Altar

PHRC065 : Dedication to King Seleukos I, Thyateira - Lydia (c. 281/0 BC) Dedication

This inscription, now lost, has preserved the rare case of a dedication to a Seleucid king made by agents other than civic institutions. The authors were a group of Macedonian soldiers from the settlement of Thyateira (NW Lydia) honouring the founder of the colony, King Seleukos I. The foundation of the settlement and the dedication plausibly date soon after Seleukos’ victorious campaign against Lysimachos. The text was written on a small altar or on a stone plaque attached to it.

Permanent ID: http://s.phrc.it/phrc065...

PHRC059 : Dedication to Arsinoe Thea Philadelphos, Lower Egypt (Alexandria ?) - Egypt (270-240 BC) Miniature altar

This dedication to Arsinoe Thea Philadelphos is written on an incense burner carved in the form of a miniature horned altar. A similar object was found in Alexandria (PHRC 051), but another provenance from the Delta or Fayum is also possible for this specimen. The addition of the term Thea to the common denomination Arsinoe Philadelphos is a rare feature only attested by a few dedications in Egypt. The small size may point to a context of househols religion, but we cannot exclude that the altar was used during a journey or was dedicated in a sanctuary.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc059

Images

Photos 1-2: Photos of the stone, from Schreiber 2011, Tf. 53, Figg. 2-3...

PHRC052 : Dedication to King Ptolemy II and Arsinoe Philadelphos, Rhakotis, Alexandria - Egypt (270-246 BC) Dedication

This altar of King Ptolemy II and Arsinoe Philadelphos, discovered on the hill of Rhakotis in Alexandria, is the biggest preserved altar of ruler cults from throughout the Ptolemaic empire. The dedicatory formula points to a date 270-246, while the reference to the dynastic predecessors as the Theoi Soteres (rather than simply Soteres) may further narrow the chronological limits down to the last years of Ptolemy II’s reign (c. 260-246). The altar was part of a small temple, which was later destroyed to leave space to Ptolemy III’s Serapeum. It is plausible that the Rhakotis hill already hosted a cult of Sarapis under Ptolemy II and that the ruling couple was honoured in a section of this shrine, which later underwent a major process of monumentalization on the initative of...

PHRC051 : Dedication to King Ptolemy II and Arsinoe Philadelphos, Alexandria - Egypt (270-246 BC) Dedication

A dedication to King Ptolemy II and Arsinoe Philadelphos is written on both sides of an incense burner carved in the form of a miniature horned altar. The dedicatory formula provides a date between 270 and 246, when Ptolemy II ruled alone after Arsinoe II’s death and deification. The dedication made by a group of priests, without further indication of the deities they serverd, can be interpreted in two ways: either they dedicated the object in the santuary where they usually worked, or they did so during a visit. The style of writing and the presence of writing guidelines may suggest that these priests were Egyptians. It is tempting to assume that they dedicated the incense burner to the ruling couple when visiting the sanctuary of Arsinoe in Alexandria.

Permanent ID...

PHRC035 : Dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphos, Archimandrita (Palaipaphos) - Cyprus (270-240 BC) Dedication

As other specimens from the Paphos area, this object is a small rectangular altar with a shallow depression on the top, probably used for vegetal offerings to Arsinoe Philadelphos. The find spot Archimandrita, about 7 km from the sanctuary of Aphrodite, is probably not the original place where the altar was used, but rather a secondary location where the stone was reused as building material or for decorative purposes.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc035...

PHRC033 : Dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphos, Palaipaphos - Cyprus (270-240 BC) Dedication

This limestone block with a roughly square front surface is what remains of a small rectangular altar of Arsinoe Philadelphos, of a type well known in Palaipaphos. The stone was then hammered to reduce it into a block to be used as building material. Thus, the anomalous profile of the upper part of the stone is not original, but the result of a later (modern?) intervention to fix the block into a wall.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc033...

PHRC032 : Dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphos, Palaipaphos - Cyprus (270-240 BC) Dedication

This small quadrangular altar with cornices belongs to a type well documented in the dossier of dedications to Arsinoe Philadelphos in third-century Cyprus. It presents a relatively well executed inscription which distinguishes it from other specimens belonging to the sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia at Palaipaphos.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc032...

PHRC031 : Dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphos, Palaipaphos - Cyprus (270-240 BC) Dedication

This dedication to Arsinoe is written in three lines, regardless of the word ending, on a very irregular rectangular altar with a shallow depression on the upper surface. Such a small altar would serve to offer vegetables and perfumes to Arsinoe Philadelphos in the sanctuary of Aphrosite Paphia.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc031...

PHRC027 : Dedication to Eumenes II, Pergamon - Mysia (184-159 BC) Dedication

This altar is decorated with a rosette surrounded by two bucranes and presents an inscription of good quality but with the uncommon detail of a cursive shape of omega, which may be interpreted as the influence of cursive writing on a private dedication. The stone was found in the neighbourhood of Gurnellia, situated south-east of the hill of Pergamon, in an area which was not yet urbanized in the second century, so that the original location of the altar remains unknown. The chronological limits of the dedication are provided by the use of the epithet Soter (mid-180s) and by the death of Eumenes II (159/8), after which the king was referred to with the denomination Theos.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc027

Images:
Photo 1: Squeeze of the inscription, from...

PHRC026 : Dedication of the Bakchoi to Eumenes II, Pergamon - Mysia (158-133 BC) Dedication

This finely inscribed altar was posthumously dedicated to Eumenes II by the cultic association of the Bakchoi. Its original location was probably the precinct of Athena on the acropolis, a prominent space for the royal representation and identity of the Attalids. The inscription testifies to the appropriation by a private religious group of the official ideological link associating the Attalid dynasty with Dionysos. Moreover, the quality of the inscription as well as the use of the rare literary epiclesis Euastes for Dionysos confirm that the Bakchoi were members of the Pergamon elite, perhaps enjoying a direct link with the royal court and with its cultural and religious life.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc026

Images:
Photo 1: Photo of the altar, from...

PHRC025 : Dedication of the archiboukolos Herodes to Augustus, Pergamon - Mysia (27 BC - 14 AD) Dedication

This altar, decorated with an oak wreath, a Capricorn and a cornucopia, was dedicated to Augustus by the leader of the Boukoloi (‘Cowherds), a private cultic association venerating Dionysos Kathegemon in Pergamon. The dedication was probably accomplished soon after the Roman Senate granted Octavian the title Augustus (Greek Sebastos) and the ‘corona civica’ and testifies to the contemporaneous enthusiasm for the pacification of Asia Minor under the early Principate. The altar, which was provided with a hollow top able to receive libations and perfume offerings, was part of the cultic tools of the association, which met in a luxury mansion erected on the south-western slope of the Pergamon hill, the so-called House with the ‘Podiensaal’. This dedication probably constitutes the...

PHRC024 : Dedication to Attalos I, Pergamon - Mysia (200-100 BC) Dedication

Found in a Byzantine wall near the so-called ‘cult room’ of a Hellenistic elite house on the southern slope of Pergamon, this rectangular altar might testify to the survival of the cult of Attalos I after the end of the dynasty. The writing of A with both a bowed and a broken crossbar further strengthens the hypothesis that this altar was dedicated after the death of Attalos I.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc024

Images:
Photo 1: Photo of the altar, from Radt 1989, p. 204-205, photo 1
Photo 2: Plan of the House with the 'Podiensaal' (Late Hellenistic period); photo based on Schwarzer (2008), p. 49, photo 8, modified for Caneva 2020


...

PHRC023 : Dedication to Attalos I, Pergamon - Mysia (240-100 BC) Dedication

This rectangular altar of Attalos I is one of the two found among the Byzantine structures that were built within the ruins of the ‘House with the Podiensaal’, a luxury peristyle house erected in the mid-2nd century and later used, with several changes, until the end of Antiquity. While theses specimens are per se not different from the other altars of the the cult of Attalos I Soter in Pergamon, their find spot is particularly intriguing as it could testify to the survival of the cult of this king after the end of the dynasty, when the house was in use.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc023

Images:
Photo 1: Photo of the altar, from Radt 1989, p. 204-205, photo 2
Photo 2: Plan of the House with the 'Podiensaal' (Late Hellenistic period); photo based on...

PHRC022 : Dedication to Attalos I, Pergamon - Mysia (200-150 BC) Dedication

This fragmentary rectangular altar of Attalos I was dedicated inside the precinct of Demeter on the southern slope of the Pergamon hill. It was probably used for libations and the burning of perfumes. The paleographic detail of A with bowed crossbar suggests a date of dedication between the end of Attalos’ reign and the beginning of Eumenes II’s.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc022

Images:
Photo 1: Drawing of the inscription, IvP I 45
Photo 2: Sanctuary of Demeter; via Wikimedia Commons...

PHRC021 : Dedication of Apollodoros to Attalos I, Pergamon - Mysia (197-133 BC) Dedication

This particularly thin rectangular altar was probably erected in the Upper Agora of Pergamon, possibly in relation to one of the sacred (Zeus’ sanctuary) or administrative buildings in the western (nomophylakion) and eastern part of the agora. The writing is irregular and characterized by a shape of A with broken crossbar which suggests a date in the 2nd cent. and therefore a posthumous cult. The donor had only his personal name inscribed, without the name of the father and the function, a solution which finds parallels in contexts where the author of a dedication was easily recognisable by the members of a community. Considering the sacred and administrative functions of the buildings in the agora, Artemidoros might therefore have been a priest or a magistrate of Pergamon.

PHRC020 : Dedication of the priestess Metris to Attalos I, Mamurt Kale (Pergamon) - Mysia (240-197 BC) Dedication

This altar was dedicated by a priestess in the sanctuary of the Mother of the gods in Mamurt Kale, on the top of the mount Yund Dağ situated about 30 kilometers SE of Pergamon. The altar, the biggest among the specimens of Attalid ruler cults at Pergamon, was probably erected during the reign of Attalos and made the king a synnaos theos of the goddess. It was big enough to possibly host small animal sacrifices besides libations and censing rituals.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc020

Images:
Photo 1: Photo of the altar; photo R. Rohrer ©D-DAI-ATH-Pergamon-1448, courtesy of the Deutsche Archäologische Institut (DAI)
Photo 2: Detail of the inscription; photo R. Rohrer ©D-DAI-ATH-Pergamon-1449, courtesy of the Deutsche Archäologische Institut (DAI)

PHRC019 : Dedication to Attalos I, Herakleia near Latmos - Karia (240-197 BC) Dedication

Herakleia near Latmos is the only city in Asia Minor besides Pergamon having delivered small objects with a dedication to Attalos I. This fragmentary altar, probably made with local marble, bears a text showing clear signs of cursive writing, which may point to a private context of dedication. Already reused as a tombstone in Antiquity, the altar was discovered among the blocks of a stone wall near the Bafa Lake. It makes the pair with another block which can be interpreted as a statue basis of Attalos I. Both inscriptions probably date to the 230s, when Attalos I managed to temporarily impose Pergamon as a regional power in Asia Minor.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc019

Images:
Photo 1 : A section of the Hellenistic walls of Herakleia; photo J. Hansen via...

PHRC018 : Dedication to Attalos I, Pergamon - Mysia (240-197 BC) Dedication

This finely inscribed and decorated altar is the only marble specimen from the Pergamon corpus of small altars of Attalos I Soter. Like the other small altars of the Attalid ruler cult from Pergamon, the rough back surface and its proportions suggest that it was meant to be placed against a wall or in a niche. This altar was found during the excavation of the theatre, a paramount location for the life of Pergamon since not only spectacles but also assemblies were held there. A dedication during the reign of Attalos I is plausible, in particular after the military successes by which he obtained the royal title and the epithet Soter.

Permanent ID  http://s.phrc.it/phrc018

Images:
Photo 1: Photo of the altar, from Bielfeldt 2010, p. 155, fig. 15
Photo 2:...

PHRC014 : Dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphos, Nea Paphos - Cyprus (270-240 BC) Dedication

This dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphos is inscribed on a small cylindrical altar, a common support for the cults of the Ptolemies in Cyprus. Among the inscribed dedications to Arsinoe found in the Paphos area, this is the sole specimen having been discovered in the new city, during the excavations of the Roman Orpheus House. The altar bears the same dedication on both sides. The text on the first side has remained unfinished: it was abandoned probably due to a mistake of the carver in the spacing between letters; the same dedication was then fully inscribed on the opposite side of the shaft.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc014

Images:
Photo 1: view of the site of the Orpheus House, Maloutena (S. Caneva, CC-BY-SA 0.4)
Photeo 2: plan of the archaeological...

PHRC006 : Dedication to Ptolemy II and Arsinoe Philadelphos in Thera - Cyclades (270-246 BC) Dedication

This cylindrical altar, which was found reused in a later house, sheds light on the practice of Ptolemaic ruler cult in Thera at the time of Ptolemy II. The donor probably belonged to the elite of Ptolemaic Thera and the decision to have his name and patronymic carved on the altar suggests that his dedication was not meant for domestic use, as usually argued, but belonged in a public or semi-private context, perhaps the seat of the Basilistai or of another religious association involved in the practice of cultic honours for the Ptolemies.

Permanent ID http://s.phrc.it/phrc006

Images:
Photo 1: squeeze of the stone, from IG XII 3 1387
Photo 2: plan of the "House of Pothitos", with indication of findspot of the altar; from Hiller von Gaertringen 1904, p. 140...