Detail of the Front of a Limestone Block from the Stepped Base of a Funerary Monument in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 2010

Front of a limestone block from the stepped base of a funerary monument
Greek, Attic, mid-sixth century BC
Said to be from Athens
Inscribed, "on the death of Chairedemos his father Amphichares set up this monument mourning a good son. Phaidimos made it."

Accession Number: 16.174.6

The epitaph consists of two lines of poetry in the special form (dactylic hexameter) that was used at this time to express grief over a death. It is followed by the name of Phaidimos, who is known from two other inscriptions found in Attica. These lines are inscribed to read alternatively from right to left and left to right. The Phoenicians, from whom the Greeks derived the alphabet, wrote from right to left. The Greeks soon found that writing from left to right was move convenient, but until the end of the sixth century BC, lines of inscriptions were sometimes carved in alternating directions. This method of writing was called boustrophedon (ox-turning) because it turns at the end of each line, as the ox turns with the plough at the end of each furrow.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.