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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Greek inscription with the name of *George (soldier and martyr, S00259). Found at Eitha Caesarea/El-Hît, to the northwest of Maximianopolis/Sakkaia in the Hauran plain (Roman province of Arabia). Probably 6th c.

Evidence ID

E02667

Type of Evidence

Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)

Archaeological and architectural - Cult buildings (churches, mausolea)

ἅγιος Γαιόργι(ο)ς

'Saint George.'


Text: Waddington 1870, no. 2126.

Cult Places

Cult building - independent (church)

Non Liturgical Activity

Appropriation of older cult sites
Construction of cult buildings

Source

Stone lintel over a side doorway of reportedly a small temple converted to a church. The temple is sited to the right of the city gate and bears another, pagan, inscription (Waddington 1870, no. 2113= Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 30, 1670).

Seen and copied by William Waddington in the 1860s, and first published by him in 1870. Scheduled for re-edition in the sixteenth volume of the
Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie under no. 595.

Discussion

The location of the inscription, on a lintel, above an entrance to the sanctuary, suggests that the temple was converted to a church dedicated to George.

Dating: there is no reliable way to precisely date the inscription, but as the building inscription for a church of *Sergios in Eitha (E01650) dates to the mid-6th c., it is plausible that our text comes from roughly the same period.


Bibliography

Edition:
IGLS 16, no. 595 (forthcoming).

Waddington, W.H.,
Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, Libraires-Éditeurs, 1870), no. 2126.

For an overview of epigraphic sources from the site (focused on the early Roman period), see Sartre, M., "Rome et les Arabes nomades: le dossier épigraphique de Eeitha" in: Genequand, D., Robin, Ch. (eds.),
Les Jafnides: des rois arabes au service de Byzance : VIe siècle de l'ère chrétienne : actes du colloque de Paris, 24-25 novembre 2008 (Paris: Éditions De Boccard, 2015), 37-52 (cf. Bulletin épigraphique (2015), 716).

Images



Transcription. From: LBW, 503.
























Record Created By

Paweł Nowakowski

Date of Entry

07/04/2017

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00259George, soldier and martyr, and CompanionsΓαιόργιςCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E02667 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E02667