A Chersonesos Epitaph

This small Chersonesos epitaph belongs in the Scythian library because it preserves the personal name Skythas in a north Black Sea funerary inscription.

The text is only two short lines. It should not be made to carry an ethnic claim by itself: here Skythas is the name of the dead man, and the inscription gives only his father and his age.

The translation below was made from the inspected Greek text captured from PHI Greek Inscriptions, IosPE I² 493 / PH184688.

Translation

Skythas, son of Theagenes, having lived thirty-five years.

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.

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

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Source Text: IosPE I² 493

Ancient Greek source text from PHI Greek Inscriptions, IosPE I² 493 / PH184688. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

Σκύθας Θεαγέ-

νου, ζήσας ἔτη λεʹ.

Source Colophon

The source text was inspected from PHI Greek Inscriptions, IosPE I² 493 / PH184688, North Shore of the Black Sea, Chersonesos, dated by PHI to the second century AD. The source capture is preserved in the Scythian source archive.

PHI prints the patronymic across the line break as Θεαγέ- / νου, "son of Theagenes." The name Σκύθας is treated here as a personal name in a brief funerary formula, not as proof of the man's ethnicity.

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