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Inscribed Base of Cup (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Base of Cup: Dedication to Hera
- Date
- Found in a Hellenistic fill contemporary with or slightly predating the Temple of Artemis; the cup is probably Persian or early Hellenistic., Late Lydian or Hellenistic
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- P10.068
- Material
- Ceramic
- Object Type
- Pottery, Graffito
- Pottery Shape
- Cup
- Pottery Ware
- Atticizing Black Glaze
- Pottery Attribution
- Inscription Text
Ἥρᾳ.(?)
- Inscription Translation
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- AT
- Trench
- AT 10.3
- Locus
- AT 10.3 Locus 10
- B-Grid Coordinates
- W162.42 - W164.43 / S1226.36 - S1226.47 *99.54 - 99.25
- Findspot
- Artemis Temple, northern pteroma.
- Description
Base of a cup.
- Comments
The inscription is interpreted by the editors in the sense that the cup was dedicated “to Hera” and that it is the earliest evidence for the worship of this goddess at Sardis.
Yet, in Hellenistic times one would expect the dative Ἥραι being written with iota adscript. It may therefore seem more probable that the inscription is the genitivus possessivus Ἡρᾶ of the personal (theophoric) name Ἡρᾶς. LGPN VA, s.v., refers for its occurrence in Lydia to TAM V 2, 1203, 3 (first century BC). The present inscription would accordingly say that the cup was “Heras’s.”
- See Also
- Bibliography
- N. Cahill and C. H. Greenewalt, jr., AJA 120 (2016), p. 479, fig. 8e.
- Author
- GP