Sampi
Encyclopedia
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
handwriting of the Byzantine
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
from Samos
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
at Assesos
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
It has been suggested that there may be an isolated example of the use of alphabetic sampi in Athens. In a famous painted black figure amphora
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa (Ϙ, originally denoting the sound /k/) for "90", and sampi for "900". While digamma and koppa were retained in their original alphabetic positions inherited from Phoenician, the third archaic Phoenician character, san
/tsade (Ϻ, denoting an [s] sound), was not used in this way. Instead, sampi was chosen, and added at the end of the system, after omega (800).
From this, it has been concluded that the system must have been invented at a time and place when digamma and koppa were still either in use or at least still remembered as parts of the alphabetic sequence, whereas san had either already been forgotten, or at least was no longer remembered with its original alphabetic position. In the latter case, according to a much debated view, sampi itself may in fact have been regarded as being san, but with a new position in the alphabet.
The dating of the emergence of this system, and with it of numeric sampi, has been the object of much discussion. At the end of the 19th century, authors such as Thompson placed its full development only in the 3rd century BC. Jeffery states that the system as a whole can be traced much further back, into the 6th century BC. An early, though isolated, instance of apparent use of alphabetic Milesian numerals in Athens occurs on a stone inscribed with several columns of two-digit numerals, of unknown meaning, dated from the middle of the 5th century BC.
While the emergence of the system as a whole has thus been given a much earlier dating than was often assumed earlier, actual occurrences of the letter sampi in this context have as yet not been found in any early examples. According to Threatte, the earliest known use of numeric sampi in a stone inscription occurs in an inscription in Magnesia
from the 2nd century BC, in a phrase denoting a sum of money (") but the exact numeric meaning of this example is disputed. In Athens, the first attestation is only from the beginning of the 2nd century AD, again in an inscription naming sums of money.
Earlier than the attestations in the full function as a numeral are a few instances where sampi was used in Athens as a mark to enumerate sequences of things in a set, along with the 24 other letters of the alphabet, without implying a specific decimal numeral value. For instance, there is a set of 25 metal tokens, each stamped with one of the letters from alpha to sampi, which are dated to the 4th century BC and were probably used as identification marks for judges in the courts of the Athenean democracy.
In papyrus
texts from the Ptolemaic
period onwards, numeric sampi occurs with some regularity.
At an early stage in the papyri, the numeral sampi was used not only for 900, but, somewhat confusingly, also as a multiplicator for 1000, since a way of marking thousands and their multiples was not yet otherwise provided by the alphabetic system. Writing an alpha over sampi ( or, in a ligature) meant "1×1000", a theta over sampi meant "9×1000", and so on. In the examples cited by Gardthausen, a slightly modified shape of sampi, with a shorter right stem , is used. This system was later simplified into one where the thousands operator was marked just as a small stroke to the left of the letter (͵α = 1000).
. Commenting on the use of certain obscure abbreviations found in earlier manuscripts of Hippocrates
, Galen says that one of them "looks like the way some people write the sign for 900", and describes this as "the shape of the letter Π with a vertical line in the middle" ("").
From the time of the earliest papyri, the square-topped forms of handwritten sampi alternate with variants where the top is rounded () or pointed (). The rounded form also occurs in stone inscriptions in the Roman era. In the late Roman period, the arrow-shaped or rounded forms are often written with a loop connecting the two lines at the right, leading to the "ace-of-spades" form , or to . These forms, in turn, occasionally have another decorative stroke added on the left . It can be found attached in several different ways, from the top or the bottom . From these shapes, finally, the modern form of sampi emerges, beginning in the 9th century, with the two straight lines becoming more or less parallel (, ).
In medieval western manuscripts describing the Greek alphabet, the arrowhead form is sometimes rendered as .
, the M-shaped alternative of sigma (Σ) that formed part of the Greek alphabet when it was originally adopted from Phoenician
. Archaic san stood in an alphabetic position between pi
(Π) and koppa (Ϙ). It dropped out of use in favour of sigma in most dialects by the 7th century BC, but was retained in place of the latter in a number of local alphabets until the 5th century BC. It is generally agreed to be derived from Phoenician tsade.
The hypothetical identification between san and sampi is based on a number of considerations. One is the similarity of the sounds represented by both. san represented either simple [s] or some other, divergent phonetic realization of the common Greek /s/ phoneme. Suggestions for its original sound value have included [ts], [z], and [ʃ]. The second reason for the assumption is the sytematicity in the development of the letter inventory: there were three archaic letters that dropped out of use in alphabetic writing (digamma/wau
, koppa, and san), and three extra-alphabetic letters were adopted for the Milesian numeral system, two of them obviously identical with the archaic digamma and koppa; hence, it is easy to assume that the third in the set had the same history. Objections to this account have been related to the fact that sampi did not assume the same position san had had, and to the lack of any obvious relation between the shapes of the two letters and the lack of any intermediate forms linking the two uses.
Among older authorities, Gardthausen and Thompson took the identity between san and sampi for granted. Foat, in a skeptical reassessment of the evidence, came to the conclusion that it was a plausible hypothesis but unprovable. The discussion has continued until the present, while a steady trickle of new archaeological discoveries regarding the relative dating of the various events involved (i.e. the original emergence of the alphabet, the loss of archaic san, the emergence of alphabetic sampi, and the emergence of the numeral system) have continued to affect the data base on which it is founded.
A part of the discussion about the identity of san and sampi has revolved around a difficult and probably corrupted piece of philological commentary by an anonymous scholiast
, which has been debated ever since Joseph Justus Scaliger
drew attention to it in the mid-17th century. Scaliger's discussion also contains the first known attestation of the name "san pi" (sampi) in the western literature, and the first attempt at explaining it. The passage in question is a scholion on two rare words occurring in the comedies of Aristophanes
, koppatias and samphoras . Both were names for certain breeds of horses, and both were evidently named after the letter used as a branding
mark on each: "koppa" and "san" respectively. After explaining this, the anonymous scholiast adds a digression that appears to be meant to further explain the name and function of "san", drawing some kind of link between it and the numeral sign of 900. However, what exactly was meant here is obscure now, because the text was evidently corrupted during transmission and the actual symbols cited in it were probably exchanged. The following is the passage in the reading provided by a modern edition, with problematic words marked:
There is still no agreement on what was originally meant by this passage. While Scaliger in the 17th century believed that the scholiast spoke of san as a synonym for sigma, and meant to describe the (modern) shape of sampi (ϡ) as being composed of an inverted lunate sigma and a π, the modern editor D. Holwerda believes the scholiast spoke of the actual M-shaped san and expressed a belief that modern sampi was related to it.
An alternative hypothesis to that of the historical identity between san and sampi is that Ionian sampi may have been a loan from the neighbouring Anatolian
language Carian, which formed the local substrate in the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor. This hypothesis is mentioned by Jeffery and has been supported more recently by Genzardi
Brixhe suggested that sampi could be related to the Carian letter 25 "", transcribed as ś. This would fit in with the "plausible, but not provable" hypothesis that the root contained in the Carian-Greek names spelled with sampi, "Πανυασσις" and "Οασσασσις", is identical with a root *uś-/waś- identified elsewhere in Carian, which contains the Carian ś sound spelled with . Adiego follows this with the hypothesis that both the Carian letter and sampi could ultimately go back to Greek Ζ . Like the san–sampi hypothesis, the Carian hypothesis remains an open and controversial issue, especially since the knowledge of Carian itself is still fragmentary and developing.
While the origin of sampi continues to be debated, the identity between the alphabetic Ionian sampi (/ss/) and the numeral for 900 has rarely been in doubt, although in the older literature it was sometimes mentioned only tentatively, An isolated position was expressed in the early 20th century by Jannaris, who – without mentioning the alphabetic use of Ionian /ss/ – proposed that the shape of numeric sampi was derived from a juxtaposition of three "T"s, i.e. 3×300=900. (He also rejected the historical identity of the other two numerals, stigma
(6) and koppa (90), with their apparent alphabetic predecessors.) Today, the link between alphabetic and numeral sampi is universally accepted.
As for the name sampi itself, it is generally agreed today that it is of late origin and not the original name of the character in either its ancient alphabetic or its numeral function. Babiniotis describes it as "medieval", while Jannaris places its emergence "after the thirteenth century". However, the precise time of its emergence in Greek is not documented.
The name is already attested in manuscript copies of an Old Church Slavonic
text describing the development of the alphabet, the treatise On Letters ascribed to the 9th-century monk Hrabar
, which was written first in Glagolitic
and later transmitted in the Cyrillic script. In one medieval Cyrillic group of manuscripts of this text, probably going back to a marginal note in an earlier Glagolitic version, the letter names "sampi" ("") and "koppa" ("") are used for the Greek numerals. Witnesses of this textual variant exist from c.1200, but its archetype can be dated to before 1000 AD.
The first reference to the name sampi in the western literature occurs in a 17th-century work, Scaliger's discussion of the Aristophanes scholion regarding the word samphoras (see above). Some modern authors, taking Scaliger's reference as the first known use and unaware of earlier attestations, have claimed that the name itself only originated in the 17th century and/or that Scaliger himself invented it. A related term was used shortly after Scaliger by the French author Montfaucon, who called the sign "" (antisigma-pi), "because the Greeks regarded it as being composed of an inverted sigma, which is called , and from " ("Graeci putarunt ex inverso sigma, quod vocatur, et ex compositum esse").
The etymology of sampi has given rise to much speculation. The only element all authors agree on is that the -pi refers to the letter π, but about the rest accounts differ depending on each author's stance on the question of the historical identity between sampi and san.
According to the original suggestion by Scaliger, san-pi means "written like a san and a pi together". Here, "san" refers not to the archaic letter san (i.e. Ϻ) itself, but to "san" as a mere synonym of "sigma", referring to the outer curve of the modern ϡ as resembling an inverted lunate sigma. This reading is problematic because it fits the shape only of the modern (late Byzantine) sampi but presupposes active use of an archaic nomenclature that had long since lost currency by the time that shape emerged. According to a second hypothesis, san-pi would originally have meant "the san that stands next to pi in the alphabet". This proposal thus presupposes the historical identity between sampi and ancient san (Ϻ), which indeed stood behind Π. However, this account too is problematic as it implies a very early date of the emergence of the name, since after the archaic period the original position of san was apparently no longer remembered, and the whole point of the use of sampi in the numeral system is that it stands somewhere else. Yet a different hypothesis interprets san-pi in the sense of "the san that resembles pi". This is usually taken as referring to the modern ϡ shape, presupposing that the name san alone had persisted from antiquity until the time the sign took that modern shape. None of these hypotheses has wide support today. The most commonly accepted explanation of the name today is that san pi simply means "like a pi", where the word san is unrelated to any letter name but simply the modern Greek preposition ("like", from ancient Greek ).
In the absence of a proper name, there are indications that various generic terms were used in Byzantine times to refer to the sign. Thus, the 15th-century Greek mathematician Nikolaos Rabdas referred to the three numerals for 6, 90 and 900 as "τὸ ἐπίσημον", "τὸ ἀνώνυμον σημεῖον" ("the nameless sign", i.e. koppa), and "ὁ καλούμενος χαρακτήρ" ("the so-called charaktir", i.e. just "the character"), respectively. The term "ἐπίσημον" (episēmon, literally "outstanding") is today used properly as a generic cover term for all three extra-alphabetic numeral signs, but was used specifically to refer to 6 (i.e. digamma
/stigma
).
In some early medieval Latin documents from western Europe, there are descriptions of the contemporary Greek numeral system which imply that sampi was known simply by the Greek word for its numeric value, ἐννεακόσια (enneakosia, "nine hundred"). Thus, in De loquela per gestum digitorum, a didactic text about arithmetics attributed to the Venerable Bede, the three Greek numerals for 6, 90 and 900 are called "episimon", "cophe" and "enneacosis" respectively. the latter two being evidently corrupted versions of koppa and enneakosia. An anonymous 9th-century manuscript from Rheinau Abbey
has epistmon [sic], kophe, and ennakose. Similarly, the Psalterium Cusanum, a 9th or 10th century bilingual Greek—Latin manuscript, has episimôn, enacôse and cophê respectively (with the latter two names mistakenly interchanged for each other.) Another medieval manuscript has the same words distorted somewhat more, as psima, coppo and enacos, Other, similar versions of the name include enacosin and niacusin, or the curious corruption sincope,
A curious name for sampi that occurs in one Greek source is "παρακύϊσμα" (parakyisma). It occurs in a scholion to Dionysius Thrax
, where the three numerals are referred to as "τὸ δίγαμμα καὶ τὸ κόππα καὶ τό καλούμενον παρακύϊσμα". The obscure word ("… the so-called parakyisma") literally means "a spurious pregnancy", from "παρα-" and the verb "κυέω" "to be pregnant". The term has been used and accepted as possibly authentic by Jannaris, Uhlhorn and again by Soldati. While Jannaris hypothesizes that it was meant to evoke the oblique, reclining shape of the character, Soldati suggests it was meant to evoke its status as an irregular, out-of-place addition ("un'utile superfetazione"). Einarson, however, argues that the word is probably the product of textual corruption during transmission in the Byzantine period. He suggests that the original reading was similar to that used by Rabdas, "ὁ καλούμενος χαρακτήρ" ("the so-called character"). Another contemporary cover term for the extra-alphabetic numerals would have been "παράσημον" (parasēmon, lit. "extra sign"). A redactor could have written the consonant letters "π-σ-μ" of "παράσημον" over the letters "χ-κτ-ρ" of "χαρακτήρ", as both words happen to share their remaining intermediate letters. The result, mixed together from letters of both words, could have been misread in the next step as "παρακυησμ", and hence, "παρακύϊσμα".
An entirely new proposal has been made by A. Willi, who suggests that the original name of the letter in ancient Greek was angma . This proposal is based on a passage in a Latin grammarian, Varro
, who uses this name for what he calls a "25th letter" of the alphabet. Varro himself is clearly not referring to sampi, but is using angma to refer to the ng sound ŋ in words like angelus. However, Varro ascribes the use of the name angma to an ancient Ionian Greek author, Ion of Chios
. Willi conjectures that Varro misunderstood Ion, believing the name angma referred to the [ŋ] sound because that sound happened to occur in the name itself. However, Ion, in speaking of a "25th letter of the alphabet", meant not just a different pronunciation of some other letters but an actual written letter in its own right, namely sampi. According to Willi's hypothesis, the name angma would have been derived from the verbal root *ank-, "to bend, curve", and referred to a "crooked object", used because of the hook-like shape of the letter.
According to a numismatic website, the term disigma was used for the epigraphic character by some late 19th and early 20th century authors. This usage is currently not found in the literature.
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In the Greco–Iberian alphabet, used during the 4th century BC in eastern Spain to write the Iberian language
(a language unrelated to Greek), sampi was adopted along with the rest of the Ionian Greek alphabet, as an alphabetic character to write a second sibilant sound distinct from sigma. It had the shape , with three vertical lines of equal length.
The Greek script was also adapted in Hellenistic times to write the Iranian
language Bactrian
, spoken in today's Afghanistan. Bactrian used an additional letter Ϸ, shaped like the later (unrelated) Germanic letter "thorn"
(Þ), to denote its sh sound (š, [ʃ]). This letter, too, has been hypothesized to be a continuation of Greek sampi, and/or san.
During the first millennium AD, several neighbouring languages whose alphabets were wholly or partly derived from the Greek adopted the structure of the Greek numeral system, and with it, some version or local replacement of sampi.
In Coptic
, the sign "Ⳁ" (, which has been described as "the Greek with a Ρ above"), was used for 900. Its numeric role was subsequently taken over by the native character Ϣ (shei, /ʃ/), which is related to the Semitic tsade
(and thus, ultimately, cognate with Greek san as well).
The Gothic alphabet
adopted sampi in its Roman era form of an upwards-pointing arrow ()
In the Slavic
writing system Glagolitic
, the letter (tse, /ts/) was used for 900. It too may have been derived from a form of the Hebrew tsade. In Cyrillic
, in contrast, the character (small yus, /ẽ/) was used initially, being the one among the native Cyrillic letters that resembled sampi most closely in shape. However, the letter (tse), the equivalent of the Glagolitic sign, took its place soon later. It has been proposed that sampi was retained in its alternative function of denoting multiplication by thousand, and became the Cyrillic "thousands sign" .
In Armenian
, the letter Ջ (ǰ) stands for 900, while Ք (kʿ), similar in shape to the Coptic sign, stands for 9000.
, printers adopted the minuscule
version of the numeral sign, ϡ, for their fonts. The typographic realization of Sampi has varied widely throughout its history in print, and a large range of different shapes can still be found in current electronic typesetting. Commonly used forms range from small, π-like shapes to shapes with large swash curves , while the stems can be almost upright or almost horizontal . More rarely, one can find shapes with the lower end curving outwards, forming an "s" curve .
In its modern use as a numeral (as with the other two episema, stigma
and koppa) no difference is normally made in print between an upper case and lower case form; the same character is typically used in both environments. However, occasionally special typographic variants adapted to an upper case style have also been employed in print. The issue of designing such uppercase variants has become more prominent since the decision of Unicode
to encode separate character codepoints for uppercase and lowercase sampi. Several different designs are currently found. Older versions of the Unicode charts showed a glyph with a crooked and thicker lower stem . While this form has been adopted in some modern fonts, it has been replaced in more recent versions of Unicode with a simpler glyph, similar to the lowercase forms . Many fonts designed for scholarly use have adopted an upright triangular shape with straight lines and serifs , as proposed by the typographer Yannis Haralambous. Other versions include large curved shapes , or an upright large π-like glyph with a long descending curve .
The epigraphic ancient Ionian sampi is not normally rendered with the modern numeral character in print. In specialized epigraphical
or palaeographic
academic discussion, it is either represented by a glyph , or by a Latin capital serifed T as a makeshift replacement. As this character has in the past never been supported in normal Greek fonts, there is no typographical tradition for its uppercase and lowercase representation in the style of a normal text font. Since its inclusion in the Unicode
character encoding standard, experimental typographical stylizations of a lowercase textual Sampi have been developed. The Unicode reference glyph for "small letter archaic sampi", according to an original draft, was to have looked like the stem of a small τ with a square top at x height, but was changed after consultation with Greek typesetting experts. The glyph shown in current official code charts stands on the baseline
and has an ascender slightly higher than cap height
, but its stem has no serif
s and is slightly curved leftwards like the descender
of an ρ or β. Most type designers who have implemented the character in current fonts have chosen to design a glyph either at x height, or with a descender but no ascender, and with the top either square or curved (corresponding to ancient scribal practice.)
Several codepoints for the encoding of sampi and its variants have been included in Unicode
. As they were adopted successively in different versions of Unicode, their coverage in current computer fonts and operating systems is inconsistent as of 2010. U+03E0 ("Greek letter Sampi") was present from version 1.1 (1993) and was originally meant to show the normal modern numeral glyph. The uppercase/lowercase contrast was introduced with version 3.0 (1999). As the existing code point had been technically defined as an uppercase character, the new addition was declared lowercase (U+03E1, "Greek small letter Sampi"). This has led to some inconsistency between fonts, because the glyph that was present at U+03E0 in older fonts is now usually found at U+03E1 in newer ones, while U+03E0 may have a typographically uncommon capital glyph.
New, separate codepoints for ancient epigraphic sampi, also in an uppercase and lowercase variant, were proposed in 2005, and included in the standard with version 5.1 (2008). They are meant to cover both the Ionian and Pamphylian , with the Ionian character serving as the reference glyph. As of 2010, these characters are not yet supported by most current Greek fonts. The Gothic "900" symbol was encoded in version 3.1 (2001), and Coptic sampi in version 4.1 (2005). Codepoints for the related Greek characters san and Bactrian "sho
" were added in version 4.0 (2003).
Prior to Unicode, support for sampi in electronic encoding was marginal. No common 8-bit codepage for Greek (such as ISO 8859-7) contained sampi. However, lowercase and uppercase sampi were provided for by the ISO 5428:1984 Greek alphabet coded character set for bibliographic information interchange. In Beta code
, lowercase and uppercase sampi are encoded as "#5" and "*#5" respectively. In the LaTeX
typesetting system, the "Babel" package allows accessing lowercase and uppercase sampi through the commands "\sampi" and "\Sampi". Non-Unicode (8-bit) fonts for polytonic Greek sometimes contained sampi mapped to arbitrary positions, but usually not as a casing pair. For instance, the "WP Greek Century" font that came with WordPerfect
had sampi encoded as 0xFC, while the popular "Wingreek" fonts had it encoded as 0x22. No encoding system prior to Unicode 5.1 catered for archaic epigraphic sampi separately.
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably [ss] or [ts], in some eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It remained in use as a numeral symbol for 900 in the alphabetic ("Milesian") system of Greek numerals
Greek numerals
Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Ionian numerals, Milesian numerals , Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals...
. Its modern shape, which resembles a π inclining to the right with a longish curved cross-stroke, developed during its use as a numeral in minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
handwriting of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era. Its current name, sampi, originally probably meant "san pi", i.e. "like a pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
", and is also of medieval origin. The letter's original name in antiquity is not known. It has been proposed that sampi was a reincarnation of the archaic letter san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, which was originally shaped like an M and denoted the sound [s] in some other dialects. Besides san, names that have been proposed for sampi include parakyisma and angma, while other historically attested terms for it are enacosis, sincope, and o charaktir.
Alphabetic sampi
As an alphabetic letter denoting a sibilant sound, sampi (shaped ) was mostly used between the middle of the 6th and the middle of the 5th centuries BC. although some attestations have been dated as early as the 7th century BC. It has been attested in the cities of MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In addition, in the city of Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "".
Sampi occurs in positions where other dialects, including written Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, normally have double sigma , i.e. a long /ss/ sound. Some other dialects, particularly Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, have (long /tt/) in the same words (e.g. vs. 'sea', or vs. 'four'). The sounds in question are all reflexes of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw]. It is therefore believed that the local letter sampi was used to denote some kind of intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Among the earliest known uses of sampi in this function is an abecedarium
Abecedarium
An abecedarium is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria are practice exercises....
from Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
dated to the mid-7th century BC. This early attestation already bears witness to its alphabetic position behind omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(i.e. not the position of san), and it shows that its invention cannot have been much later than that of omega itself.
The first known use of alphabetic sampi in writing native Greek words is an inscription found on a silver plate in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
, which has the words "" ("four") and "" ("forty") spelled with sampi (cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). It can be dated between the late 7th century and mid 6th century BC. An inscription from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
has the names "Ἁλικαρναͳέ[ω]ν" ("of the Halicarnassians") and the personal names "Ὀαͳαͳιος" and "Π[α]νυάͳιος". All of these names appear to be of non-Greek, local origin, i.e. Carian
Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in...
. On a late 6th century bronze plate from Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
at Assesos
Assesos
Assesos or Assesus was a small ancient Greek town in the region of Caria in Asia Minor, near Miletus, and the site of a sanctuary of Athena...
, the spelling "" ("to Athena of Assessos") has been identified. This is currently the first known instance of alphabetic sampi in Miletus itself, commonly assumed to be the birthplace of the numeral system and thus of the later numeric use of sampi.
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
from c.615 BC, known as the "Nessos amphora", the inscribed name of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
– after which both the vase and its anonymous painter, the "Nessos painter
Nessos Painter
The Nessos Painter , was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting...
", are conventionally named today – is rendered in the irregular spelling "". Either Ionic "" or Athenean "" would be expected instead. Traces of corrections that are still visible underneath the painted "Τ" have led to the conjecture that the painter originally wrote , with sampi for the σσ/ττ sound.
A letter similar to Ionian sampi, but of unknown historical relation with it, existed in the highly deviant local dialect of Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
in southern Asia Minor. It was shaped like . According to Brixhe it probably stood for the sounds /s/, /ss/, or /ps/. It is found in a few inscriptions in the cities of Aspendos
Aspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
and Perge as well as on local coins. For instance, an inscription from Perge dated to around 400 BC reads:
(="Vanassāi Preiiāi Klevutas Lwaravu Vasirwōtas anethēke", "Klevutas the vasirwotas, son of Lwaravus, dedicated this to the Queen of Perge"). The same title "Queen of Perge", the local title for the goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, is found on coin legends: As is known to be the local feminine form of the archaic Greek noun , i.e. (w)anax ("king"), it is believed that the letter stood for some type of sibilant reflecting Proto-Greek */k(t)s/.
Numeric sampi
In the alphabetic numeral system, which was probably invented in MiletusMiletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
and is therefore sometimes called the "Milesian" system, there are 27 numeral signs: the first nine letters of the alphabet, from alpha
Alpha (letter)
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
(A) to theta (Θ) stand for the digits 1–9; the next nine, beginning with iota (Ι), stand for the multiples of ten (10, 20, etc. up to 90); and the last nine, beginning with rho
Rho (letter)
Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(Ρ), stand for the hundreds (100 – 900). For this purpose, the 24 letters of the standard classical Greek alphabet were used with the addition of three archaic or local letters: digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/wau (Ϝ, , originally denoting the sound /w/) for "6", koppa (Ϙ, originally denoting the sound /k/) for "90", and sampi for "900". While digamma and koppa were retained in their original alphabetic positions inherited from Phoenician, the third archaic Phoenician character, san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
/tsade (Ϻ, denoting an [s] sound), was not used in this way. Instead, sampi was chosen, and added at the end of the system, after omega (800).
From this, it has been concluded that the system must have been invented at a time and place when digamma and koppa were still either in use or at least still remembered as parts of the alphabetic sequence, whereas san had either already been forgotten, or at least was no longer remembered with its original alphabetic position. In the latter case, according to a much debated view, sampi itself may in fact have been regarded as being san, but with a new position in the alphabet.
The dating of the emergence of this system, and with it of numeric sampi, has been the object of much discussion. At the end of the 19th century, authors such as Thompson placed its full development only in the 3rd century BC. Jeffery states that the system as a whole can be traced much further back, into the 6th century BC. An early, though isolated, instance of apparent use of alphabetic Milesian numerals in Athens occurs on a stone inscribed with several columns of two-digit numerals, of unknown meaning, dated from the middle of the 5th century BC.
While the emergence of the system as a whole has thus been given a much earlier dating than was often assumed earlier, actual occurrences of the letter sampi in this context have as yet not been found in any early examples. According to Threatte, the earliest known use of numeric sampi in a stone inscription occurs in an inscription in Magnesia
Magnesia on the Maeander
Magnesia or Magnesia on the Maeander was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia, considerable in size, at an important location commercially and strategically in the triangle of Priene, Ephesus and Tralles. The city was named Magnesia, after the Magnetes from Thessaly who settled the area along with...
from the 2nd century BC, in a phrase denoting a sum of money (") but the exact numeric meaning of this example is disputed. In Athens, the first attestation is only from the beginning of the 2nd century AD, again in an inscription naming sums of money.
Earlier than the attestations in the full function as a numeral are a few instances where sampi was used in Athens as a mark to enumerate sequences of things in a set, along with the 24 other letters of the alphabet, without implying a specific decimal numeral value. For instance, there is a set of 25 metal tokens, each stamped with one of the letters from alpha to sampi, which are dated to the 4th century BC and were probably used as identification marks for judges in the courts of the Athenean democracy.
In papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
texts from the Ptolemaic
Ptolemaic Egypt
Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter invaded Egypt and declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to...
period onwards, numeric sampi occurs with some regularity.
At an early stage in the papyri, the numeral sampi was used not only for 900, but, somewhat confusingly, also as a multiplicator for 1000, since a way of marking thousands and their multiples was not yet otherwise provided by the alphabetic system. Writing an alpha over sampi ( or, in a ligature) meant "1×1000", a theta over sampi meant "9×1000", and so on. In the examples cited by Gardthausen, a slightly modified shape of sampi, with a shorter right stem , is used. This system was later simplified into one where the thousands operator was marked just as a small stroke to the left of the letter (͵α = 1000).
Glyph development
In early stone inscriptions, the shape of sampi, both alphabetic and numeric, is . Square-topped shapes, with the middle vertical stroke either of equal length with the outer ones or longer , are also found in early papyri. This form fits the earliest attested verbal description of the shape of sampi as a numeral sign in the ancient literature, which occurs in a remark in the works of the 2nd-century AD physician GalenGalen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
. Commenting on the use of certain obscure abbreviations found in earlier manuscripts of Hippocrates
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...
, Galen says that one of them "looks like the way some people write the sign for 900", and describes this as "the shape of the letter Π with a vertical line in the middle" ("").
From the time of the earliest papyri, the square-topped forms of handwritten sampi alternate with variants where the top is rounded () or pointed (). The rounded form also occurs in stone inscriptions in the Roman era. In the late Roman period, the arrow-shaped or rounded forms are often written with a loop connecting the two lines at the right, leading to the "ace-of-spades" form , or to . These forms, in turn, occasionally have another decorative stroke added on the left . It can be found attached in several different ways, from the top or the bottom . From these shapes, finally, the modern form of sampi emerges, beginning in the 9th century, with the two straight lines becoming more or less parallel (, ).
In medieval western manuscripts describing the Greek alphabet, the arrowhead form is sometimes rendered as .
Origins
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, many authors have assumed that sampi was essentially a historical continuation of the archaic letter sanSan (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, the M-shaped alternative of sigma (Σ) that formed part of the Greek alphabet when it was originally adopted from Phoenician
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
. Archaic san stood in an alphabetic position between pi
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
(Π) and koppa (Ϙ). It dropped out of use in favour of sigma in most dialects by the 7th century BC, but was retained in place of the latter in a number of local alphabets until the 5th century BC. It is generally agreed to be derived from Phoenician tsade.
The hypothetical identification between san and sampi is based on a number of considerations. One is the similarity of the sounds represented by both. san represented either simple [s] or some other, divergent phonetic realization of the common Greek /s/ phoneme. Suggestions for its original sound value have included [ts], [z], and [ʃ]. The second reason for the assumption is the sytematicity in the development of the letter inventory: there were three archaic letters that dropped out of use in alphabetic writing (digamma/wau
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
, koppa, and san), and three extra-alphabetic letters were adopted for the Milesian numeral system, two of them obviously identical with the archaic digamma and koppa; hence, it is easy to assume that the third in the set had the same history. Objections to this account have been related to the fact that sampi did not assume the same position san had had, and to the lack of any obvious relation between the shapes of the two letters and the lack of any intermediate forms linking the two uses.
Among older authorities, Gardthausen and Thompson took the identity between san and sampi for granted. Foat, in a skeptical reassessment of the evidence, came to the conclusion that it was a plausible hypothesis but unprovable. The discussion has continued until the present, while a steady trickle of new archaeological discoveries regarding the relative dating of the various events involved (i.e. the original emergence of the alphabet, the loss of archaic san, the emergence of alphabetic sampi, and the emergence of the numeral system) have continued to affect the data base on which it is founded.
A part of the discussion about the identity of san and sampi has revolved around a difficult and probably corrupted piece of philological commentary by an anonymous scholiast
Scholium
Scholia , are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments, either original or extracted from pre-existing commentaries, which are inserted on the margin of the manuscript of an ancient author, as glosses. One who writes scholia is a scholiast...
, which has been debated ever since Joseph Justus Scaliger
Joseph Justus Scaliger
Joseph Justus Scaliger was a French religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian history.-Early life:He was born at Agen, the tenth child and third son of Italian...
drew attention to it in the mid-17th century. Scaliger's discussion also contains the first known attestation of the name "san pi" (sampi) in the western literature, and the first attempt at explaining it. The passage in question is a scholion on two rare words occurring in the comedies of Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
, koppatias and samphoras . Both were names for certain breeds of horses, and both were evidently named after the letter used as a branding
Livestock branding
Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. Originally, livestock branding only referred to a hot brand for large stock, though the term is now also used to refer to other alternative techniques such as freeze branding...
mark on each: "koppa" and "san" respectively. After explaining this, the anonymous scholiast adds a digression that appears to be meant to further explain the name and function of "san", drawing some kind of link between it and the numeral sign of 900. However, what exactly was meant here is obscure now, because the text was evidently corrupted during transmission and the actual symbols cited in it were probably exchanged. The following is the passage in the reading provided by a modern edition, with problematic words marked:
There is still no agreement on what was originally meant by this passage. While Scaliger in the 17th century believed that the scholiast spoke of san as a synonym for sigma, and meant to describe the (modern) shape of sampi (ϡ) as being composed of an inverted lunate sigma and a π, the modern editor D. Holwerda believes the scholiast spoke of the actual M-shaped san and expressed a belief that modern sampi was related to it.
An alternative hypothesis to that of the historical identity between san and sampi is that Ionian sampi may have been a loan from the neighbouring Anatolian
Anatolian languages
The Anatolian languages comprise a group of extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.-Origins:...
language Carian, which formed the local substrate in the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor. This hypothesis is mentioned by Jeffery and has been supported more recently by Genzardi
Brixhe suggested that sampi could be related to the Carian letter 25 "", transcribed as ś. This would fit in with the "plausible, but not provable" hypothesis that the root contained in the Carian-Greek names spelled with sampi, "Πανυασσις" and "Οασσασσις", is identical with a root *uś-/waś- identified elsewhere in Carian, which contains the Carian ś sound spelled with . Adiego follows this with the hypothesis that both the Carian letter and sampi could ultimately go back to Greek Ζ . Like the san–sampi hypothesis, the Carian hypothesis remains an open and controversial issue, especially since the knowledge of Carian itself is still fragmentary and developing.
While the origin of sampi continues to be debated, the identity between the alphabetic Ionian sampi (/ss/) and the numeral for 900 has rarely been in doubt, although in the older literature it was sometimes mentioned only tentatively, An isolated position was expressed in the early 20th century by Jannaris, who – without mentioning the alphabetic use of Ionian /ss/ – proposed that the shape of numeric sampi was derived from a juxtaposition of three "T"s, i.e. 3×300=900. (He also rejected the historical identity of the other two numerals, stigma
Stigma (letter)
Stigma is a ligature of the Greek letters sigma and tau , which was used in writing Greek between the middle ages and the 19th century. It is also used as a numeral symbol for the number 6...
(6) and koppa (90), with their apparent alphabetic predecessors.) Today, the link between alphabetic and numeral sampi is universally accepted.
Names
Despite all uncertainties, authors who subscribe to the hypothesis of a historical link between ancient san and sampi also often continue to use the name san for the latter. Benedict Einarson hypothesizes that it was in fact called *ssan, with the special quality of the sibilant sound it had as Ionian This opinion has been rejected as phonologically impossible by Soldati, who points out that the /ss/ sound only ever occurred in the middle of words and therefore could not have been used in the beginning of its own name.As for the name sampi itself, it is generally agreed today that it is of late origin and not the original name of the character in either its ancient alphabetic or its numeral function. Babiniotis describes it as "medieval", while Jannaris places its emergence "after the thirteenth century". However, the precise time of its emergence in Greek is not documented.
The name is already attested in manuscript copies of an Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
text describing the development of the alphabet, the treatise On Letters ascribed to the 9th-century monk Hrabar
Chernorizets Hrabar
Chernorizets Hrabar was a Bulgarian monk, scholar and writer who worked at the Preslav Literary School at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century, developing Medieval Bulgarian literature and spreading Old Church Slavonic.- Name :...
, which was written first in Glagolitic
Glagolitic alphabet
The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...
and later transmitted in the Cyrillic script. In one medieval Cyrillic group of manuscripts of this text, probably going back to a marginal note in an earlier Glagolitic version, the letter names "sampi" ("") and "koppa" ("") are used for the Greek numerals. Witnesses of this textual variant exist from c.1200, but its archetype can be dated to before 1000 AD.
The first reference to the name sampi in the western literature occurs in a 17th-century work, Scaliger's discussion of the Aristophanes scholion regarding the word samphoras (see above). Some modern authors, taking Scaliger's reference as the first known use and unaware of earlier attestations, have claimed that the name itself only originated in the 17th century and/or that Scaliger himself invented it. A related term was used shortly after Scaliger by the French author Montfaucon, who called the sign "" (antisigma-pi), "because the Greeks regarded it as being composed of an inverted sigma, which is called , and from " ("Graeci putarunt ex inverso sigma, quod vocatur, et ex compositum esse").
The etymology of sampi has given rise to much speculation. The only element all authors agree on is that the -pi refers to the letter π, but about the rest accounts differ depending on each author's stance on the question of the historical identity between sampi and san.
According to the original suggestion by Scaliger, san-pi means "written like a san and a pi together". Here, "san" refers not to the archaic letter san (i.e. Ϻ) itself, but to "san" as a mere synonym of "sigma", referring to the outer curve of the modern ϡ as resembling an inverted lunate sigma. This reading is problematic because it fits the shape only of the modern (late Byzantine) sampi but presupposes active use of an archaic nomenclature that had long since lost currency by the time that shape emerged. According to a second hypothesis, san-pi would originally have meant "the san that stands next to pi in the alphabet". This proposal thus presupposes the historical identity between sampi and ancient san (Ϻ), which indeed stood behind Π. However, this account too is problematic as it implies a very early date of the emergence of the name, since after the archaic period the original position of san was apparently no longer remembered, and the whole point of the use of sampi in the numeral system is that it stands somewhere else. Yet a different hypothesis interprets san-pi in the sense of "the san that resembles pi". This is usually taken as referring to the modern ϡ shape, presupposing that the name san alone had persisted from antiquity until the time the sign took that modern shape. None of these hypotheses has wide support today. The most commonly accepted explanation of the name today is that san pi simply means "like a pi", where the word san is unrelated to any letter name but simply the modern Greek preposition ("like", from ancient Greek ).
In the absence of a proper name, there are indications that various generic terms were used in Byzantine times to refer to the sign. Thus, the 15th-century Greek mathematician Nikolaos Rabdas referred to the three numerals for 6, 90 and 900 as "τὸ ἐπίσημον", "τὸ ἀνώνυμον σημεῖον" ("the nameless sign", i.e. koppa), and "ὁ καλούμενος χαρακτήρ" ("the so-called charaktir", i.e. just "the character"), respectively. The term "ἐπίσημον" (episēmon, literally "outstanding") is today used properly as a generic cover term for all three extra-alphabetic numeral signs, but was used specifically to refer to 6 (i.e. digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
/stigma
Stigma (letter)
Stigma is a ligature of the Greek letters sigma and tau , which was used in writing Greek between the middle ages and the 19th century. It is also used as a numeral symbol for the number 6...
).
In some early medieval Latin documents from western Europe, there are descriptions of the contemporary Greek numeral system which imply that sampi was known simply by the Greek word for its numeric value, ἐννεακόσια (enneakosia, "nine hundred"). Thus, in De loquela per gestum digitorum, a didactic text about arithmetics attributed to the Venerable Bede, the three Greek numerals for 6, 90 and 900 are called "episimon", "cophe" and "enneacosis" respectively. the latter two being evidently corrupted versions of koppa and enneakosia. An anonymous 9th-century manuscript from Rheinau Abbey
Rheinau Abbey
Rheinau Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Rheinau in the Canton of Zürich, Switzerland, founded in about 778 and suppressed in 1862.-History:...
has epistmon [sic], kophe, and ennakose. Similarly, the Psalterium Cusanum, a 9th or 10th century bilingual Greek—Latin manuscript, has episimôn, enacôse and cophê respectively (with the latter two names mistakenly interchanged for each other.) Another medieval manuscript has the same words distorted somewhat more, as psima, coppo and enacos, Other, similar versions of the name include enacosin and niacusin, or the curious corruption sincope,
A curious name for sampi that occurs in one Greek source is "παρακύϊσμα" (parakyisma). It occurs in a scholion to Dionysius Thrax
Dionysius Thrax
Dionysius Thrax was a Hellenistic grammarian and a pupil of Aristarchus of Samothrace. His place of origin was not Thrace as the epithet Thrax denotes, but probably Alexandria...
, where the three numerals are referred to as "τὸ δίγαμμα καὶ τὸ κόππα καὶ τό καλούμενον παρακύϊσμα". The obscure word ("… the so-called parakyisma") literally means "a spurious pregnancy", from "παρα-" and the verb "κυέω" "to be pregnant". The term has been used and accepted as possibly authentic by Jannaris, Uhlhorn and again by Soldati. While Jannaris hypothesizes that it was meant to evoke the oblique, reclining shape of the character, Soldati suggests it was meant to evoke its status as an irregular, out-of-place addition ("un'utile superfetazione"). Einarson, however, argues that the word is probably the product of textual corruption during transmission in the Byzantine period. He suggests that the original reading was similar to that used by Rabdas, "ὁ καλούμενος χαρακτήρ" ("the so-called character"). Another contemporary cover term for the extra-alphabetic numerals would have been "παράσημον" (parasēmon, lit. "extra sign"). A redactor could have written the consonant letters "π-σ-μ" of "παράσημον" over the letters "χ-κτ-ρ" of "χαρακτήρ", as both words happen to share their remaining intermediate letters. The result, mixed together from letters of both words, could have been misread in the next step as "παρακυησμ", and hence, "παρακύϊσμα".
An entirely new proposal has been made by A. Willi, who suggests that the original name of the letter in ancient Greek was angma . This proposal is based on a passage in a Latin grammarian, Varro
Varro
Varro was a Roman cognomen carried by:*Marcus Terentius Varro, sometimes known as Varro Reatinus, the scholar*Publius Terentius Varro or Varro Atacinus, the poet*Gaius Terentius Varro, the consul defeated at the battle of Cannae...
, who uses this name for what he calls a "25th letter" of the alphabet. Varro himself is clearly not referring to sampi, but is using angma to refer to the ng sound ŋ in words like angelus. However, Varro ascribes the use of the name angma to an ancient Ionian Greek author, Ion of Chios
Ion of Chios
Ion of Chios was a Greek writer, dramatist, lyric poet and philosopher. He was a contemporary of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. Of his many plays and poems only a few titles and fragments have survived...
. Willi conjectures that Varro misunderstood Ion, believing the name angma referred to the [ŋ] sound because that sound happened to occur in the name itself. However, Ion, in speaking of a "25th letter of the alphabet", meant not just a different pronunciation of some other letters but an actual written letter in its own right, namely sampi. According to Willi's hypothesis, the name angma would have been derived from the verbal root *ank-, "to bend, curve", and referred to a "crooked object", used because of the hook-like shape of the letter.
According to a numismatic website, the term disigma was used for the epigraphic character by some late 19th and early 20th century authors. This usage is currently not found in the literature.
In other scripts
Iberian language
The Iberian language was the language of a people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian peninsula. The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th and 1st century BC...
(a language unrelated to Greek), sampi was adopted along with the rest of the Ionian Greek alphabet, as an alphabetic character to write a second sibilant sound distinct from sigma. It had the shape , with three vertical lines of equal length.
The Greek script was also adapted in Hellenistic times to write the Iranian
Iranian languages
The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....
language Bactrian
Bactrian language
The Bactrian language is an extinct Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria. Linguistically, it is classified as belonging to the middle period of the East Iranian branch...
, spoken in today's Afghanistan. Bactrian used an additional letter Ϸ, shaped like the later (unrelated) Germanic letter "thorn"
Thorn (letter)
Thorn or þorn , is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the...
(Þ), to denote its sh sound (š, [ʃ]). This letter, too, has been hypothesized to be a continuation of Greek sampi, and/or san.
During the first millennium AD, several neighbouring languages whose alphabets were wholly or partly derived from the Greek adopted the structure of the Greek numeral system, and with it, some version or local replacement of sampi.
In Coptic
Coptic alphabet
The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is the first alphabetic script used for the Egyptian language...
, the sign "Ⳁ" (, which has been described as "the Greek with a Ρ above"), was used for 900. Its numeric role was subsequently taken over by the native character Ϣ (shei, /ʃ/), which is related to the Semitic tsade
Tsade
' is the eighteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ' and Arabic ' . Its oldest sound value is probably , although there is a variety of pronunciation in different modern Semitic languages and their dialects...
(and thus, ultimately, cognate with Greek san as well).
The Gothic alphabet
Gothic alphabet
The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet for writing the Gothic language, created in the 4th century by Ulfilas for the purpose of translating the Christian Bible....
adopted sampi in its Roman era form of an upwards-pointing arrow ()
In the Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
writing system Glagolitic
Glagolitic alphabet
The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...
, the letter (tse, /ts/) was used for 900. It too may have been derived from a form of the Hebrew tsade. In Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
, in contrast, the character (small yus, /ẽ/) was used initially, being the one among the native Cyrillic letters that resembled sampi most closely in shape. However, the letter (tse), the equivalent of the Glagolitic sign, took its place soon later. It has been proposed that sampi was retained in its alternative function of denoting multiplication by thousand, and became the Cyrillic "thousands sign" .
In Armenian
Armenian alphabet
The Armenian alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Armenian language since the year 405 or 406. It was devised by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and contained originally 36 letters. Two more letters, օ and ֆ, were added in the Middle Ages...
, the letter Ջ (ǰ) stands for 900, while Ք (kʿ), similar in shape to the Coptic sign, stands for 9000.
Modern use
Together with the other elements of the Greek numeral system, sampi is occasionally still used in Greek today. However, since the system is typically used only to enumerate items in relatively small sets, such as the chapters of a book or the names of rulers in a dynasty, the signs for the higher tens and hundreds, including sampi, are much less frequently found in practice than the lower letters for 1 to 10. One of the few domains where higher numbers including thousands and hundreds are still expressed in the old system in Greece with some regularity is the field of law, because until 1914 laws were numbered in this way. For instance, one law which happens to have sampi in its name and is still in force and relatively often referred to is "Νόμος ͵ΓϠΝʹ/1911" (i.e. Law Number 3950 of 1911), "Περί της εκ των αυτοκινήτων ποινικής και αστικής ευθύνης" ("About penal and civil responsibility arising from the use of automobiles"). However, in informal practice, the letter sampi is often replaced in such instances by a lowercase or uppercase π.Typography
With the advent of modern printing in the western RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, printers adopted the minuscule
Minuscule Greek
The minuscule script was a writing style in the history of Greek writing which was used as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts since the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms,...
version of the numeral sign, ϡ, for their fonts. The typographic realization of Sampi has varied widely throughout its history in print, and a large range of different shapes can still be found in current electronic typesetting. Commonly used forms range from small, π-like shapes to shapes with large swash curves , while the stems can be almost upright or almost horizontal . More rarely, one can find shapes with the lower end curving outwards, forming an "s" curve .
In its modern use as a numeral (as with the other two episema, stigma
Stigma (letter)
Stigma is a ligature of the Greek letters sigma and tau , which was used in writing Greek between the middle ages and the 19th century. It is also used as a numeral symbol for the number 6...
and koppa) no difference is normally made in print between an upper case and lower case form; the same character is typically used in both environments. However, occasionally special typographic variants adapted to an upper case style have also been employed in print. The issue of designing such uppercase variants has become more prominent since the decision of Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
to encode separate character codepoints for uppercase and lowercase sampi. Several different designs are currently found. Older versions of the Unicode charts showed a glyph with a crooked and thicker lower stem . While this form has been adopted in some modern fonts, it has been replaced in more recent versions of Unicode with a simpler glyph, similar to the lowercase forms . Many fonts designed for scholarly use have adopted an upright triangular shape with straight lines and serifs , as proposed by the typographer Yannis Haralambous. Other versions include large curved shapes , or an upright large π-like glyph with a long descending curve .
The epigraphic ancient Ionian sampi is not normally rendered with the modern numeral character in print. In specialized epigraphical
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
or palaeographic
Palaeography
Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...
academic discussion, it is either represented by a glyph , or by a Latin capital serifed T as a makeshift replacement. As this character has in the past never been supported in normal Greek fonts, there is no typographical tradition for its uppercase and lowercase representation in the style of a normal text font. Since its inclusion in the Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
character encoding standard, experimental typographical stylizations of a lowercase textual Sampi have been developed. The Unicode reference glyph for "small letter archaic sampi", according to an original draft, was to have looked like the stem of a small τ with a square top at x height, but was changed after consultation with Greek typesetting experts. The glyph shown in current official code charts stands on the baseline
Baseline (typography)
In European and West Asian typography and penmanship, the baseline is the line upon which most letters "sit" and below which descenders extend.In the example to the right, the letter 'p' has a descender; the other letters sit on the baseline....
and has an ascender slightly higher than cap height
Cap height
In typography, cap height refers to the height of a capital letter above the baseline for a particular typeface. It specifically refers to the height of capital letters that are flat—such as H or I—as opposed to round letters such as O, or pointed letters like A, both of which may display...
, but its stem has no serif
Serif
In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface . A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”...
s and is slightly curved leftwards like the descender
Descender
In typography, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font. The line that descenders reach down to is known as the beard line....
of an ρ or β. Most type designers who have implemented the character in current fonts have chosen to design a glyph either at x height, or with a descender but no ascender, and with the top either square or curved (corresponding to ancient scribal practice.)
Computer encoding
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
. As they were adopted successively in different versions of Unicode, their coverage in current computer fonts and operating systems is inconsistent as of 2010. U+03E0 ("Greek letter Sampi") was present from version 1.1 (1993) and was originally meant to show the normal modern numeral glyph. The uppercase/lowercase contrast was introduced with version 3.0 (1999). As the existing code point had been technically defined as an uppercase character, the new addition was declared lowercase (U+03E1, "Greek small letter Sampi"). This has led to some inconsistency between fonts, because the glyph that was present at U+03E0 in older fonts is now usually found at U+03E1 in newer ones, while U+03E0 may have a typographically uncommon capital glyph.
New, separate codepoints for ancient epigraphic sampi, also in an uppercase and lowercase variant, were proposed in 2005, and included in the standard with version 5.1 (2008). They are meant to cover both the Ionian and Pamphylian , with the Ionian character serving as the reference glyph. As of 2010, these characters are not yet supported by most current Greek fonts. The Gothic "900" symbol was encoded in version 3.1 (2001), and Coptic sampi in version 4.1 (2005). Codepoints for the related Greek characters san and Bactrian "sho
Sho (letter)
The letter was a letter added to the Greek alphabet in order to write the Bactrian language. It was similar in appearance to the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic letter thorn , which is sometimes used to represent it in modern print, although both are historically quite unrelated. It probably...
" were added in version 4.0 (2003).
| Character | Shape | Code | Name | Version | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ͳ | U+0372 | GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ARCHAIC SAMPI | 5.1 | 2008 | |
| ͳ | U+0373 | GREEK SMALL LETTER ARCHAIC SAMPI | 5.1 | 2008 | |
| Ϡ | U+03E0 | GREEK LETTER SAMPI | 1.1 | 1993 | |
| ϡ | U+03E1 | GREEK SMALL LETTER SAMPI | 3.0 | 1999 | |
| Ϸ | þ | U+03F7 | GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SHO | 4.0 | 2003 |
| ϸ | U+03F8 | GREEK SMALL LETTER SHO | 4.0 | 2003 | |
| Ϻ | M | U+03FA | GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SAN | 4.0 | 2003 |
| ϻ | U+03FB | GREEK SMALL LETTER SAN | 4.0 | 2003 | |
| Ⳁ | U+2CC0 | COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER SAMPI | 4.1 | 2005 | |
| ⳁ | U+2CC1 | COPTIC SMALL LETTER SAMPI | 4.1 | 2005 | |
| 𐍊 | U+1034A | GOTHIC LETTER NINE HUNDRED | 3.1 | 2001 |
Prior to Unicode, support for sampi in electronic encoding was marginal. No common 8-bit codepage for Greek (such as ISO 8859-7) contained sampi. However, lowercase and uppercase sampi were provided for by the ISO 5428:1984 Greek alphabet coded character set for bibliographic information interchange. In Beta code
Beta code
Beta Code is a method of representing, using only ASCII characters, characters and formatting found in ancient Greek texts . Its aim is to be not merely a romanization of the Greek alphabet, but to represent faithfully a wide variety of source texts – including formatting as well as rare or...
, lowercase and uppercase sampi are encoded as "#5" and "*#5" respectively. In the LaTeX
LaTeX
LaTeX is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. Within the typesetting system, its name is styled as . The term LaTeX refers only to the language in which documents are written, not to the editor used to write those documents. In order to...
typesetting system, the "Babel" package allows accessing lowercase and uppercase sampi through the commands "\sampi" and "\Sampi". Non-Unicode (8-bit) fonts for polytonic Greek sometimes contained sampi mapped to arbitrary positions, but usually not as a casing pair. For instance, the "WP Greek Century" font that came with WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
had sampi encoded as 0xFC, while the popular "Wingreek" fonts had it encoded as 0x22. No encoding system prior to Unicode 5.1 catered for archaic epigraphic sampi separately.