Reading Greek inscriptions: Athena Polias

1. Reading Greek inscriptions: Athena Polias questions, email chad.bochan@aar.com • The picture below is the top section of a Greek inscription made in 334 BC. It says that Alexander the Great dedicated the temple (which the inscription was carved on) to Athena. • To see the complete picture, and read about the temple it was carved on, see the “Compass” section of the British Museum’s website: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/ • To see pictures of the temple, see Perseus’ summary here • The ancient Greeks wrote in pure capitals with no spaces or punctuation marks. This presentation will teach you: • what each of the words means; then • how to pronounce the words (using a possible reconstructed pronunciation)

2. Reading Greek inscriptions: Athena Polias questions, email chad.bochan@aar.com What the words mean (Top line, first word) “King”, masc. nom. sg. (adj. with “Alexander”) (Top line, last word) “Alexander”, masc. nom. sg. (Middle line, first word) “(he) dedicated”, 3rd person aor. (Middle line, middle word) “the”, masc. acc. sg. (definite article) (Middle line, last word) “temple”, masc. acc. sg. (object of verb) (Bottom line, first word) “to Athena”, fem. dat. sg. (Bottom line, last word) “Polias”, i.e.“grey-haired”, fem. dat. sg.(goes with “Athena”: i.e. “...to grey-haired Athena”) As a whole, it thus means “King Alexander dedicated the temple to Athena Polias”.

3. Reading Greek inscriptions: Athena Polias questions, email chad.bochan@aar.com . leh ~ . . sah neht . . leh-oo ~ ksahn ~ sah . . see drrroh heh ~ . .bah keh . . . . . This is a speculative reconstruction of Greek pitch pronunciation. The higher syllables have a higher pitch. ~ symbols mean to pronounce the previous syllable twice as long as normal.

4. Reading Greek inscriptions: Athena Polias questions, email chad.bochan@aar.com .nigh ~. . heh ~ ah . . naht lee . . oh eh ee poh dee . . nah ~ . .tohng ~ . . .