Fragment of local marble, parts of the right side preserved, broken on all the other sides; the inscribed face is worn and deteriorated due to burning.

1 [ἱερ]ατικήν?

2–3 [ἱέρει]α̣ν τῆ̣ς̣ [ - - ] Κόρης?

3 For Kore, who became, in the second and third centuries, the leading goddess of Sardis, see the commentaries on no. 447, 4 and no. 691, 1–2. M. P. de Hoz, “The Goddess of Sardis: Artemis, Demeter or Kore?” (in Between Tarhuntas and Zeus Polieus, ed. M. P. de Hoz, Juan Pablo Sánchez Hernández, and Carlos Molina Valero [2016], pp. 185–224), examining the evidence for Artemis, Demeter, and Kore in Sardis, assumes “that Artemis remained the main goddess of the city…but that her cult and, above all, her presentation as symbol of the city evolved following the characteristic pattern of the cities in Imperial Asia Minor” (p. 209); “…Artemis, who from the end of the 2nd to the beginning of the 3rd century beg(a)n to be known as Kore due to the influence of Demeter’s cult and the relation between Demeter and Meter…” (p. 217). Cf. the critical remark by L. Robert, RN 1976, p. 47 n. 103 (= id., Choix, p. 664): “R. Fleischer, Artemis von Ephesos und verwandte Kultstatuen, a tenté vainement, pp. 187–201, de montrer, avec des raisonnements étonnants, que la déesse en question n’était pas Corè, mais «Artémis de Sardes».”

The Sardian epigraphical evidence for Kore is scarce.