an outdoor burial chapel/‘house of prayer’/church of Mor Addai Complete

ID: 71

Building type: chapel

Context:

village

Site:

Inscriptions:

89

Description:

A burial or commemorative chapel, termed prayer house by Henri Pognon who visited the site. It has a Syriac building inscription dated 771/772 CE. Some of the epitaphs are combined with historical records and form a kind of a wall of memory. Other inscriptions in this church include (with the numbering after Pognon 1907): no. 97 (twelfth century): epitaph for the head of the church, and for a priest and who died a violent death; no. 98 (twelfth century): epitaph for a deacon; no. 99 (tenth century): epitaph for the head of the church who died after an eclipse of the sun, another head of the church; no. 100 (twelfth century): death of the head of the church killed by ‘Chaldean rebels’, of Khalid?, an unknown leader?, maybe Nestorians?; no. 101 (eleventh century): epitaph for a head of the church, another one; no. 102 (tenth century): epitaph for the head of the church and a priest; no. 103 (tenth century): epitaph for a priest, and the head of the church, and a priest, two priests wrote it; no. 104 (twelfth century): epitaph for a priest, written by his father; no. 105 (twelfth century): epitaph for a scholar/acolyte?/écolier; no. 106 (tenth century): epitaph for the head of the church by his son a priest; no. 107 (eleventh century): person with no functions, a deacon son of the head of the church; no. 108 (twelfth century): epitaph for a priest killed by the Arabs of Ḥāḥ, and another priest; no. 109 (twelfth century): epitaph for a young scholar, left his father in grief; no. 110 (eleventh century): epitaph for a priest, written by two people; no. 111 (twelfth century): epitaph for a deacon, a priest, written by a native of this village; no. 112 (thirteenth century): epitaph for a certain man with no titles, killed by someone; epitaph for a deacon; no. 113 (thirteenth century): epitaph for a priest; no. 114 (thirteenth century): epitaph for a priest; no. 115 (twelfth century): epitaph for a priest, scribe, and doctor; someone wrote and carved a frame; no. 116 (twelfth century): epitaph for young person. There are two or three more illegible inscriptions noticed by Pognon, and yet another from the twelfth century which was not numbered by Pognon (1907, pp. 201-202): this is the epitaph for a head of the church, and a deacon.