مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - A Re-examination of the Sarcophagus Inscription at Turant Asari

Abstract :

In this article, a published sarcophagus inscription from Turant Asari located 5 km northeast of Myra is re-examined and given a new reading. The era in the first line of the inscription and some personal names in other lines could not be precisely read in the first edition and these issues were then left without comment. The date exouc 0op AuSvaiou iα (11th Audnaios 179) in the first line is read clearly. This date must have not been reckoned from 311 BC according to the Seleucid era as the year 179 corresponds to 133/32 BC which is too early for the epigraphic form of the letters in this inscription. It may be the Sullan era (179=AD 94/5). But to date the inscription to the period after AD 43 seems doubtful from the kitharephoroi specified as the currency of penalty payment in the inscription. The typology of the sarcophagus and the letters characteristics of the inscription indicate a date around the end of first century BC or the beginning of first century AD and do not permit consideration of an era later than that of Sulla. This approximately dating is taken into consideration the year 179 goes back to the first half of the second century BC. The most important year in this period is 168/7 BC with the independence of Lycia from Rhodian dominion that would mark the beginning of the Lycian era. In consequence, this article suggests the date recorded on this inscription was probably calculated from 168/7 BC (AD 11/12), the beginning of a new local era in Lycia. In the inscription two new personal names are deciphered as a result of the new reading as BpαKααcovoα TєSiσPєouc. In the article, it is suggested that Eleuthera mentioned in the inscription should be Eleuthera Trebendatike. In previous editions the missing name and ethnicon of craftsman of the sarcophagus is here read as ©єo^φpασcoc Kuσvєinc.