Glossary Society, writing and trade
Idalion bronze tablet
Also called: Idalion tablet, ICS 217
A bronze plaque of the fifth century BCE from Idalion, the longest known text in the Cypriot Syllabary, recording a king's contract with a physician.
Inscribed on both sides with 31 lines of Greek in syllabic script, the tablet records that when 'the Medes and the Kitians' besieged Idalion, King Stasikypros and the city engaged the physician Onasilos and his brothers to treat the wounded without fee. In place of a promised silver talent they were granted royal land, tax-free and heritable, and the tablet was set up in the sanctuary of Athena with a curse on anyone who broke its terms.
It is the richest single document for how a Cypriot kingdom worked, since king and city act and swear together. The Duc de Luynes acquired it in 1850, and it is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. See writing and literacy.
Full entry: Writing and Literacy in Ancient Cyprus
Related terms
- Basileus
The Greek word for 'king', used for the rulers of the Cypriot city-kingdoms; the plural is basileis.
- Syllabary
A writing system whose signs each stand for a whole syllable, such as ka, pe or to.
- City-kingdom
One of the small independent kingdoms, each ruled from a city, into which Iron Age Cyprus was divided until about 310 BCE.