A Short Bosporan Epitaph from Pantikapaion

This small Bosporan epitaph belongs in the Scythian library as cautious contact-zone evidence. It comes from Pantikapaion, where Greek, Bosporan, Scythian, Sarmatian, and steppe-Iranian histories overlap in the inscriptional record.

The name Sakta may be onomastically interesting for a Scythian/Saka shelf, but this stone does not by itself prove ethnic identity, cult, or royal connection. Its value is narrower: a compact Greek witness from the northern Black Sea naming a woman, her father Matrodorus, and her daughter Psyche.

The translation below was made from the inspected Greek text captured from PHI Greek Inscriptions, CIRB 764 / PH183495.

Translation

Sakta, daughter of Matrodorus, and Psyche, her daughter, farewell.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Scythian shelf by the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the Ancient Greek inscription text printed below. The English is a new rendering from the Greek. PHI Greek Inscriptions was used as the source text, with the local HTML capture retained for verification.

The translation is a new Good Works rendering from the inspected Greek source text. The dossier should not be used to claim that Sakta was ethnically Scythian or Saka without further evidence.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: CIRB 764

Ancient Greek source text from PHI Greek Inscriptions, CIRB 764 / PH183495. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

Σάκτα Ματρο-

δώρου καὶ θυ-

γάτηρ Ψυχή,

χαίρεται {²⁶χαίρετε}²⁶.

Source Colophon

The source text was inspected from PHI Greek Inscriptions, CIRB 764 / PH183495, Pantikapaion (Kerch), Roman period. The source capture is preserved in the Scythian source archive.

PHI prints χαίρεται with an apparatus correction to χαίρετε; the English renders the ordinary funerary farewell sense.
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