‘The historical value of an object depends not so much on the nature of the object as on its associations, which only scientific excavation can detect.’ The full significance of an inscription may equally rely on knowledge of its archaeological context. In practice, however, users of inscriptions often neglect this aspect. The standard commentaries, new and old, on Alexander's famous ‘edict to Priene’ (hereafter ‘AE’) tend to ignore the physical context of the inscription (I.Priene I) and to treat the text as an isolated or one-off document. Consequently no-one reading Dittenberger, Tod or now Heisserer would learn that it is one of a series of public inscriptions with a consistent theme belonging to an ‘archive’ of connected texts. The inscription is not discussed as one of a group of documents, its monumental setting is largely ignored and the rich corpus of Prienian inscriptions is not exploited fully as a control and source for the historical background of the AE. It is the purpose of this article to try to show that the AE cannot be properly studied in this archaeological limbo. ‘The associations’ of the AE are vital. They provide a new perspective from which to study the text.

Ashmolean Museum inv. 1937. 993. Photo: P. R. S. Moorey, Ancient Iraq (Assyria and Babylonia) (Oxford, 1976) 47, plate XXX (reverse only). Cf. Plate IX (enlarged). An originally unbaked clay tablet: W., 8·2 cm, h., 6 cm, th., 1·4 cm (maximum).

The tablet was in the possession of Stephen Langdon and came to the Ashmolean as part of Langdon's bequest. No Kish excavation inventory number is scratched on the edges as on material from Kish. There is no reason therefore to assume Kish as the provenance. No exact provenance is in fact available for the tablet. The tablet is inscribed in Greek script on both sides. It was referred to but not published by Sollberger in his important collection of the fourteen known fragments of Babylonian texts in the Greek alphabet, the “Graeco-Babyloniaca” texts. To this collection can now be added the Harvard tablet, which contains part of an incantation inscribed in cuneiform on the obverse and Greek script on the reverse.

The Ashmolean tablet differs physically from these in two respects, (a) Size. It is considerably smaller in all dimensions than the other tablets in the British Museum with Greek script which Pinches estimated to have been about 5 in wide by 9 in high when complete. Their thickness is also greater at 2–3 cm. (b) Oblong shape. Apart from tiny chips the other fragments (including the Harvard text) are from tablets which had the usual shape of Babylonian tablets, height greater than breadth. It is like the other tablets in being unbaked. The size and shape of the Ashmolean tablet are, however, typical for Seleucid period cuneiform business documents.

A. K. Grayson's valuable volume, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, contains not only a rich collection of historiographic writing from the period before the Macedonian conquest, but has also added several new fragments to the Babylonian Chronicles series for the early hellenistic period, in addition to a useful re-edition of the Chronicle of the Diadochoi. These fragments constitute what survives (or is known at present to survive) from the apparently last chronicles of the corpus which began in the reign of Nabonassar (747–34 bc) and continued down to and into the early Seleucid period. When precisely (and why) the corpus came to an end is at present unknown. The new post-Alexander fragments are probably all from the third century bc, nos 11 and 12 from the early third century, while nos 13 and 13b are of later third century date.

Coan possession of chora in Cyprus is attested, in the Imperial period, by a dedication in honour of a Roman governor of Cyprus, who had retrieved for the Coans their land. The text of the inscription was first made known by R. Herzog in 1928, and was later published, without commentary, by G. Patriarca in 1932. It is one of a number of documents in which Roman authority is exercised in settlement of a controversia agrorum in Greek provincial cities. It merits further attention because of the startling revelation of Coan ownership of land in Cyprus. For convenience the text is reproduced here: