Inscriptions of Southern Galatia

IN THE spring of 1939 I was commissioned by the American Society for Archaeological Research in Asia Minor to conduct an expedition on the plateau of Anatolia in continuation of the Society's Survey of the ancient monuments of the country. The area selected, and approved by the Turkish Government, was the region lying west and north of Iconium, between the ancient cities of Philomelium, Kinna and Savatra. I had already been over the greater part of this ground, partly in company with Ramsay, mostly alone. The object of this year's journey was to secure facsimile records of all the important known monuments, to discover new monuments, and to search for answers to various questions, historical and topographical; the detailed itinerary was to be determined by information acquired as we went along. I was accompanied by Mr. Keith Guthrie of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and by Suleiman Hilmi Bey, director of the Depot of Antiquities at Afyon Kara Hissar, representing the Turkish Ministry of Education. Hilmi Bey gave the expedition valuable assistance in the collection of information about modern communications, which, as I shall show by a striking example, have a vital bearing on the ancient road system. The epigraphical and topographical results of this journey will be set forth at length in Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua. In this preliminary report to the American society, which, by the courtesy of the editor, I am privileged to publish in an American journal, I will briefly describe the course of the journey, and will quote in minuscule some of the more noteworthy inscriptions we recorded.