EPIGRAPHICAL RESEARCH

During the summer of 2009 thirty-five inscriptions were encountered by the IAS during a systematic survey of the town of Gönen and some nearby villages, only two of which employ Latin. None of them was found in situ in a secure archaeological context, although five without a doubt were recently unearthed at fresh construction sites behind and next to the town's new bazaar (Pazar Mahallesi), thus bearing witness to the presence in this area of a heretofore undocumented Roman cemetery.

Of these thirty-five inscriptions, one is a victory monument (already published), four are Roman milestones (two already published), one a Christian monogram, one a dedication in fulfillment of a vow to Zeus, one a dedication to the Divine Augusti (already published), one a dedication (probably by the city of Konane) to the emperors Flavius Valerius Severus and Galerius Valerius Maximianus, and the other twenty-six are funerary, including a sarcophagus and a funerary epigram (the latter already published).

While all these inscriptions appear to date between the second century and fifth centuries CE, they display some unusual forms and a mixture of Greek, Macedonian, Roman and local names, thus indicating the lingering imprint on the area of all the peoples who inhabited or controlled the region throughout antiquity, including the Phrygians, Greeks, Macedonians, and finally the Romans.