 verso. The journal is now in the Departmental Library of the British Museum; see Pryce, BMC Sculpt. I 103.

49 Pontremoli and Haussoullier, Didymes 202 f., fig. in text.

50 Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse VIII (1905), 163 f.

51 Buschor, op. cit., fig. 60; Richter, Kouroi no. 63.