Plaster Cast: Gravestone Inscription

Plaster cast of the right side of a large flat slab of dark grey volcanic stone, with at least nine, possibly ten names inscribed in total on its four sides in the early Theran alphabet: three words at the middle of the upper face, with two more crowded near the edges at left and bottom; five more are inscribed around each of the three low vertical sides of the slab. The text occupying the center of the right side is (IG XII 3.762c). The letters are between 8 and 16 cm. high. The letters of the epichoric Theran alphabet are transliterated as follows:
Latin P for Greek rho (R)
pi = Greek pi = the letter p in Latin
Latin th for Greek theta—on the inscription a circle with a cross through the center
Latin H for the aspirate = the Greek character for a rectangular Ionic theta
Latin I for Greek iota often has three or four bars like the Greek sigma
Latin M for Greek san from Phoenician sade (derived from zayin?), the voiced sibilant
Latin M also is Greek mu with flaring vertical strokes, the right one longer
Latin Q for Greek Qoppa from Phoenician qop = a small circle with a vertical line from the bottom.
The name is: LEONTIDAM (Leontidas). The plaster casts of the center and left sides of the gravestone are 1900.11.0103 and 1900.11.0099 respectively.

Fraser, Peter M. and Elaine Matthews, eds. 1987. A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, vol. 1, The Aegean Islands, Cyprus, Cyrenaica. 1994. Oxford: The Clarendon Press for the British Academy.

Guarducci, M. Epigrafia Greca, vol. I (Rome 1987) 352–53, with figs. 181a and b.

Jeffery, Lilian H. 1961. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. Oxford, 317–318, 323 no. 5 (additional bibliography), pl. 61 no. 5. = Jeffery, Lilian H., and A. W. Johnston. 1990. Revised edition with a supplement. Oxford,

Touratsoglou, I. et al. The Greek Script (Athens 2001) fig. 24 (color photograph).

IG XII 3 = Inscriptiones Graecae, vol. XII, part 3, Inscriptiones Symes, Teutlussae, Teli, Nisyri, Astypalaeae, Anaphes, Therae et Therasiae, Pholegandri, Cimoli, Meli (1898–1904), no. 762a