The Archaeological Exploration of Sardis

Inscribed Roof-shaped Cinerarium Lid (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Inscribed Roof-shaped Cinerarium Lid: Funerary Inscription for Artemidoris Minas, son of Demetrios

Monograph 14: Sardis: Greek and Latin Inscriptions, Part II: Finds from 1958 to 2017 (2019) Cat. 588

Date

1st century BC–1st century AD?, Hellenistic or Roman

Sardis or Museum Inv. No.

S16.033

Material

Marble, Stone

Object Type

Cinerarium Lid, Inscription

Inscription Type

Funerary Inscription

Inscription language

Greek

Inscription Text

(a)		see the lemma

(b)		Ἐπὶ στεφανηφόρου Μηνογέ-
		νης v Μηνοφάντου Ἀλέξαν-
		δρος, v μηνὸς Ἀπελαίου τρί-
	4	[τ]ῃ· ἐβίωσε Ἀρτεμίδωρος
		[Δη]μ̣ητρίου Μινᾶς v ἐτῶν νγ´.

Inscription Translation

“When Menogenes Alexandros, son of Menophantos, officiated as stephanephoros, on the third day of month Apel(l)aios, died Artemidoros Minas, son of [De]metrios, aged fifty-three years.”

Inscription Comment

Site

Sardis

Sector

Nec

Findspot

Found in 2012 near Sart during excavation of an underpass under the İzmir-Ankara highway at Esentepe, now near the entrance to the Bath-Gymnasium Complex.

Description

Roof-shaped cinerarium lid of white marble and an apex in the middle of the last line are preserved. Inscription (b) is on the other face of the roof.

Dimensions

H. 0.37, W. 0.47, Th. 0.065, H. of letters [a] 0.02, [b] 0.017). It seems that on face (a), five lines of an earlier inscription had been deleted; traces of the last two letters of its first line ([ ]. E.

Comments

1–3 One would rather expect ἐπὶ στεφανηφόρου Μηνογένους τοῦ Μηνοφάντου Ἀλεξάνδρου. The Sardian coin published in E. Babelon, Inventaire sommaire de la collection Waddington… (1897), no. 5212 (second–first century BC) has ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟ ΜΗΝΟΓΕΝΟ.

3 Ἀπελαίου, with simplified -λλ-.

3–4 τρί/[τ]ῃ, Petzl; TPI[-]/[--], Laflı and Bru.

4–5 ἐβίωσε Ἀρτεμίδωρος…ἐτῶν νγ´: One would expect ἐβίωσε ἔτη…; the construction has probably been mixed up with that of τελευτάω; see no. 593, 5–6 (ἐτελεύτησεν ἐτῶν ν´).

5 Μινᾶς: the second name of Artemidoros, son of [De]metrios, probably corresponds to Μιννᾶς (L. Robert, Noms indig., p. 226; Herrmann and Malay, New Documents, p. 41, no. 24, 5 comm.), written with simplified -νν-.

See Also

Bibliography

E. Laflı and H. Bru, Anatolia Antiqua 24 (2016), p. 108, no. 6 (no. 588b only), with photos.

Author

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