Incised on this limestone block is a three-lined Greek inscription written in the Cypro-syllabic script. It is a funerary epigram mentioning that Phauthemis erected a grave monument in memory of his sister Phausagoratis (a common female name in the 5th c. BC). The first constituent of both names, Phaus, means ‘light’. The Cypro-syllabic script, which displays similarities with the syllabic scripts of the prehistoric Aegean (mainly Linear B), was deciphered in the 1870s by the British Assyrologist George Smith with the help of a bilingual inscription in Phoenician and Greek (written in Cyprosyllabic script). On present evidence, the Cypro-syllabic script seems to have appeared in Cyprus in the 11th c. BC and was used for writing both Greek and Eteocypriot (the ancient language of the inhabitants of Cyprus prior to the advent of Hellenic populations in the late 13th c. BC). Eteocypriot inscriptions have not yet been deciphered. The Greek dialect of Cyprus presents similarities with the Arcadian dialect of the Peloponnese, which explains why it is also called ‘Arcado-Cypriot’. Cypro-syllabic script was widely used throughout Cyprus, particularly from the 8th to the 3rd c. BC, when the Greek alphabet finally prevailed and the Cypro-syllabic script ceased to be used.