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An Inscribed Stone from the Acropolis.

E.M. Matthews and W. Neidinger (eds.) The Bylazora Excavations: 2008-2012. Vol I.

The Texas Foundation for Archaeological and Historical Research. Canyon Lake, 2012:

79-83.


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78

J22.3.1

H. 12 cm.

N13.9.1

POURING VESSELS AND ASSOCIATED WARES

LEKYTHOS.Red slipped globular lekythos, with bowl-like mouth, flat rim, and thin plain handle attached to the

neck and shoulder of the vessel (J22.3.1). e shape is reminiscent of the globular black slipped examples,

Black Deianeira class, excavated at the Athenian Agora; these have a manufacture period from the 6th

to the end of the 4th centuries BC, and were designed for table oils (Sparks et. al. 1970: 151-152).

PILGRIMS FLASK.Grey ware vessel fragment of a jug with small ring handles and flattened sides ofa round body; rim and base missing (M13-M14.2A).is vessel type

is often known as a Pilgrims Flask or canteen, produced at various

centers throughout Anatolia, the Levant, Greece, and other

Mediterranean workshops, from the Bronze Age to the late

antique period.is example is produced in what appears to be

a local fabric and is thus far the only example excavated of this type of vessel.

M13-M14.2A

GUTUS / FEEDER.Grey ware gutus, with concave disc base, globular body, concave neck, and

slightly incurved rim. Conical spout attached to body at widest section with

wide strap handle attached to interior of lip, meeting vessel at widest

section of body (N13.9.1).e earliest known production of this vessel

type is mid-5th century BC, based on parallels with types discovered

at Olynthos; however, their life span is unknown (Robinson 1950:264-266).

L14.6.2C

5 cm.

7 cm.

J13.4.9

5 cm.L14.6.1

MINIATURESMiniature versions of full sized vessels are commonly found in funerary and sanctuary

spaces, as well as other types of civic spaces and some domestic deposits. ese vessels are

often related to votive offerings, either on their own merit or directly related to the

contents they would have held.

1. Miniature kantharos (L14.6.1). Imported vessel type with lustrous black glazed interior

and exterior, broken at foot. is vessel profile is unusual in the angularity of

the scraped neck as well as the thin handles which begin horizontally along

the exterior of the lip and meet at a central point; they are joined to form

a double barrel strap handle meeting the body of the vessel.

2. Miniature grey ware pot, with short ring foot and a globular body which is out-turned towards

the neck, handle missing. Body is burnished on the exterior and has several shallow grooved lines

creating a faceted external profile (L14.6.2C).

3. Miniature bowl with very worn red slip covering, decorated with series of deeply grooved

wide bands around the body (J13.4.9).

References:

By S. M. O

Description and Provenance

During the 2011 excavation season an inscription on a worked block

of stone was uncovered on the acropolis near the modern village of SvetiNikole, tentatively identified as the Paionian city of Bylazora based u pon

archaeological, historical, and geographical evidence.1

e face of the block bearing the inscription measures 0.21 x 0.45 m.

(height and length), and the block itself is 0.22 m. in width.ese do not

represent the original dimensions of the block, however, since it sustained

heavy damage in antiquity and was not discovered in its original context

(Figure 113).e rear of the block is completely broken away, leaving a

jagged edge, and it may have been significantly larger than its preserved

width. Part of the roughly cut bottom surface is preserved, indicating

that the damage here is not significant. e right side of the block is

damaged, but the finished portion of its face is visible in the upper half.

e top left hand side and inscription face of the block preserve major

portions of a smoothly dressed surface. e height and length measurements are therefore roughly the same as they were when the b

first carved.

Of particular interest is a thin, roughly hewn lip of approximately 37 mm. height across the upper portion of the inscriptional

continuing around the left and right hand sides of the stone. It would appear that a cyma or mold (perhaps over a fillet - the remn

the lip) has been chipped away from this portion of the stone, suggesting that it was once part of a monument or an architectura

such as an anta capital.

ere is no sign of any clamps or dowel holes, although the damage to the stone could conceivably have rany such traces.

is identification brings up the intriguing problem of whether the inscription was inscribed while the block was in situ, or aftbeen removed from its original context. In favor of the former hypothesis is the fact that the inscription respects the area of the orig

Figure 113.


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line, is the correct orientation, and utilizes the full face of the block. However, if the damage predated the inscription, then the remaining

smooth face would have been the logical place to inscribe.e former supposition is stronger, but the question must remain open for debate.

e inscription was found in the same context as a tile fall in the remains of Building A built atop an earlier Building B of unknown

date or function (Figure 51). Building A would appear to post-date the civic use of the acropolis and is probably residential and/or storage

related. Both the earlier and the later buildings had a number of pithoi in them. Stray 6th-5th century BC sherds synchronous with the

context of Building A indicate ancient and/or modern interference with the layers, thus complicating all finds to some extent.e proximity

of Building A to the modern surface levels probably accounts for the confused contexts - for some 2000 years the acropolis has likely been

used for intensive pastoral farming as it still is today. However, the majority of the diagnostic material can be dated with some confidence to

the 3rd-2nd century BC ([S3] L18.2-5, [S3] L18.13, [S3] L18.15 in Building A include late Hellenistic amphorae, a kantharos, a painted

skyphos, and jugs), and on balance this is the approximate date that we may assign to the building.is date provides aterminus ante quem forthe inscription (2nd century BC).

Text and Notes

1.

2.

e letters are of consistent height ( ca. 7 cm.) except for omicron, which is miniature (2.5 cm.).e tail of upsilon is generally formed witha longer stroke than its two upper arms, though there is some inconsistency in its depiction. Pi has a broad bridge between its two vertical

strokes and the right vertical is shorter than the left. Rho is formed with a head roughly the siz e of the omicrons and with a single tail. Epsilon,

if the identification is correct, is formed with its middle and upper horizontal bars of equal, rather stubby, length. Faint traces of a line are

visible under both lines of the text.ese likely served for alignment purposes, even if the text over the first line only haphazardly respects it.

1. The first letter, if there was in fact one present, is too badly mutilated to read, although based upon the alignment and extent

of the damage, I am inclined to accept that there was one. Numerous candidates present themselves, since those letters that are

preserved are few and we can only guess the shape of the others.e shape and positioning of the damage would allow an omicron

or a phi. Letters that are almost certainly excluded as possibilities are upsilon, pi, and rho. e three preserved omicrons all appear

in the upper half of their respective lines, while the damage here is confined to a lower position. ere is not a lot of di fference in

alignment, however, and this is not a strong argument for ruling out an omicron given the brevity of the preserved text.

: In the preliminary edition of this inscription it was not possible to read an iota or omicron with the necessary certainty

from the photographs. After examining the stone in p erson, I am now confident of these two letters.

2. :is is a guess based upon a balance of possibilities.e lower horizontal is broken offand we might equally read a digamma, , if it

was poss ible to demonstr ate eith er that this f orm pe rsisted in Paion ia unti l the He llenisti c peri od, or th at the i nscrip tion itse lf

is contemporary to the Classical or even Archaic Greek periods.

Figure 114.

e first of the final three letter fragments preserves a curve that is reminiscent of a Hellenistic Greek sigma, or a form o

popular in the epichoric period of the Greek alphabet. e final two letter fragments consist of the tops of vertical bars. One or th

might represent an iota, or the two might together belong to the same letter - an eta. Phi, kappa, and lamda cannot be discounted

possibilities that one or the other, or even both, marks are accidental c hips and not letters at all (although their alignment compared

remainder of the letters of the second row suggests otherwise).

Discussion

Several observations point away from the inscription belonging to the

context in which it was found:

1. It is inscribed on a block worked for an architectural or some other

monumental purpose, and this block cannot be associated

with any of its surrounding remains.

2. e block itself has been broken in half and deliberately modified -

modifications which have negatively affected the reading of the

inscription (thereby arguing against the hypothesis that it was

inscribed in its new locationafterbeing removed.3. Its missing pieces have not been located, suggesting that the block

was broken up at another location before being removed.

Letter form comparanda from the site are limited. Occasional

graffiti and dipinti have been found on sherds at Bylazora during the last

five years of excavations, the most relevant of which is a graffito incised

on the base of a Hellenistic vessel, probably a kantharos, and reading

, drink!(Figure 115).

e style of the broad pi is the same, along with the iotas (not in themselves remarkable, of course), and perhaps also the

Unfortunately, this base was found in clean up and is thus context-less. 2 In any case, the inscription sorely lacks in diagnostic le

might point in the direction of a date, even if letter f orms are dangerous diagnostics, especially in the Hellenistic period. e long v

and omega are not attested, meaning that the inscription could be of any alphabetic date pre 2nd century B.C.

e direction of the text is from left to right, as indicated by the rhos and pi. It is a mystery, however, how much of the inscri

missing.e height and length of the block are preserved, indicating that only those fragmented letters are lost. e inscription is

to be graffiti: some care is taken with spacing and letter forms and we are unable to make a judgement as to its quality in the ab

comparative evidence at Bylazora at this stage.

Finally, it is necessary to discuss the inscriptions content, the most interesting puzzle of all. We are dealing with what might v

be a monumental inscription from a land on the sphere of the Greek universe and in the vicinity of a number of other languages

Macedonian andracian. Is this inscription written in Paionian?

e letters are unquestionably Greek, although as the Carian and Etruscan alphabets indicate this need not require that their

values be the same. Hammond believed that many of the Paionian tribes spoke a dialect of Greek akin to W. Greek, although oth

a separate language, Paionian(1979: 42-3). is learned guess (in the absence of unambiguous linguistic evidence) is based upon

geographic testimonia (Herodotus 5.13, 7.20; Strabo 7 C 326) and the material record, which shows a distinct cultural area in ancien

(Hammond, 1979: 42-3, 657). However, especially in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, there is clear numismatic, epigraphic, and

evidence attesting to close ties between Paionia and Macedonia and Greece, and that the Paionian kings were influenced by their H

counterparts in terms of propaganda and imagery (Hammond, 1972: 90; Petrova, 2001: 13-27). It would thus be unsurprising to

inscription in either language at Bylazora, and we have already seen an unquestionably Greek inscription in the form of the

above. In fact, we must keep an open mind as to the Paionian language perh aps being a dialect of Greek, whether known or unknow

e inscription as preserved can, in fact, be analyzed as Greek. e preservation of both side surfaces and lack of side clamps

that the block was not architecturally connected with other blocks to either side of it and argues for the margins of the text being pr

e remains of the fillet-like feature identify this block as the topmost in its series, unless some sort of stepped platform continue

it, in which case it is unlikely that it contained text adjoining this inscription. us there are cogent reasons for proposing that

Figure 115.


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the beginning of the inscription preserved (assuming that one was meant to read left to right in a descending fashion as is usual), and that

anything missing came from lower blocks in the series. If this hypothesis is correct, it is possible to divide the text as follows:

.

..

e same set of four letters repeats itself, with the diphthong looking suspiciously genitival. Such repetition is a common epigraphic

trope in formulae relating to names, although I will renege f rom my position in the preliminary report where I stated that there are a number

of attested examples from the region that could fit, e.g. (IG X.158): my argument as to the configuration of the inscription now

excludes such a name on the grounds of space. Furthermore, although the same series of four letters repeats itself, the way I have divided up

the text precludes the repetition of the exact same formula. ere are, of course, no problems of genitives in in the Greek world, where

this represented the common outcome of original in the second declension, as preser ved in Homer. Commonly attested Greek words inthe LSJthat might account for .include:

: ring, circle, bangle, etc.

: rounded, curved, crooked.

: a proper name for the East wind.

: a proper name.

: supreme power, authority.

: the metrical form of, mountain.

: (1) the Ionic form of , boundary, landmark; memorial stone or pillar;

(2) fair wind; (3) watcher, guardian; (4) Lat. urus, a type of ox. : a trench or channel for hauling up and launching ships.

: wheat.

: a proper name.

: cheese.

e shape of the damage excludes and although the following letter forms are unattested in the inscription and their precise shape

and size unknown, and probably may be excluded as well on the basis of size. 3 has little semantic

significance in this context, but

and merit careful attention. mountain, is a 3rd declension neuter noun, and in Greek its genitive is regularly in or .e regular form in Greek is

, with the initial element lengthened for metric al purposes in meter only.ese tendencies, along with the knowledge that always

forms the initial member of a compound noun (in attested words), provide hurdles against such an interpretation, although these are not

insurmountable. We should note that the inscription was of course found upon an of sorts, and it is a minor semantic shift to come up

with a definition such as high placevel sim.4Far more promising is the identification of [.]with (Myc. wo-wo /worwos/, Att. , Ion. , Corcyr. , Arg.

Megar.), boundary stone, memorial stone, a second declension masculine noun. e genitive singular is unusual in inscriptions,

but not unknown (the nominative, accusative, or genitive plural forms regularly occur). 5 is word regularly forms the second element of

compounds, meaning that it could quite comfortably fit into the hypothesized word .6

e final word requiring explanation is the initial component of .7 is a prominent adjective in Greek religion

and has a number of dialect forms, e.g. Dor. It commonly appears as the initial element of compounds. 8

It is interesting to note that the interpretation of agrees with the Ionic dialect in both instances, although psilosis is not a

necessary prerequisite, meaning that the forms could ver y well be is need not imply that Paionian Greek was Ionic (the

closest bastions of Ionic being places such as Methone and asos), simply that the dialect had undergone similar phonetic changes. e

above interpretations all dwell in the religious sphere and give the following tantalizing translations:

1. Of the mountain - the sacred mountain of . . .or e [ . . . . . ] of the mountain - the sacred mountain.

2. e mountains sacred boundary of . . .

3. Of the boundary - the sacred boundary of . . .or e [. . . . . ] of the boundary - the sacred boundary.

What, precisely, any of these exactly mean is a matter of speculation. Boundary markers -horosstones as they are typically calledadhere to the formula I am the horos of x. One could quite easily insert words that still make sense into the Bylazora formula wittrouble, however, and we need not assume that such formulas were set in stone (figuratively, that is). Something like is is the ga

boundary - the sacred boundary would work. It is enough to note that architecture and small finds that may be associated with

activity have been found at Bylazora. Perhaps the stone was part of a monument or entrance to a sanctuary.

Given the brevity of the inscription, its interpretation is largely an academic game at this stage and I have offered one angle fro

it can be played. Other readings are possible, including the interpretation that the inscription is not related to Greek at all.9 For any

validations to occur, however, a host of other comparative evidence is necessary, or even a single lengthy or bilingual text that woul

the need for such speculation. It is hoped that Bylazora gives up such secrets in the future. For the purpose of debate, I will for no

down towards the interpretation of the Paionian language as a recognizable dialect of Greek.

Select Bibliography:

Beekes,R.A.Etymological Dictionary of Greek.With the assistance of Lucien van Beek.Leiden Indo-European Etymological Series.Brill, 2010.

Chantraine,P.Dictionnaire tymologique de la Langue Grecque. Histoire des Mots.New edition with a Supplement under the direction of A. Blanc,

C.de Lamberterie,J.-L.Perpillou. Paris,1999.

Hammond,N.G.L.A History of Macedonia, Vol. I: Historical Geography and Prehistory.Oxford,1972.

Hammond,N.G.L.A History of Macedonia Vol. II: 550-336 BC.Oxford,1979.

Petrova E.e coinage of the Paeonian Tribal Organisations and Paeonian Kings (VI to III Centuries B.C.), Coins and mints in Macedonia:

in C.Grozdanov (ed.). Proceedings of the symposium held in honor of the 80th birthday and 50th Anniversary of the Scholarly and Educational Work o

Bogoev, Member of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences. Translated by Elizabeta Bakovska,Katerina Hristovska.Sk opje,2001: 13-27.

Footnotes:

1 See article on page 7 of this volume.

2 See Bylazora: Stamped Pottery 2011 (http://www.tfahr.org/BP_stamps2011.html).

3 Unless Paionian writing practices were wildly diff

erent from those of other users of the Greek alphabet.4 Beekes (2010: 1109-10) derives the word from PIE *h

3er- 'rise',*h

3er-s- .

5 For example,the territorial dispute between Priene and Samos,133/131 B.C.,LW 197,198,200, 201,202,206,207.

6 See Chantraine (1999): 825-26.Note that the compound form does not need to depend upon the interpretation of the restored initial word of

inscription either.A thematic could lead to a diphthong either way: (a) ere are naturally other possible mechanisms,including the interpretation of two separate words spe

with sandhi.

7 Or separate word,see above.

8 See Chantraine (1999): 457.

9 It is worth pointing out that the lettersmight rather represent // or // instead of the diphthong /ou/ (whether real or false),or even acombination of all three. = // would raise the possibilities of,for instance, a dative or ablative case.

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