Fragmentary acclamation
created: From previous publications and drawing (Reynolds)
source date: Second to early fourth century CE
language: ar; en; fr; de; grc; grc-Latn; el; he
availability: Creative Commons licence Attribution UK 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/) All reuse or distribution of this work must contain somewhere a link back to the URL http://inslib.kcl.ac.uk/

Bibliography

The channel and its inscriptions were described by [...] and [...], 550-556 and [...]; the first publication of the texts was [...]; [...], 3, p.218, with a drawing, p.221 tav.I, fig.1, whence [...] 9.254, [...] 324103, [...], 401; mentioned [...], 216.

Εὐχρηϲτία

Translation

[?Euch]restia/wholesome.

Commentary

This might be a personal name (otherwise unattested); but it seems better to take it as an acclamation of the spring, which is good to use.

For the exploration of this drainage system see L.Cariddi, Documenti di G. Oliverio su fonti e drenaggi nel santuario di Apollo (2014).

Numbers C.336 to C.392 are all apparently private inscriptions. Oliverio reckoned that the earliest were of the mid second century CE, and the latest of the fourth century.

The formulae in use vary from a bare record of the visitor's name, sometimes preceded by ἐγω or ἐγὼ εἰμι or followed by a verb of coming/arriving, to acclamations and statements that some absent relation or friend has been remembered. The wealth of such pilgrim graffiti in Egypt and Syria is well known; it is also considerable in Cyrenaica. While some of the Cyrenaican graffiti are the product of visitors from the Levant more seem to have been written by locals, and it may be relevant that there are also a number of pilgrim graffiti in the island of Thera, from which Cyrene was founded.

The channel was sacred to the Nymphs, see C.352, C.361, C.362, C.366, C.372, C.378 and C.382. For other evidence of their cult in the sanctuary see GVCyr 24, C.317 and for their close association with Apollo, C.317.