A rediscovered arkhisynagogos inscription from Thessaloniki, and an intriguing Iulia Prokla

Abstract

Written permission to publish the new inscription presented here was granted to us on 13 October 2015 by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, per medium of Elena Kountouri, Director of the Directorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. Staff at the Archaeological Museum of Iraklion on Crete have been particularly helpful with much valued comment and advice - namely Stella Mandalaki, Director; Eirini Galli, Assistant Director; Charalambos Kritzas, Director Emeritus. Also, from the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Styliana Galiniki, Evangelia Stefani, who provided photographs of four stelae (ΜΘ 1684 [sic; not 1689 as in Edson's IG volume], ΜΘ 1694, ΜΘ 2186, Ρ 91) and, in response to our request dated 28 September 2015, permission to reproduce them here. We are grateful to the photographer of two of them (ΜΘ 1684 and Ρ 91), Orestis Kourakis. On 3 February 2016 Pantelis Nigdelis (University of Thessaloniki) kindly provided us with a photo of IG X, 2.1.558, the sarcophagus still in situ elsewhere in the city (our pl. 4, fig. 7). After we sent him on 8 March 2016 a penultimate draft of our article and a photo of the stone, he clarified by email (received 29 March 2016) that the inventory number ΠΑ 5 on the top of the stone identifies it with a transcription of the inscription marked 'inv. no. ΠΑ 5 Roman' which he discovered in a catalogue of the Museum of Byzantine Culture, that is, 'the former outdoor collection of Antiquities in the court of the church of Παναγία Αχειροποίητος'. He informed us, further, that following the liberation of Thessaloniki in 1912 'this church was scheduled to be used as the Byzantine Museum of Thessaloniki, a plan abandoned some years later'. With that message he also attached his publication of the text based on the transcription in the Museum catalogue, and a draft in Greek of his proposed updated publication in English of the text in the light of his own further research and drawing on the draft article and photo of the stone and of the squeeze which we had sent to him. These items are detailed in n. 12 below.