This study examines 121 coins recovered during the 2024 excavations at the Shop-Workshop Building on the South Main Street of Phaselis. An examination of their chronological distribution shows that Roman Imperial coins constitute a clear majority, accounting for 90 specimens (74.4%). These are followed by 26 Early Byzantine coins (21.5%), while the remaining 4.1% consists of three Hellenistic and two Roman Provincial coins. A substantial proportion of the Late Roman coins comprises AE3 and AE4 denominations dating to the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Among the Roman Imperial coins whose mints could be identified, Antioch and Constantinople are particularly prominent. The Early Byzantine coins date from the reign of Justin II to that of Constans II, with coins from the reign of Heraclius showing a marked concentration at Phaselis, accounting for 21 specimens. Although recovered from a single building, the 121 coins provide significant evidence. They are compared chronologically and statistically with published coins recovered from specific excavation contexts in Lycia in terms of chronology, mint, and denomination, in order to assess their regional distribution. Their relationship to the find contexts and the building’s different architectural phases is also examined.
This study focuses on two inscribed funerary altars with figural niches recovered in the vicinity of the City Gate during the 2025 excavations at Patara. The monuments are examined through typological, comparative, architectural, stylistic and epigraphic analysis. Their place within the Lycian tradition of altars with figural niches and the processes of their reuse are also discussed. The study demonstrates that economic factors played as decisive a role as burial customs in the distribution of altars with figural niches. It is suggested that the adaptation of funerary altars for reuse may have been related to production costs, individual preferences and the organisation of local workshops. Considered together, the quarries identified at Patara, the abundance and variety of funerary monuments made of local limestone, and unfinished monuments suggest that the city was a prominent regional centre of altar production from the Hellenistic period onwards. Thus, beyond presenting two newly discovered monuments from Patara, the study offers new assessments of the typological development of funerary altars with figural niches, local production practices and processes of reuse.
The astragalomancy practices, which are widely encountered in the geography of southern Asia Minor during the Roman Imperial Period (120-210 AD), particularly across the complex of Pisidia, Pamphylia, Southern Phrygia, Kabalia, and Lycia, are based on a divination tradition aimed at receiving divine messages through combinations of numerical values assigned to the different faces of a knucklebone (astragalus). The texts in question were compiled and subjected to a comprehensive analysis by J. Nollé in 2007. This article examines a new astragalos oracle monument with inscriptions on four sides, which was unearthed in 2024 within a chapel building on the 3rd Terrace of the Kibyra Agora. Focusing on Nollé’s corpus and recent finds, this study evaluates the aforementioned divination tradition specifically in the context of Kibyra from epigraphic, philological, and theological perspectives. Furthermore, the article analyses the praescriptum at the top of the inscription and discusses that the monument was erected along with a statue of Hermes and surrounding architectural elements by a benefactor who covered the expenses through his/her own means. In the final section of the study, a comparative apparatus criticus of the Kibyran copy with epigraphic copies from other cities is presented; grammatical errors stemming from stonemasons, corrupted lines, and metrical irregularities are identified, and the aspects of the Kibyran copy that diverge from the original text reconstructed by Nollé are analysed in detail.
This contribution presents four newly found Christian funerary inscriptions from the Lycaonian city of Savatra (Yağlıbayat). One of these (no. 2) was unearthed at Savatra during the excavations, while the others were found during the surveys in and around the Yağlıbayat village. Numerous epigraphic finds previously discovered in Savatra and the surrounding area provide valuable evidence of the rise of Christianity in the city. The newly presented inscriptions also offer important information about the religious and social structures of Savatra during the Christian period. The inscriptions contain the personal names as Basilissa (no. 1), Longinus (no. 2), Timodemos' son Nestor (no. 3), Pauli[-] and Am-pe[-] (no. 4), Sousanna’s husband Papas, son of Alexandros (no. 5). Important expressions, terms and concepts are included such as σῆμα τόδ’ ἔπλετο, deaconess (no. 1); διαφέρον(τα), polites, ὀνόματα δέκα (no. 2); Holy Trinity (no. 3) and M/marty[- (no. 4). Two inscriptions contain warnings regarding the protection of the tomb: one (no. 2) states that anyone who lays hand on the tomb will give account to God; the other (no. 3) warns the offender is accountable to the Trinity (Father-Son-Holy Spirit). The only place name mentioned is as τῆς Δάρα (no. 1), which must be the famous Mesopotamian city of Dara.
This article presents nine new inscriptions discovered during a survey conducted in the territory of Akmoneia, located at Ahatköy in the Banaz district of Uşak Province. Two of these monuments are honorific inscriptions preserved in a fragmentary state (nos. 2 and 4). In one of them (no. 2), the honorand Demades can be securely identified with the individual previously known from an honorific decree dated to AD 68, who is recorded as having dedicated numerous statues. A newly identified inscription (no. 1) reveals that, in addition to various benefactions, this individual also commissioned a torch-bearing statue (lampadephoros). A newly presented document concerning statue dedications along the main street of Akmoneia indicates that a priest named Hierokles, together with his son Hermogenes, erected a statue of Demeter Karpophoros and dedicated it to the divi Augusti and the demos (no. 3). A closely comparable inscription has recently been published (Uzunoğlu – Akyürek-Şahin 2023, 170–172, no. 1), but due to the loss of its upper portion, the identity of the statue associated with that base remained unclear. The close similarity between the two inscriptions is significant, as it demonstrates that Hierokles and his son Hermogenes carried out a coordinated programme of statue dedications along the city’s main street. Three of the published monuments (nos. 5–7) are funerary inscriptions, one of which is a funerary epigram of an individual, whose homeland was Synnada and who appears to have served in the Roman army (no. 5). The stone features a further epigram concerning Thalamos, who likewise appears to have held an official position in the army. Since the reading in line 1 of the first epigram clearly precludes the identification of the two individuals, it is possible that they were comrades, commemorated together on the same funerary monument. The remaining two inscriptions (nos. 8–9) survive only in fragmentary form; no. 8, inscribed on an architrave, is to be interpreted as part of a building inscription.
