Evidence ID
E01859
Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)
[+ ἅγι]ε Δω- μν[ῖνε (?) καὶ ἅγιε (?)]
[Θεόφ]ιλε (?), φ- υλά[ξατε]
[τὴν] εἴσοδ(ον) ἐμ[ῶν]
'[+ Saint] Domninos (?) [and Saint Theophilos (?)], protect [our] entrance!'
Text: IGLS 4, no. 1583.
Non Liturgical Activity
Prayer/supplication/invocation
Source
Fragment of a basalt lintel, broken and lost at the right-hand end; the left-hand end was buried when recorded. Preserved dimensions: H. 0.44 m; W. 1.01 m. Decorated with low-relief carving of a cross with eight arms, within a circle (0.43 m in diameter).Found in the outskirts of the village of Ḥarāke by the Princeton Archaeological Expedition to Syria. First published by William Prentice in 1922. Republished by René Mouterde in 1955, based on the edition by Prentice.
Discussion
The inscription is very fragmentarily preserved, but given the form of the stone with the characteristic cross in the centre and the text written in two columns to the right and to the left of it, we can safely assume that it was once displayed on a lintel, over a doorway. Prentice offered a possible reconstruction of the text with saints Domninos and Theophilos as addressees of this invocation, but this completion is entirely hypothetical. Domninos and Theophilos belong to a group of Palestinian martyrs, venerated on 5th November according to the Synaxary of the Church of Constantinople. Halkin was reluctant to acknowledge this text as an attestation to their cult. Mouterde commented that this restoration is very dubious, but he reprinted it as the main text of his edition, and not in the apparatus. Peña accepts the restoration without any discussion.Dating: This kind of Syriac lintel inscription is characteristic of the late 5th or 6th c.
Bibliography
Edition:Jalabert, L., Mouterde, R., Mondésert, Cl., Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, vol. 4: Laodicée, Apamène (BAH 61, Paris: Librairie orientalise Paul Geuthner, 1955), no. 1583.
Prentice, W.K. (ed.), Publications of the Princeton University of archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-1905 and 1909, Division III: Greek and Latin Inscriptions, Section B: Northern Syria (Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1922), 101, no. 1033.
Further reading:
Halkin, F., "Inscriptions grecques relatives à l'hagiographie, II, Les deux Phénicies et et les deux Syries", Analecta Bollandiana 67 (1949), 102, note 9.
Peña, I., Lieux de pèlerinage en Syrie (Milan: Franciscan Printing Press, 2000), 32.
Images
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From: Prentice 1922, 101.
Record Created By
Paweł Nowakowski
Date of Entry
15/09/2016
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00190 | Domninos, martyr of Caesarea of Palestine | Δωμνῖνος | Uncertain | S00935 | Theophilos, martyr in Palestine, ob. 308 | Θεόφιλος | Uncertain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E01859 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E01859