Epigraphical note: a double-edited inscription in Mihailov's IGBulg

This note, which will be published in a future issue of SCIVA, is meant to draw the scholars attention upon a double edited inscription in Mihailov's Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria Repertae. Working on the epigraphic monuments which contain Thracian names compound with ▪zenis, I noticed that two of my epigraphical sources have an almost identical text, which compelled me to compare them more closely. The first of them is IGB IV 2134, a monument that still exists and is stored in the Sofia museum under the inv. nr. 401. It is well known, edited and discussed by more scholars (cf. Mihailov IGB IV p.156). It is properly measured and registered, and it has a good picture, reproduced by Mihailov in tabula 88 of this volume.

Fig. 1. The inscription nr. 2134, from Mihailov's IGBulg IV, tabula 88.

 

According to Mihailov's own specifications, in the museum's register it appears as found in the village called today Gălăbnik (former Musibegovo or Musibei), but it was in fact discovered in the neighbouring village of Dolna Dikanja. The text of this inscription, as Mihailov read it on the stone, is: 

Ἀσκληπιῷ Βειθυς Διζαζεν̣[εος] εὐξάμενος καὶ ἐπιτυχ[ὼν ἀνέ-] θηκε
	Fig. 2. A closer image of the preserved text of the inscription, zoomed from the photo above.

But the preserved part of this text is practically identic with the text of the of another inscription, namely IGB III-2, 1784, which reads:

Following Mihailov (IGBulg III-2, p.169), this second monument was edited only by the Škorpil brothers în AEM 15 (1892), p.107 n.54. There they say that it would come from a place in the region of the town Jambol ('Bezirk Jambol', translated by Mihailov as 'regione urbis Jambol') and that it would contain three rows of text, rendered by them in the following hand-drawing which Mihailov reproduces in tabula III-2 142:

In his short commentary at this inscription, Mihailov states that the Škorpil brothers misread ΛΙΖΑΖC/// in the first row, which they transcribed Λιζα-, a reading that he himself "completed" (supplevi). There is no doubt that the reading Διζαζε̣[νεος vel λμεος] belongs indeed to Mihailov, but the Bulgarian scholar is wrong about the Škorpil brothers reading. As we can see in the image below, which reproduces a fragment of the page 107 of AEM 15 (1892), their drawing reads ΔΙΖΑΖC, which they transcribe Διζα.. (not Λιζα), without paying too much attention to the ending, which was hardly visible and not interesting after the standards of their time.

But this is nothing else but a small misinterpretation of no importance, due of course to Mihailov's own working drawings and notes made after AEM. On one hand it is obvious that the Škorpil brothers' drawing reproduced by Mihailov is correct (ΔΙΖΑZC not ΛΙΖΑZC), on the other hand Mihailov doesn't say he "corrected" (correxi) their reading, but that he "completed" it (supplevi), which is perfectly true. The same confusion concerning this particular inscription may be responsible also for its double-edition.

As we see, the text in the drawing above is the same as that in the photo after IGB IV, 2134. It has the same lunar shapes of sigma (C) and epsilon (Є), the ligature ΗΠ and the smaller Θ in the first row, as well as the incomplete Ξ in the second. Even the line of the break at the right of the stone, traced by the editors but omitted by Mihailov, is the same as the one in the photo. This is why there is no doubt in my mind that the nrs. 1784 and 2134 refer in fact to the same monument. As a consequence, one of the finding places given for this inscription is necessarely wrong. I suppose that all correct properties are those given by Mihailov for IGB IV 2134, who took them from the register of the lapidarium of the Sofia museum, where the monument still exists, so we could presume that the real finding place is Dolna Dikanja, between Pautalia and Serdica, closer to Germania (Saparevo). It is the task of the future editors and of the administrators of the epigraphical databases to correct this double edition.