New oracular tablets from Dodona. Edition and historical commentary.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter Funke
• Subject Area: Ancient History
• Term: from 2012 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 234113526

Ancient Dodona, located in Epirus in north-western Greece and known as both a cultic and a political centre, and simultaneously also as a major oracle that was of great importance both in and far beyond the Panhellenic area, has been the site of archaeological excavations since the 1870s, with some temporal interruptions. Among other discoveries these excavations have revealed a very large number of lead tablets, recording questions put to the local oracle of Zeus, their total so far surpassing 4.000 pieces. Thus the sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona is the only ancient oracle with so many and authentic questions surviving. The great majority of these tablets are being kept in the excavation store-rooms at Ioannina, but those found during the first excavations by the Greek archaeologist Karapanos in 1876/77 (about 50) were taken to the National Museum of Athens very early on. In addition there are 96 lead tablets that were sold to the Museums of Berlin in 1875/76 and have been part of the collection of antiques at Berlin ever since.Due to the typological variety of the questions and the very diverse origins of the inquirers the oracular tablets are a find that not only allows a unique insight into the cult practice and "everyday business" of an ancient Greek oracular site, but also offers instructive information about socio-historical and also political contexts and backgrounds. However, in spite of their outstanding value as a source, only a very small proportion of these oracular tablets from Dodona have presently been published. The corpus compiled by E. Lhôte in 2006 of all lead tablets then published contains only 167 pieces (including the tablets only preserved in fragments). Next year more than 3.000 oracular tablets from Dodona will be published by Sotiris Tselikas (University of Thessaloniki) after decades of preparatory work. However, even then a great number of remaining tablets will still be left unpublished for the time being. In addition to this, the items in Berlin (Inv.-Nr. Misc. 10755, 1-96) shall finally be made accessible to research. Only one of these tablets has so far been published in 1909, while the rest has never received any treatment by restorators or researchers. Therefore the aim of the proposed research project is to put together an edition of the oracular tablets from Dodona currently in the collection of antiques of the Museums in Berlin, complemented by a linguistic and historic commentary and a translation, as well as to undertake their restoration treatment without which an academic examination cannot be possible.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Institution: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz ; Antikensammlung