word is certainly not that. Assuming, then, that the writer meant ἄλλων, how are we to explain the spelling? If it was a mere blunder of the stone-cutter, it was at least a strange one. In the Greek ἄλλος yodh does not elsewhere appear under a vowel form: nor is it likely that 
(originally cheth) should, among its other uses, have served for the yodh. Possibly is here the aspirate; the effect of a double λ in ἄλλ-ων may have been given by writing ἄλ-hων: or, if λ is in itself the archaic equivalent of λλ, the aspirate might be regarded as developed by the double letter[1].
To sum up: (1) the form , instead of Η, points to a date earlier than about 540 B.C.; (2) the use of is here various and (apparently) inconstant. It denotes long e; but long e is also denoted by Ε, as in ΚΑΣΙΓΝΕΤΗ, ΑΝΕΘΕΚΕΝ. It stands, not only for the aspirate, but also for an aspirated ε, and for an aspirated κ before σ. In specimens of the Eastern alphabets dating from about 600 to 540 B.C. is already fixed to two uses, (1) as the long e; (2) occasionally, as the aspirate. The fluctuating and seemingly tentative employments of in our inscription point to a time when the sign had been newly introduced, and when its application still varied with individual or local caprice.
Combining the epigraphic evidence with that afforded by the type of the Artemis, we can scarcely be far wrong if we refer the inscription to about
- ↑ Another possibility which occurs is that, λ standing for λλ, η is the termination of the feminine stem.
