Anna Rusyaeva

Dedicatory graffiti from the excavations of the Southern temenos in Olbia undoubtedly testify to the existence in the area not only of an Aphrodite’s temenos but also a local hero Angelos’ sanctuary synchronous with the earliest inscriptions. Unlike the previous evidence for the Aphrodite’s cult in Olbia, all disparate and dating back to different periods, the Southern 40 temenos has for the time provided rather a large number of materials about that cult. In spite of the graffiti’s fragmentary character it was possible to divide them into groups and to analyze some of them. Their paleography is basically in agreement with the sherds’ relative dating. The majority of the graffiti belongs to the early Aphrodite’s sanctuary. One of the graffiti is especially worth mentioning; it is (Ἀφροδίτ)ης Δημίης “(that) of People’s Aphrodite” similar to Aphrodite Pandemos (“All People’s Aphrodite”) well known in the Hellenistic world. Given very close links between Olbia and Athens it is tentatively suggested that Ἀγγελος ἥρως might have been the olbiopolite owing to whose wisdom not only some Boristhene inhabitants but also those of near-Olbia areas were relocated to Olbia for further strengthening the city-polis and its civil community. The sources enable us to assume that the pre-Gaetic town had two Aphrodite’s sanctuaries, Ourania in the Western and Pandemos in the Southern temenos.