The Syllabic Inscription, Hoffmann no. 106

Extract

The British Museum has long been in possession of a limestone stele from the Cypriot village of Salamniou, some 12 miles north-east of Kouklia (Old Paphos). It has been published—save in one particular—very adequately (B.M. Catalogue of Sculpture no. 430). It is excellently illustrated by the photograph here reproduced (for which I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Ashmole); and I can usefully comment only upon the inscription which fills somewhat chaotically the pediment above the naked archer. The Catalogue is content to reproduce for this inscription a text of Deecke (SGDI 41) over which we need waste no time whatsoever: as Deecke himself very soon saw (Bezz. Beitr. xi 317 f.), he had read it backwards, not in the characteristic direction of the fifth and fourth century Paphian signary, but from right to left.