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Niketas archon of Skyros (ninth/tenth century)

 
 

Obverse

Cruciform invocative monogram (type VIII); in each quarter: . Indeterminate border.

Κύριε βοήθει

Reverse

Inscription of four lines followed by a row of three pellets. Indeterminate border.

ΤΣ
ΔΟΥΛΝΙΚΗ
ΤΑΑΡΧΟΝ
Τ/ ΣΚΥΡ

τῷ σῷ δούλ(ῳ) Νικήτᾳ ἄρχοντ(ι) Σκύρου

Obverse

Cruciform invocative monogram (type VIII); in each quarter: . Indeterminate border.

Κύριε βοήθει

Reverse

Inscription of four lines followed by a row of three pellets. Indeterminate border.

ΤΣ
ΔΟΥΛΝΙΚΗ
ΤΑΑΡΧΟΝ
Τ/ ΣΚΥΡ

τῷ σῷ δούλ(ῳ) Νικήτᾳ ἄρχοντ(ι) Σκύρου

Accession number BZS.1951.31.5.1546
Diameter 27.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 2, no. 56.1.

Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Thomas Whittemore.

Translation

Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Νικήτᾳ ἄρχοντι Σκύρου.

Lord, help your servant Niketas archon of Skyros.

Commentary

An ex-archon of Skyros is mentioned in 1016 in a document of the monastery of the Lavra (Lavra, no. 20, line 81). This text shows that being an archon was not an honorific title but a real office held in succession.

The bishopric of Skyros, an island of the Sporades, was probably in existence in the late ninth century (Darrouzès, Notitiae, no. 7, line 502) as a suffragan of Athens. The island was governed by an archon (DO Seals 2, no. 56.1). See Laurent, Corpus V/3, 104; Malamut, Iles, 228-30, 272-73, 300, 311-12, 366, 498.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 2: South of the Balkans, the Islands, South of Asia Minor (Open in Zotero)
  • Actes de Lavra, Vol. 1, Des origines à 1204 (Open in Zotero)
  • Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
  • Les îles de l’empire byzantin: VIIIe-XIIe siècles (Open in Zotero)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)