The Stone of Terpon or Pebble of Antibes (''Galet d'Antibes'') is an ancient artifact excavated near the

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation, ...

Antibes Antibes (, , ; ) is a seaside city in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in Southeastern France. It is located on the French Riviera between Cannes and Nice; its cape, the Cap d'Antibes, along with Cap Ferrat in Saint-Jean-Ca ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

(the ancient ''Antipolis'') in 1866

. The stone is held in the Musée d’Histoire et d’Archéologie adjacent to that same seawall in Antibes. The stone's inscription has been dated to between 450 and 425 BC

and the object may once have marked the entrance to a

brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...

Inscription

The stone is formed in a

phallic A phallus (: phalli or phalluses) is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described as ''ithyphallic''. Any object that symbo ...

shape (23" long, 8" thick, 73 lbs.), with a carved inscription in

Ionic Greek Ionic or Ionian Greek () was a subdialect of the Eastern or Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek. The Ionic group traditionally comprises three dialectal varieties that were spoken in Euboea (West Ionic), the northern Cyclades (Centr ...

reading: :ΤΕΡΠΩΝ ΕΙΜΙ ΘΕΑΣ ΘΕΡΑΠΩΝ
ΣΕΜΝΗΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΣ
ΤΟΙΣ ΔΕ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΗΣΑΣΙ ΚΥΠΡΙΣ
ΧΑΡΙΝ ΑΝΤΑΠΟΔΟΙΗ In standard Greek orthography the text would read: :. It forms a

distich In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive Line (poetry), lines that rhyme and have the same Metre (poetry), metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is en ...

dactylic hexameter Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter used in Ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry as well as in epic, didactic, satirical, and pastoral Latin poetry. Its name is derived from Greek (, "finger") and (, "six"). Dactylic hexameter consists o ...

: The inscription can be roughly translated as: "I am Terpon, servant of noble

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

, may Kypris return grace to those who set up (the stone)."

Catalog references

*L.H. Jeffery: ''Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (LSAG)'', no. 288.03 *H. Roehl, ''Inscriptiones Graecae antiquissimae (IGA)'', no. 551 *H. Roehl, ''Imagines Inscriptionum Graecarum antiquissimarum'', edition 3 pp. 31 no. 52 *''Carmina Epigraphica Graeca'', no. 400. Steles Archaeology of France Antibes {{Europe-archaeology-stub