IGI3 620 Dedication by the potters Mnesiades and Andokides

Dedication by the potters Mnesiades and Andokides

IG I³ 620 Date: ca. 525 BC

Mnesiades the potter (kerameus) and Andokides dedicated me.^[1]

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References:

IG I³ 620 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

Raubitschek, Dedications 178 (PHI)

CEG 1, 191

Kaczko, Attic Dedicatory Epigrams, 13

Translation by: Edmund Stewart

Monument type: Pillar

Inscription type: Dedication (private, Athena), Metrical (dactylic hexameter)

Original location: Acropolis

Findspot: Acropolis (Acropolis Museum 6971)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This inscription was written vertically on a pillar 84 cm in height. On the top there are four ruts designed for fastening a bronze statue by the ‘Samian’ method. This dedication is one of at least three similar offerings from the Acropolis all by individuals who styled themselves ‘potter’ (kerameus): see also IG I³ 628 and IG I³ 824; for another possibility, see Raubitschek, Dedications, 150. The names of four out of five of these dedicants (Andokides, Euphronios, Mnesiades and Nearchos) are names of potters who left signatures on Attic vases from the middle of the sixth century to the first quarter of the fifth (see C.M. Keesling, The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis, 2003, 71-75). The uninscribed ‘Potter’s Relief’, also offered as a dedication on the Acropolis, appears to depict a seated potter holding the products of his work (Acropolis Museum 1332). These facts make it unlikely that kerameus should be understood in this inscription as a demotic referring to residence in Kerameis (for discussion see A.C. Gillis, Des dieux dans le four, 2021, 47-8). On dedications including occupational titles see IG I³ 546.

Mnesiades is known from one surviving signature on a fragment of a hydria made c. 550 BC. Andokides was a potter active c. 530-500, who signed both black- and red-figure vases. Mnesiades may have been near the end of his career at the time this dedication was made and Andokides was perhaps his pupil. Andokides may also be identical with the Andokides named kalos (beautiful) on a hydria dated to c. 540 (cf. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, p. 28 for the alternative identification of this individual with an older relative of Andokides son of Leagoras, the general active c. 440s). If so, the potter Andokides' date of birth may have been around 560 BC.

Added: 19 Aug 2025
Updated: 19 Aug 2025
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