Description: White marble stele incorporating the bust of a young male (w:
0.34 x h:
0.96 x d:
0.34).
Text: Inscribed on one face which is damaged on both sides.
Letters: Probably first century AD. 0.025; angular sigma; L for ἐτῶν.
Date: Perhaps first century CE
Findspot: Gebel Akhdar: West of Cyrene:
Messa, on the east side of the Messa/Haniya road, some 12 kms.
to the north, in a rock-cut tomb, with M.155, M.156 probably with M.157.
Original location: Probably findspot
Last recorded location:
Cyrene Museum.
English translation
Translation by: Editors
Valens (scil. son) of Valens aged 10 years.
Commentary
The hairstyle of the portrait is consonant with a date in the second half of the first century CE.
The name common to father and son is, of course, transliterated Latin (such names fairly common in Roman Cyrene) and their homonymity is not Greek; but the style of the portrait is Greek while the features suggest a Libyan element in the family. We seem to see a nice combination of three cultures in this boy and his memorial.
Bibliography: Mohamed-Reynolds, 1992, 1 and plate I, whence SEG 42.1669; also Mohamed-Reynolds, 1997, 2, pg. 42, whence Dobias-Lalou, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1999.623, AE 1997.1572.
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
None available (2020).