Abstract
The paper is a publication of the new graffi to found during the archaeological excavations at the Upper City site in Phanagoria. The inscription consists of fi ve lines (fi g. 1). Some paleographical features allows the author to date it from the fi rst half to the beginning of third quarter of the 4th century BC. Every line includes a personal name, letter abbreviations, and numbers in the acrophonic system. Three Phanagorians are mentioned in the document: Atotes, Neumenios, and Dionys, the son of Strato(kles?). A nature of the arrangement of names, abbreviations and numbers in the lines suggests that the graffi to represents a record of the trapezitеs, who carefully and systematic recorded his transactions with monetary amounts. The letters EEO in 1st line are presumably deciphered on the basis of analogies as ε(ἷς), ε(ἷς) ὀ(βολός); EO in the 2nd line and the 3rd line as ε(ἷς) ὀ(βολός). The numbers in the acrophonic system are scribbled after them in the lines: 1) ΔΠ = 15; 2) Π, ΔΔΔΔ = 5, 40; 3) ΔΔΔ = 30. The author believes that they are all expressed in oboloi, so the trapezitеs did not scrawl a coin sign near the numbers. The laconic content of graffi to does not allow to accurately determining a nature of the “banking” operation. It can expect the issuance of certain sums of money in debt, placing them in storage, or, which cannot be excluded, the return of debts to the trapedzitеs by the mentioned persons.
Graffito: 1. Ἀτότης EEOΔΠ | 2. ΔΔΔΔ3. Νευμήνιō EО̣П̣ | 4. Διονῦ[Σ]τρατό[κλō?] | 5. EE[Ο Δ]ΔΔ
Interpretation: Atotes – one, one o(bolos), 15 (oboloi); from Neumenios – one o(bolos), fi ve (oboloi), forty (oboloi); from Dionys, the son of Strato(nikos?) – one, one (obolos), thirty (oboloi).
Keywords
Classical archeology, Bosporus, Phanagoria, epigraphy, graffito
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