The Stone of Terpon or Pebble of Antibes (Galet d'Antibes) is an ancient artifact excavated near the seawall of Antibes, France (the ancient Antipolis) in 1866 ([1]). 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 - 425 BC,([2]) and the object may once have marked the entrance to a brothel.
Inscription
The stone is formed in a phallic shape (23" long, 8" thick, 73 lbs.), with a carved inscription in Ionic Greek reading:
ΤΕΡΠΩΝ ΕΙΜΙ ΘΕΑΣ ΘΕΡΑΠΩΝΣΕΜΝΗΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΣ
ΤΟΙΣ ΔΕ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΗΣΑΣΙ ΚΥΠΡΙΣ
ΧΑΡΙΝ ΑΝΤΑΠΟΔΟΙΗ
In standard Greek orthography the text would read:
Τέρπων εἰμὶ θεάς θεράπων σεμνῆς ἈφροδίτηςΤοῖς δὲ καταστήσασι Κύπρις χάριν ἀνταποδοίη.
It forms a distych in dactylic hexameter:
The inscription can be roughly translated as: "I am Terpon, servant of noble Aphrodite, may Kypris return grace to those who set up (the stone)."