Inscriptions from rough Cilicia east of the Calycadnus

Abstract

The following random lot of inscriptions was noted during three brief trips into the territory around Olba-Diocaesareia, in the spring of 1966, while we were guests at the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. These trips were part of a year of archaeological wandering made possible by the grant of the Olivia James Travelling Fellowship, administered by the Archaeological Institute of America.1. Seleuceia-Korykos: This inscription was discovered by the able and energetic curator of antiquities at Silifke, Mr. Mehmet Belen, to whose great kindness we owe our knowledge of it. It is cut on a rock face above some faint traces of an ancient road from Korasion to Korykos, which runs parallel to the modern coast road at this point. About 19 km. east of Silifke, the modern road turns north away from the shore, and runs inland along the west side of a seasonal watercourse called Kuru Dere, “dry river bed”. Just north of the gravel bank at the mouth of Kuru Dere, at a point where the rock wall cuts back from the west side of the road to form a very small tributary stream bed, there are faint traces of rock cut steps some 5 metres above the road. Above these, on the south side of the tributary stream bed, a roughly dressed rectangular panel, 0·80 × 0·45 m., has been cut into the rock.