Dedication to Liber Pater J. M. ReynoldsJ. B. Ward-Perkins
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://irt.kcl.ac.uk/
Republished from J. M. Reynolds and J. B. Ward-Perkins, The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, Rome: British
School at Rome, 1952; with addenda from J. M. Reynolds, Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania: A Supplement, Proceedings of the British School at Rome23 (1955), 124-147.
Marked-up according to the EpiDoc Guidelines version 5 http://www.stoa.org/epidoc/gl/5/
ArabicEnglishFrenchGermanAncient GreekTransliterated GreekModern GreekHebrewItalianLatinPunicNative Libyan language in Latin scriptTripolitaniaLibyaTripoliAnimals2008-09-09ZAconverted using CHET-C2009-05-19RVAdded Figures2009-08-24RVAdded Figures
Description of Monument
Moulded base carved in one block with an Attic base
(0.440.720.44) of
coarse grey limestone.
Description of Text
Inscribed on one face
(die, 0.320.36).
Description of Letters
Rustic capitals: 0.025-0.04
Date
Unknown
Locations
Oea:
An Arab house in the Tripoli Oasis. Found re-used.
Text
LiberPatersanctissimearcemhancquipossidesetadsacramaramurbisugisethicuotumdicodentesduosLucaebouis
Jean Guey regards the text as a verse in Iambic dimeters and restores as follows:Liber pater sanctissimearcem meam qui possideset ad sacellum uoueramurbis tuum et coniugiset hic tibi uotum dicodentes duos Lucas bouis
Translation
Most hole Father Liber, who are the master of my citadel, I had vowed at your shrine ?in the city also for my wife and here I dedicate to you what I promised, two elephant tusks.
Commentary
Line 6 Lucae bouis is an elephant; also in 295, line 11.
The restorations proposed in ll. 2 and 4 are acceptable on epigraphic grounds and surviving traces of letters are compatible.
They are more difficult in l. 3 where there seems to be insufficient space for sacellum,
and l. 5 where there appear to be traces of S after HIC