¹ The inscriber tends to cut the initial strokes of letters such as kappa, nu, and gamma vertically; if our letter were a rho, it would not only be anomalous on this score but to my knowledge would have no parallel for its exaggerated form elsewhere.

² Coincidentally, the closest parallel known to me, of roughly the same date, is the piece from Haliartos which I discuss in ZPE 50 (1983) 205–7. On the rarity of papponymics before 400 BC see also Hansen, P. A., Carmina epigraphica Graeca saeculorum VIII–V a. Chr. n., p. 70.Google Scholar

³ A koppa of this form has come to light on Samos (Trademarks 247, 5F n. 1; Samos VI 1, no. 175. See also perhaps AA 1964, 538, no. 31), but I do not now think that it can save the reading here. I add here that perhaps the most difficult of the vase-name abbreviations in the group in question, APY, has now found its true supplementation, ἀρύστιχος in an Ionian context of the sixth century, at Olbia Pontica, J. Vinogradov, Olbia (= Xenia 1) 20 and V. P. Yailenko, Grecheskaya Kolonizatsiya 268.

⁴ The interpretation suggested by Gentili, apud Torelli loc. cit., is over-extravagant; the vase-name connotation of the first part should now be taken as proven, though I would not like to provide any definitive reading for the second.

⁵ See Amyx, , Hesperia 27 (1958), 195, 241, 252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ AJA 62 (1958), pl. 40 and Glotta 41 (1963) 252–3, 49 (1971), 184.

⁷ Chantraine loc. cit., Naoumides, , GRBS 9 (1968) 280–1.Google Scholar Hesychius has the form φάκται.

⁸ It is not possible to say how many other abbreviated vase-names of the type ΚΥ, ΚΥΛΙ should be expanded to κυλιφακτ (‥), but I feel that an abbreviation up to and including the phi would have been used to distinguish the intentions of the writer, indicating something other than plain κύλιξ or κυλίκον.

⁹ Cremation is very rare in sixth-century Ionia, though our evidence is limited; Philipp, H., IM 31 (1981) 152–3.Google Scholar It is entirely consistent with Theran custom, with which the use of a Corinthian pyxis is also consonant.

¹⁰ Examples of H for hε are cited by Bechtel, Griechische Diakkte ii 521; perhaps closest to our example is IG xii 3 786 with , but the original value of the initial vowel is unlikely to have been ā The usage of H for hε (as well as the Theran habit of ligaturing letters) at least increases the likelihood of H being adopted, whether by accident or design, for hα.

¹¹ Perusal of the various corpora has yielded only a small harvest of names with the element αθλ-. Athlos, SEG xi 373Google Scholar may or may not be a personal name. Pentathlos of Knidos and Liparai is the earliest historical personage, after the aetiological hero of Elis, Aethlios (Paus. v 1 etc.); the only other compound name known by Bechtel and Fick (Griechische Personennamen ² 47) was Euathlos, which is now also attested at Eretria, c. 500 B.C. (ASA N.S. 43 (1983) 234). Two other Aethlioi are attested, the tutor of Chrysippos (D.L. viii. 8. 3) and a Samian historian (FHG iv 287); a further Athlios seems sufficiently clear at D.L. vi 2. 6 (I do not understand why Pape-Benseler and others assume a nominative Athlias). The fully contracted form Athl. is to be expected on Thera in view of the lack of digamma in the archaic script.

¹² See the indices of IG xii 3 (and supplement) s.v. Ἁγησίλοχος.

¹³ ADelt 15 (1933–5) 15, fig. 3. Such pyxides appear to be products of the second half of the sixth century, being replaced inter alia by the lekanis with stepped lid (Necrocorinthia 331).

¹⁴ The inscriptions which demonstrate the change fom local to Ionian script are all without independent dating evidence. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece 322, no. 14 has some changes, as 16; where there are letters in common with our graffito (and it is important to remember the letters not attested in all these inscriptions) our Ionic gamma is an advance; elsewhere on Thera it is first found perhaps on IG xii 3 451, which retains crossed theta (the cross vertical, as in our chi). We may note that LSAG 15 and 16 have tailed rho. None of the comparanda can be firmly dated and so we might prefer to put them earlier than a ‘reasonable’ date for the burial of Athlion, say before 500.