Private enquiry regarding settlement Elena Martín González Stavroula Konstantopoulou “Dodona Travels to Ithaca. Artificial Intelligence Applied to the Edition of Greek Inscriptions”. Grant CNS2023-144714, funded by MICIU/AEI (10.13039/501100011033) and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR. I.Dodone Online 186A+187A+190B

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 n/a

Lead tablet with a longitudinal fold, according to the editors.

6.7 1.8 0.15

The tablet is inscribed on both sides. It preserves one inscription that begins on side B and continues onto side A, where it coexists with two other inscriptions (188A and 189A).

Boiotian (?)

Archaic, red (Ψ for Χ)

5th century BC

Dodona Dodona, Evangelidis’ excavation 1930. Archaeological Museum of Ioannina inv. M185

Encoded according to the EpiDoc Guidelines, version 9.

 English Ancient Greek Latin French German Modern Greek Spanish Question Travel/Moving Facsimile Initial encoding by Stavroula Konstantopoulou.

186A+187A+190B (, 120-121 [ 66.461]; , 290; 190B+186A+187A [last consulted 25/06/2026]).

Cf. , 444 n. 17 (on the alphabet); , 243 n. 16 and 245 n. 24 (on oracular questions about professional activity).

γᾶν Ϝοικε͂ι πότερα ἐν Ὀπόεντι
 καὶ ἐν Ὀρχομενο͂ι  καὶ hόπαι κα νο͂ς φέρι;
ἱκανο͂ς φέρει κα νο͂ς φέρι

Whether he/she shall settle in Opous, or in Orchomenos, or wherever his/her mind leads him/her.

¿Debe residir en Opunte, o en Orcómeno o donde su mente lo/la lleve?

The three inscriptions, edited separately by , are written in the same hand and belong to the same enquiry. proposed joining the two inscriptions on side A (186A and 187A), following Tsantsanoglou’s suggestion in the editio princeps. In 2022, Lhôte and Carbon (apud ) added inscription 190B, incised on the other side, which thus constitutes the beginning of the anonymous oracular enquiry.

According to these scholars, the inscription is written in a Northwestern Doric dialect using the local alphabet of Dodona, whereas the first editors identified it with Boeotian or Thessalian alphabet. However, the shape of the digamma is indicative of a non-Dodonaean origin (see ), and the adverb hόπαι appears to point towards Boeotian (see ).

Two tests were performed, differing in the reading adopted for l. 4: the first follows the reading of the editors of , while the second adopts Méndez Dosuna’s correction. In both tests, Ithaca attributes the inscription to Epirus with a high degree of confidence (88.41% and 87.77%, respectively). Chronologically, both tests point to the 5th century BC, with the highest probability assigned to the 480-470 BC interval, followed closely by other intervals within the same century. See the Ithaca results and associated files.