# Ancient Greek or Byzantine Scripts



## aslan

Hi Everybody,

Due to I wasnt that sure which language  that script was, I started a thread in other languages forum, But I guess the greek forum might be the right place to discuss. 
Anyway, You can check out the story from here.

 (It may be a better  idea to gather all the posts under a single thread, by the way)

These are the pictures of the stone with scripts,

https://www.flickr.com/photos/huseyinaslan/14598134360/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/huseyinaslan/14598200948/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/huseyinaslan/14784845885/

Here is what i could read it from the stone;


*ΦOYA _ _ YIOΣ MHNAΣ
ΚAN _ _ _ AOYAMOBA
ΣEΣE_ONXΩITΩI
**IAIΩIAYTΩNYIΩ*


When i made a quick search "*ΦOYA"* on the internet, i came across some pages about ancient coins,

A forum user named Perseas made the following comments.




> The letters are Greek but the picture does not help to tell what it is all about. In the first line to the right it says ΜΗΝΑΣ, which is a masculine Christian name. ΜΗΝΑΣ means also "month".
> In the last line to the right I think it says ΥΙΩ, which is a form of ΥΙΟΣ and means "son", and next to it ΑΥΤΩΝ which means "their", "them" (it depends).




Anything you add will be appreciated.

Thank you.


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

Hi,

I am having a lot of trouble with the third line, but the other  three seem clear enough to warrant an attempt at a reconstruction. The  document is fairly obviously a funerary inscription, as Aslan correctly  postulated. The language is Greek and the onomastics, together with the  shape of the letters, seem to indicate it dates back roughly to late  antiquity. It's not medieval, certainly not late medieval, but the  presence of Roman and Christian elements means we are not in the  Hellenistic period either. 
The text, as I see it, should run as  follows ([] indicate letters that are missing in their entirety due to  the gaps and are guessed by me, while small letters are extant but  unclear and possibly wrong):

ΦΟΥΛ[Ο]ΥΙΟΣ ΜΗΝΑΣ         
ΚΑΙ Φ[Ο]ΥΛΟΥΙΑ ΜΟΒΑ       
ΣΙΣευλΟλιχΩΙ ΤΩΙ 
ΙΔΙΩΙ ΑΥΤΩΝ ΥΙΩι              

Fulvius Menas
and Fulvia ....
to .......
their own son

So  if I am correct, the inscription basically says that a man by the name  of Fulvius Menas (a typical late Roman name with an old Latin family  name and a Greek personal name) and his wife Fulvia dedicated this stone  to their deceased son X. 

The problematic part is the end of line 2 and  most of line 3, about which I can make only wild guesses. One is that  the woman's name in standard latin should read Fulvia Nova and that the  sequence ΜΟΒΑ is an attempt to represent this, either due to a simple  error (a carver's typo) or some dialectal variant that accounts for the  initial M instead of the expected N. 
I am even more confused by line  3, where only two things are clear to me: firstly, the article ΤΩΙ at  the end, and secondly, the immediately preceding dative case ending -ΩΙ  which has to be the case ending of the deceased son's name. The actual  name escapes me, however - either I just can't see an obvious solution,  or we are dealing with a rare name, perhaps of foreign origin. 

Someone  might see in the sequence ΣΙΣευ a wish "sis ευ", that is, "be well" in  mixed Latin and Greek, or in the sequence ευλΟλιχ some form of ευλογία  (blessing) but this is pure fantasy - the language of ancient funerary  inscriptions is usually highly formulaic and I don't know if a wish like  "be well" was ever used. I certainly haven't seen it. Also I don't know  is Lolikhos is a real ancient Greek name - I know Dolikhos is, but  comparing the initial letter which seems to be a lambda with the delta  of ΙΔΙΩΙ, I just can't see how it could be a Δ.


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## aslan

Hi, Nikolaos

First of all, Thank you very much for this comprehensive explanations. Telling the truth, I am quite surprised, because I wasn't that much hopeful to find someone familiar with the old scripts. 

I checked all the pictures i have again, but unfortunately I couldn't see anything helpful for the second and third line. 

After I found out The Karamanlides and Karamanli Turkish, I was convinced that it was a gravestone belonged to native Karamanli people. As soon as I learn, Although They speak Turkish, They prefer to use alphabet for writing. I also came across some gravestone examples writtten with Greek Alphabet but read in Turkish.


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## sotos

The ΣΙΣ may be part of the previous line. Indeed sounds like the suffix of a female name. After the following E (supposed to be the first letter of a name) I am not sure that the letter is  Y. May be  a round letter (possibly Θ). 
Τhe name might be (in dative and  misspelled) ΜΟΜΥΩΙ. I 'm not sure if a name ΕΥΜΟΜ(Μ)ΙΟΣ did exist.
It looks like late roman. No way to be karamanlidika.


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

sotos said:


> The ΣΙΣ may be part of the previous line. Indeed sounds like the suffix of a female name. After the following E (supposed to be the first letter of a name) I am not sure that the letter is  Y. May be  a round letter (possibly Θ).
> Τhe name might be (in dative and  misspelled) ΜΟΜΥΩΙ. I 'm not sure if a name ΕΥΜΟΜ(Μ)ΙΟΣ did exist.
> It looks like late roman. No way to be karamanlidika.



Thank you, sotos, for your input!  Line 3 is a tough one and the more people try tackling it, the better our chances of solving the mystery for Aslan. 

I agree that the sequence ΣΙΣ might be taken to be part of a female name. I don’t know of any name “Mobasis” but if we are dealing with an indigenous pre-Greek Anatolian name, or a foreign name imported from another corner of the Empire, a lot of things are possible..

As for the rest of line 3, firstly, I too am not sure the letter following E is Y, but I’m having a hard time trying to see the circle of a round letter in it. Still, the stone might just be damaged - Aslan, if you still have access to the stone, can you tell us what is that white thing - is it purely superficial - and what is that vertical “notch” between ευ and λΟλ? Is it part of a letter or an unrelated cut in the stone?

Secondly, I cannot agree with sotos that the third letter of the name from the right, before the dative ending ΩΙ, is Y - yes, it does resemble an Y, but if you compare it with the other Y’s made by the carver you’ll find he always makes the downward pointing line of Y exactly vertical, never slanted to one side like in this letter. This is why I agree with Aslan’s initial reading that the letter is X. Granted, the other downward line is a bit hazy, but I think it is there if you look closely.

Thirdly, the mess between O and X could be said to resemble a M, but again, if you look at the carver’s other M’s, you’ll see there is hardly room for one and the lines you’d think of as forming a M aren’t pointing in the directions they should if it was one M. The bloke who made this inscription was experienced enough and shows great consistency in the way he draws each letter. This is something we should keep in mind.


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## aslan

> the stone might just be damaged - Aslan, if you still have access to the stone, can you tell us what is that white thing - is it purely superficial - and what is that vertical “notch” between ευ and λΟλ? Is it part of a letter or an unrelated cut in the stone?



No doubt, The stone is damaged. The whiteness on the third line is a result of physical depreciation, Although The pictures don't give a clue to detect the letter,as far as I remember, It was possible to understand the missing letter by touching. I am afraid, I will not go back to Konya, before October. But I will ask someone else to help.




> Secondly, I cannot agree with sotos that the third letter of the name from the right, before the dative ending ΩΙ, is Y - yes, it does resemble an Y, but if you compare it with the other Y’s made by the carver you’ll find he always makes the downward pointing line of Y exactly vertical, never slanted to one side like in this letter. This is why I agree with Aslan’s initial reading that the letter is X. Granted, the other downward line is a bit hazy, but I think it is there if you look closely.



I made a quick control to be sure, and The letter is definitely "X"


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## skamnelis

sotos said:


> The ΣΙΣ may be part of the previous line. Indeed sounds like the suffix of a female name. After the following E (supposed to be the first letter of a name) I am not sure that the letter is  Y. May be  a round letter (possibly Θ).
> Τhe name might be (in dative and  misspelled) ΜΟΜΥΩΙ. I 'm not sure if a name ΕΥΜΟΜ(Μ)ΙΟΣ did exist.
> It looks like late roman. No way to be karamanlidika.



This is clearly Greek from the Roman period. The only problem is the third line, one possibility being

ΦΟΥΛ[Ο]ΥΙΟΣ ΜΗΝΑΣ         
ΚΑΙ Φ[Ο]ΥΛΟΥΙΑ ΜΟΒΑ-
ΣΙΣ Ε[ΥΝ]Ο[Υ]ΧΩΙ ΤΩΙ
ΙΔΙΩΙ ΑΥΤΩΝ ΥΙΩI

except that the grammar is a little broken, it should say ΜΟΒΑΣEI in the dative, if ΜΟΒΑΣΙΣ was the name of the burried person, so this is still problematic. Maybe ΜΟΒΑΣΙΣΕΙ EYΝΟΥΧΩΙ ΤΩΙ ΙΔΙΩΙ ΑΥΤΩΝ ΥΙΩI? That seems too long.The date of the inscription is before the arrival of the Seljuks, because of the style of the dative. The iota is often not indicated in the dative of Byzantine inscriptions, or it is minimised to a lower case iota. The style of the dedication is pre-Christian. The Latin non-Christian names put a certain end date not much later than the christianisation of the Roman empire.


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

skamnelis said:


> This is clearly Greek from the Roman period. The only problem is the third line, one possibility being
> 
> ΦΟΥΛ[Ο]ΥΙΟΣ ΜΗΝΑΣ
> ΚΑΙ Φ[Ο]ΥΛΟΥΙΑ ΜΟΒΑ-
> ΣΙΣ Ε[ΥΝ]Ο[Υ]ΧΩΙ ΤΩΙ
> ΙΔΙΩΙ ΑΥΤΩΝ ΥΙΩI
> 
> except that the grammar is a little broken, it should say ΜΟΒΑΣEI in the dative, if ΜΟΒΑΣΙΣ was the name of the burried person, so this is still problematic. Maybe ΜΟΒΑΣΙΣΕΙ EYΝΟΥΧΩΙ ΤΩΙ ΙΔΙΩΙ ΑΥΤΩΝ ΥΙΩI? That seems too long.The date of the inscription is before the arrival of the Seljuks, because of the style of the dative. The iota is often not indicated in the dative of Byzantine inscriptions, or it is minimised to a lower case iota. The style of the dedication is pre-Christian. The Latin non-Christian names put a certain end date not much later than the christianisation of the Roman empire.



Try as I might, I can't see how the second letter of the first gap in the third line could be a N and the letter in the second gap a Y. The lines just aren't there, like the second vertical line of N and in the second gap there is a vertical line immediately preceding X which cannot belong to a Y. I don't think it's possible to read ΕΥΝΟΥΧΩΙ.


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## Simplizissimus

I can't see the pictures because I don't have a flickr account, but even without actual examination I'm confident that the male name in line 3 can't be other than ΕΥΛΟΓΙΟΣ. So Fulvius Menas and his wife Fulvia Mobasis erected the grave stone to the memory of their own son Eulogius. Where exactly was this found? I mean what is the name of the town near Iconium? Is there an ancient site in the vicinity?


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

Simplizissimus said:


> I can't see the pictures because I don't have a flickr account, but even without actual examination I'm confident that the male name in line 3 can't be other than ΕΥΛΟΓΙΟΣ. So Fulvius Menas and his wife Fulvia Mobasis erected the grave stone to the memory of their own son Eulogius. Where exactly was this found? I mean what is the name of the town near Iconium? Is there an ancient site in the vicinity?



Is there something in the context that specifically suggests to you the name Eulogius? I rechecked the images just now, but I'm confident such a reading is sadly not possible. Not only the letters between O and Ω do not resemble at all the sequence Γ+Ι, but they take up way more space than the sequence Γ+Ι should.


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## Simplizissimus

It's the only reasonable guess. Can't be ΕΥΝΟΥΧΟΣ; it's not a person's name. Neither ΕΥΜΟΜ(Μ)ΙΟΣ.


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