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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
 
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SALAMIS

SALAMIS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS.
BY ALEXANDER PALMA DI CESNOLÀ, F.S.A.,
page 53

broken off. The reading proposed by Professor Sayce, on the supposition that the stone is perfect on the right hand side, is as

" Of the Paphian goddess am I, and to Mithras Kestothemis set me up." M. Pierides, however considers that a breadth of stone sufficient to contain two characters has been struck from off the right hand side. He would read:—
He transliterates the inscription into Greek in this manner:— We may thus easily arrive at the very satisfactory interpretation of this votive inscription, which that learned savant has elicited from the stone:—" I am the statue of the Paphian goddess, and Aristothemis dedicated me." Professor W. Deecke, in his recently published Nachtrag, p. 158, reads the name at the end Akestothemis, and points out other examples of similarly formed names, Άκεστοδημος, and Άκεστόδωρος.

The site of Cerina also enables me to add to the linguistic treasures which I rescued from destruction a fragment of calcareous stone (fig. 95) of rectangular shape, measuring five inches and a-half in length, and two inches and a-half in height, with the left hand upper corner roughly rounded off, and the right hand corner broken away.

Both the fractured corner and the rounded angle appear to have been in their present condition before the stone was selected by the stonecutter, who has placed on it a distinct inscription, which commences beyond the break, and follows along the curved edge of the stone. Professor Sayce and M. Pierides agree in their decipherment of this inscription, in the following lines:— " I belong to the Paphian goddess;" or, " I am [the statue] of the Paphian goddess." Paphos, where I spent a considerable portion of my time when in the island of Cyprus, yielded, among other treasures rescued from the oblivion of centuries, several inscribed stones. The inscriptions, and,

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