Description: White marble sarcophagus (w: 2.40 × h: 0.99 × d: 1.20) prepared for garland decoration, which was not completed. .

Text: Inscribed within tabella ansata and on its lower moulding (lines 20, 21); the text must have begun on the lid.

Letters: Quite well designed in the second-to-fourth-century style, but uneven in height, 0.02-0.0225. Star for denarius. Slant stroke before both figures (incorrectly in line 20). Erasures at the end of line 2 and beginning of line 3.

Date: Late second- third century (material context)

Findspot: Aphrodisias: Necropolis, North-east: 'Bagharassi, dans les vignes, extra muros' (Gaudin); 'in a field 10 min. east of the Heraclean Gate' (MAMA)

Original location: Unknown

Last recorded location: Museum (1978)

English translation

Translation source: Reynolds, 2007

[E.g. The sarcophagus belongs to Menippos .. ? .. the censor and .. ? .. and Menippos his son; in it Menippos himself has already been buried] and Menippos the son of Menippos the censor, his son and heir, will be so, and anyone whom Menippos the son of Menippos may wish. No one else shall have the right to bury a body in it or to remove one from it, since whoever acts contrary to these provisions is to be (considered) sacrilegious, accursed and a tomb-robber, and moreover is to pay to the goddess Aphrodite and to the Neopoioi, wearers of gold, 3000 silver denarii, of which one third shall belong to the prosecutor. A copy of the inscribed text was deposited in the civic property-archive in the sixteenth stephanephorate of Attalis daughter of Menekrates, month of Caesar.

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