A New Inscribed Bronze Bowl Dedicated to Megale Thea Demeter from Arykanda

This article presents an inscribed bronze votive bowl discovered in 2019 within a building complex associated with the Sebasteion (Room M5) at the acropolis of Arykanda. The multifunctional nature of the building complex, along with the associated finds, indicates that the area served as a hybrid space where ritual practices and daily life intertwined. Dating to the 2nd –3rd centuries CE, the inscribed bowl provides the only evidence to date of the goddess Demeter in the city's pantheon. The bowl extends the geographical distribution of the cult of Demeter in Lycia eastward and into the interior. The incised inscription on the bowl bears the epithet Megale Thea (Great Goddess), hitherto unattested for Demeter in Lycia. This epithet reflects the rhetoric of religious exaltation prevalent in Roman Imperial Asia Minor. The dedicator, Theo[d]amos, identifies himself as an oikonomos (steward/administrator), suggesting he may have been an official attached to either the city or a cult organisation.