| Inventory Number: | H 163 | |
| Title: | Fragmentary Amphora or Olpe with Graffito | |
| Description: | Eleven pieces comprising two non-joining fragments. To Young's publication of six pieces are now added five more, two of which help to complete to inscription. Part of the side wall with reserved panel preserved; panel filled with lion walking right. Cursory incision used for interior details of the lion, and added red for tongue and snout; large incised rosette in front of lion. The lion is of the very early black-figure style: cf. Kerameikos VI, 2, pp. 272, 326. Fine, soft, brownish buff clay, slightly micaceous; dull, somewhat worn black to bluish black glaze, outside only; thin, streaky brown to black glaze for lion and rosette. Inscription along two sides of panel in three lines: line 1, left to right, sideways to vase, running from top to bottom, no letters missing at ends; line 2, left to right, upside down to vase, several letters missing at right; line 3, retrograde, upside down to vase, several letters possibly missing at right. Letters incised deeply but not too carefully with a blunt point. Line 1: Ανδρογ[---] ho Δ[..]ιες Line 2: τοι Δι τ΄άναχτι hισ- Line 3: έδρασεν Line 1 contains a proper name, Androg...., followed by a patronymic or an ethnic. The final sigma is reserved, as is not uncommon in early inscriptions. In Line 2 Δί for the dative of Ζεύς is a mispelling or unusual spelling for Attica, where Διί is expected. Also strange is άναχτι instead of ανακτι although this is perhaps an early example of the Attic tendency to aspirate stops: cf. C. D. Buck, The Greek Dialects, Chicago, 1955, pp. 60-61. On the rarity of Anax as a title of Zeus, see B. Hemberg, ΑΝΑΞ, ΑΝΑΣΣΑ, und ΑΝΑΚΕΣ, Uppsala, 1955, pp. 8, 11. But the tau after Δί may represent an elision of τεinstead of τοιin which case the title may belong to another deity mentioned in the missing part of line 2. Hemberg shows that Apollo receives the title Anax in Homer and Classical literature far more often than any other deity, and since, like Zeus, Apollo was worshipped on Mount Hymettos (Pausanias, I, 32,2), it is possible that the inscription is a dedication to both deities. Line 2 breaks off with hισ[---]which suggests a form of ίστημι,although the present tense would be odd. Line 3 continues boustophedon from line 2 and preserves only one word,έδρασεν. The ends of the three horizontals of the initial epsilon are preserved at the right edge. Young would take the verb to be equivalent to έγραφσεν and translate the whole, "Androg..., son of D...,made (i.e. wrote)...(a dedication).. to Zeus Anax". In other words the dedicator is stressing his proud feat, that he actually wrote a sentence. But the usage of δράω for γράφω would be unparalleled. Nor should the verb be equated with ποιέω and Androg.. or someone mentioned in the lacuna be considered the maker of the vase. According to M. H. Jameson ,δράω should have more force, referring possibly to the performance of a rite, as it does in I.G., I, 4. The length of the lacuna at the end of line 2 and beginning of line cannot be determined but it seems clear that we are dealing with amore complex text that one involving the simple fact of writing. To the right of the end of line 1 is a lone four-barred sigma, larger and more deeply cut than the letters of the inscription. The sigma faces right, but no letters can be seen to its right because the surface there is badly worn. | |
| Context: | Votive dump. | |
| Chronology: | 600 B.C. | |
| Bibliography: | Hesperia 92 (2023), pp. 645-671, fig. 3. | |
| Hesperia Suppl. 16 (1975), no. 1, p. 13, fig. 5, pl. 2. | ||
| A.J.A. 44 (1940), p. 6, no. 2. | ||
| References: | Publication: Hesperia 92 (2023) Drawing: DA 13912 Image: 2009.01.0073 |
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