Summary
The Stone of Terpon or Pebble of Antibes (Galet d'Antibes) is an ancient artifact excavated near the seawall of Antibes, France (the ancient Antipolis) in 1866 ([1]). The stone is held in the Musée d’Histoire et d’Archéologie adjacent to that same seawall in Antibes. The stone's inscription has been dated to between 450 and 425 BC,([2]) and the object may once have marked the entrance to a brothel.[citation needed]
Inscription edit
The stone is formed in a phallic shape (23" long, 8" thick, 73 lbs.), with a carved inscription in Ionic Greek reading:
- ΤΕΡΠΩΝ ΕΙΜΙ ΘΕΑΣ ΘΕΡΑΠΩΝ
ΣΕΜΝΗΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΣ
ΤΟΙΣ ΔΕ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΗΣΑΣΙ ΚΥΠΡΙΣ
ΧΑΡΙΝ ΑΝΤΑΠΟΔΟΙΗ
In standard Greek orthography the text would read:
- Τέρπων εἰμὶ θεάς θεράπων σεμνῆς Ἀφροδίτης
Τοῖς δὲ καταστήσασι Κύπρις χάριν ἀνταποδοίη.
It forms a distych in dactylic hexameter:
| Tĕr-pōn — — |
ei-mĭ thĕ- — U U |
ās thĕră- — U U |
pōn sĕm- — — |
nēs ă-phrŏ- — U U |
dītēs — — |
| tois dĕ kă- — U U |
tăs-tē- — — |
sā-sĭ kŭ- — U U |
prīs khărĭn — U U |
ănt-ă-pŏ- — U U |
doi-ē — — |
The inscription can be roughly translated as: "I am Terpon, servant of noble Aphrodite, may Kypris return grace to those who set up (the stone)."
Catalog references edit
- L.H. Jeffery: Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (LSAG), no. 288.03
- H. Roehl, Inscriptiones Graecae antiquissimae (IGA), no. 551
- H. Roehl, Imagines Inscriptionum Graecarum antiquissimarum, edition 3 pp. 31 no. 52
- Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, no. 400.