Inscribed Plaque: Funerary Inscription for Aurelia Glykonis, midwife
- Date
- Probably after 212 AD (based on the name Aurelia Glykonis), Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- Uninv. M14 No.645
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Funerary Inscription
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
Αὐρηλίας Γλυ- κωνίδος Σαρ- διανῆς ἰα- 4 τρομαίας
- Inscription Translation
- “(Tomb) of the Sardian citizen and midwife Aurelia Glykonis.”
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- Findspot
- Formerly in the Valparaiso University archives (Indiana, USA), where it came in 1899; after its publication the stone was returned to Turkey.
- Description
Plaque of marble. The inscription is written in a rectangular field surrounded by moldings.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.44, W. 0.53, Th. 0.11, H. of letters 0.04.
- Comments
Summary of the commentary in ZPE:
É. Samama, Les médecins dans le monde grec (2003), pp. 9–10, writes on the epigraphical evidence for the “midwife,” μαῖα (sometimes written MEA): “Peu à peu le terme simple ne suffit plus à qualifier la sage-femme…A partir du iiie s. est formé le composé ἰατρόμαια que reprendront les inscriptions romaines, sans que l’on puisse déterminer si les compétences de cette sage-femme ‘obstétricienne’ sont vraiment plus étendues que celles des simples maiai.” The Attic funerary stele IG II/III2 6873 (mid-fourth century BC) mentions the deceased Phanostrate as “midwife and doctor,” μαῖα καὶ ἰατρός, naming the two elements of which the term ἰατρόμαια is composed.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- P. Keen and G. Petzl, ZPE 191 (2014), p. 189, no. 1, with photograph (SEG 64, 1191).
- Author
- GP