An Ionian Dedication to IsisAuthor(s): C. C. EdgarSource: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 24 (1904), p. 337Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/624039 .

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AN IONIAN DEDICATION TO ISIS.

THE inscription of which a facsimile is given below is incised on the base of a bronze statuette which has lately been acquired by the Cairo Museum. The statuette itself represents Isis seated on a throne suckling the child Horus. It is an ordinary Egyptian type and there is nothing Greek about the work except the inscription. Its provenance unfortunately is unknown.

6- Y F > 04twEO I'VE Af'rt.OIV 0y A -0T I E/!i A FAA1 A INSCRIPTION ON BASE OF STATUETTE IN CAIRO MUSEUM

The letters run round the four sides of the plinth (as shown in the

facsimile), those in front being bordered by two horizontal strokes. In the second line the surface is injured between the T and the O, but nothing appears to be lost. What dX6d-a-ro means is not clear: one would naturally take the inscription to be a dedication, in which case the verb might be interpreted as 'offered in fulfilment of a vow'; possibly, however, the words refer to some particular incident, such as the rescue of the sacred image from an enemy. The alphabet is Ionian: so too are the proper ulames and the genitive-ending "Ea-tol. The best known Pythermos of whom there is any record is the Phocaean ambassador who figures in a characteristic episode in Herodotus (i. 152). A Graeco-Egyptian inscription in the Alexandria Museum (Botti, Cat. p. 253) mentions another Neilon, the father of a certain Pythogeiton: in this case the family came from Samos. The Pythermos of our inscription was no doubt an Ionian Greek resident in Egypt, perhaps an inhabitant of Naukratis or of the Hellenikon at Memphis. As regards the date of the work, the form of the letters points to the fifth century or the end of the sixth: similar lettering occurs on many of the less early fragments of dedicated pottery at Naukratis. At this period the Greeks in Egypt had probably begun to adopt the Egyptian gods, though without attempting as yet to alter the traditional types.

.If scanned according to the archaic spelling, the sentence makes an almost regular verse: did the writer intend it to be metrical ?

C. C. EDGAR.

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