IThera027

Findspot and Location

  • Country: Greece
  • Region: Santorini
  • Settlement: Ancient Thera
  • Repository: Archaeological site of Ancient Thera

Support

Material: stone.
Object type: rock face.

The inscription is placed in an area of the Agora of the Gods where personal names are predominant. However, two nearby documents attest to the presence of theonyms (the lost inscription no. 370 and inscription no. 371).

Layout

The inscription is orthograde, except for iota. It is located 3.40 m from graffito no. 581 and 3.30 m from no. 370. The rock surface measures 35 cm in height and up to 75 cm in length. The inscription itself is approximately 32 cm long, with letter heights varying (9 to 13 cm).

Execution: chiselled.

Palaeography

Provenance and Discovery

Place:Archaía Thíra (36.36349, 25.47804)

Date:7th century BCE

Findspot:found between documents IG XII 3, 370 and 581 (Hiller)

Coordinates:36.36190, 25.48092

Last recorded location: in situ; Last seen by A. Inglese in 2003 in situ

Edition


Κάριτες

Apparatus


Hiller: Κ(h)άριτες

Commentary

No other Archaic inscriptions from Thera mention the Charites. Herodotus (IV, 175) refers to a hill of the Charites in Libya, where they were also mentioned by Callimachus and Nonnus. In Olympian XIV, 3–7, Pindar calls them "queens of Orchomenos" and "guardians of the ancient Minyans," linking them to wisdom (sophia), beauty (kallos), and courage (andreia). An ancient, aniconic sanctuary to the Charites existed in Boeotian Orchomenos, founded by Eteocles, where the Charitesia festival was also celebrated. For a complete discussion of the topic, see Inglese 2008, pp. 209-214.

Bibliography

To consult the full bibliography of the project, visit our Zotero library.

Images

Photograph no. 58 (Inglese 2008). © Greek Ministry of Culture / Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades. Reproduction authorized for this use only. Any further use requires permission

Editorial Team

Editor: Alessandra Inglese

Principal Investigator: Alessandra Inglese

Funder: CHANGES - Theme 5. Humanities and Cultural Heritage as Laboratories of Innovation and Creativity, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, Associazione Centro di Eccellenza DTC

Alessandra Inglese: original data collection and edition

Valentina Mignosa: encoding, editing metadata and geo data

Luigi Tessarolo: website construction, design and styling, interactive mapping implementation

Virgilio Costa: methodological and digital consultancy

Publication Details

Authority: Inscriptions from Thera

Licence: Licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 licence

Encoding model / validation: EpiDoc encoding model and validation framework adapted from ISicily

Download

To consult the full TEI EpiDoc XML source of this inscription, click here.