IGI3 230 Archaic fragment from an inscription of uncertain character (religious?)

Archaic fragment from an inscription of uncertain character (religious?)

IG I³ 230 Date: ca. 520-480 BC

. . . . . . . . . . . . (5) . . . Me- [tageitnion?] . . . . . . if . . . Bo- [edromion?] . . . . . . ^[1]

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References:

IG I³ 230 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

SEG 66.13

Immerwahr, Script, 76 no. 452

Tracy, Athenian Lettering, 17-18

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

Images: Agora Excavations - (1)
Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Plaque?

Inscription type: Uncertain (religious?)

Findspot: Agora (Ag. I 6091)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This inscription, which is on a thin marble slab or plaque, preserving its original back (6 cm. thick) and right side, consists of the last four or five letters of 9 lines of text, neatly inscribed in an archaic script, and including four-dot interpuncts. Only one whole word is legible, though Lewis speculated that ll. 5 and 8 might contain the beginning of the consecutive month-names, Metageitnion and Boedromion, i.e. perhaps a “sacrificial calendar” (on this genre of document see IG I³ 232 with n. 1). On the lettering see Immerwahr and Tracy (= SEG 66.13). E. Meyer, Hesperia 85, 2016, 366 notes that the inscription is physically similar to the Hekatompedon inscription, IG I³ 4, in being inscribed on a broad, but thin, plaque or slab, and suggests that, like that inscription, it may be on a reused metope from the Ur-Parthenon. Lewis’ date, “520-510”, is overly specific. The parallel with IG I³ 4 may suggest a somewhat later date and lettering can in any case be no more than a broad generational indicator (four-dot punctuation may also sit more easily in the early 5th cent., cf. Immerwahr).

Added: 13 Mar 2018
Updated: 11 Oct 2021
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ID: AIO_1389