Floor-mosaic with a Greek inscription commemorating the completion and paving of a church (naos) dedicated to *Peter (the Apostle, S00036). Found at Riḥāb, between Bostra and Gerasa/Jerash (Jordan/the Roman province of Arabia). Dated 623.
Evidence ID
E02054
Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)
Archaeological and architectural - Cult buildings (churches, mausolea)
ἐπὶ τοῦ ἁγιωτάτου καὶ μακαριωτάτου Πολύευκτου ἀρχιεπισκόπου
καὶ μητροπολίτου ἐψηφώθη καὶ ἐτελιώθη ὁ ναòς οὗτος τοῦ ἁγίου
ἀποστόλου Πέτρου ἐκ σπουδῆς καὶ καμάτων Γεωργίου Μαρτυρίου εὐλ(αβεστάτου)
ἀναγνώστου ἐν μηνὶ Λόῳ χρόνων ἑνδέκατης ἰνδι(κτιῶνος) τοῦ ἔτους φιη΄ τῆς ἐπαρχίας
'Under the most holy and most blessed archbishop and metropolitan Polyeuktos, this church (naos) of the holy Apostle Peter was paved with mosaics and completed by the efforts and from the offering of Georgios, son of Martyrios, the most pious lector. In the month of Loos, in the times of the eleventh indiction, in the 518th year of the province.'
Text: Piccirillo 1981, 81.
Translation: P. Nowakowski.
Cult PlacesBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Construction of cult buildings
Renovation and embellishment of cult buildings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Source
Rectangular mosaic panel framed by a tabula ansata with semicircular ansae containing stylized images, probably of small plants with double leaves. Dimensions are not specified. Situated in the nave in front of the steps of the choir and the chancel screen.Remnants of the church and its floor-mosaics were discovered in 1979 near a private house, in the northwest sector of the town, between the church of the Holy Wisdom/Hagia Sophia (E02062) and a shrine of unknown dedication. The church was excavated by the Service of Antiquities of Jordan and was a very small three-aisled basilica with an apse (with preserved column bases for the altar) and two 'sacristies' (dimensions are not recorded). A cistern was found near the north wall. The mosaic of the nave contained squarish panels with labelled busts, probably of donors. All these figural depictions were destroyed during a period of iconoclasm.
The dedicatory mosaic inscription of this church was first published by Michele Piccirillo in 1981, in Revue Biblique, and then republished by the same author in his corpus, Chiese e mosaici della Giordania settentrionale. In 2000 the inscription was reprinted by Annie Sartre-Fauriat, based on the first edition.
Discussion
The inscription commemorates the paving and completion of our church under Polyeuktos, metropolitan of nearby Bostra. The dating formula contains a reference to the 518th year of the province of Arabia and the 11th indictional year, which together correspond to AD 623. Therefore, it is the latest church built during the episcopacy of this metropolitan in Riḥāb. Other local churches dated by his name are: E02045, church of a martyr *Basil, AD 594; E02053, church of *Paul the Apostle, AD 596; E02062: church of the Holy Wisdom, AD 604; E02049: church of *Stephen the First Martyr, AD 620;E02637, the church *John the Baptist, AD 604 or 619. Michele Piccirillo notes that our church and the somewhat earlier church of Stephen were constructed during the Persian occupation of the region.The church was dedicated to Saint Peter. Unlike Paul, the patron of another church in the town (E02053), he is explicitly named 'Apostle'. Piccirillo believed that the cult of Peter and Paul was brought to Riḥāb from nearby Gerasa/Jerash, where the two saints were venerated in the same sanctuary (E02366). One must note, however, that our church of Peter was built 27 years after that of Paul, which emphasises the priority of the cult of Paul over that of his companion.
The church was built from a donation of a certain Georgios, son of Martyrios. This Martyrios is unlikely to have been the same 'Martyrios' mentioned in the dedicatory mosaic of the local church of Mary in 533 (E02051), i.e. almost a hundred year earlier. Interestingly, the church of Paul in Riḥāb was also built by two sons of a certain Martyrios (Ioannes and Elias), see E02053. Whether they were related to our founder is, however, not clear.
Bibliography
Edition:Piccirillo, M., Chiese e mosaici della Giordania settentrionale (Jerusalem: Franciscan Print. Press, 1981), 80-82.
Piccirillo, M., "Les antiquités de Riḥāb des Benê Ḥasan", Revue Biblique 88 (1981), 66-67.
Further reading:
Michel, A., Les églises d'époque byzantine et umayyade de Jordanie (provinces d'Arabie et de Palestine), Ve-VIIIe siècle: typologie architecturale et aménagements liturgiques (avec catalogue des monuments; préface de Noël Duval; premessa di Michele Piccirillo) (Bibliothèque de l'Antiquité tardive 2, Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 219. no. 79.
Piccirillo, M., "Aggiornamento delle liste episcopali delle diocesi in territoria transgiordanico", Liber Annuus 55 (2005), 387.
Piccirillo, M., "The Province of Arabia during the Persian Invasion (613-629/630)", in: K.G. Holum, H. Lapin (eds.), Shaping the Middle East. Jews, Christians, and Muslims in an Age of Transition, 400-800 C.E. (Bethesda, MD: University Press of Maryland, 2011), 104.
Sartre-Fauriat, A., "Georges, Serge, Élie et quelques autres saints connus et inédits de la province d'Arabie", in: Fr. Prévot (ed.), Romanité et cité chrétienne. Permances et mutations. Intégration et exclusion du Ier au VIe siècle. Mélanges en l'honneur d'Yvette Duval (Paris: De Boccard, 2000), 310.
Reference works:
Bulletin épigraphique (1982), 465.
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 30, 1711-1716; 50, 1518; 61, 1476.
Images
)
Location of the church. From: Piccirillo 1981, Tav. 51.
)
Plan of the church. From: Piccirillo 1981, Tav. 67.
)
Drawing. From: Piccirillo 1981, 81.
)
Photograph. From: Piccirillo 1981, Tav. 69.
)
Position of the panel. From: Piccirillo 1981, Tav. 69.
)
Photograph of the apse. From: Michel 2001, 218.
Record Created By
Paweł Nowakowski
Date of Entry
28/11/2016
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Πέτρος | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E02054 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E02054