Complete

Description

date: unknown. Littmann tentatively ascribed it to c.550 CE as it seemed later than a similar Syriac inscription from Dēḥes. description: Carved on a white marble slab. When recorded, the stone was fitted in a modern wall in the town, still close to the basilica. Littmann speculates that the slab came form a chancel balustrade or chancel screen of the basilica's altar, as marble was rare and expensive and deserved a prestigious place. Letter height 2–4 cm. Slab's face decorated with mouldings. Quite surprisingly for Syriac, written from left to right, probably imitating the Greek direction of writing. But the letters are at a 90 degrees angle towards the direction of reading which can mean that the stone was turned and the inscription was in fact meant to be read from top to bottom. First recorded by the AAES and published by Enno Littmann in 1904 with a drawing and a photograph. A squeeze was also made. Paul Mouterde notes that a squeeze of this inscription was passed to him by the Service of Antiquities of the High Comission of Beirut. He republished this inscription in 1945. ed. AAES IV Syr. 1; Mouterde & Pognon 1945, 227, no. 14. Cf. TIB 15. p. 1597; Wolfe 2022. ܣܓܘܕܐ ܕ(ܐ)ܒܐ ܘܕܒܪ(ܐ) + ܘܕܪܘܚܐ ܕ(ܩ)ܕܫ(ܐ ܝܘ)ܚܢܢ ܒܪ ܙܟܪܘܢܐ 3. Mouterde notes that the squeeze reads ܙܟܪܘܢܐ wheras Littmann read ܙܟܪܘܢ ‘The worshiper of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Yōḥannān, son of Zakhrōna.’ (tr. E. Littmann) commentary: Littmann described the lettering as well-executed, but at the same time he deplored several mistakes in the text, which he considered as a sign of careless attitude of the carver. Because of this, Littmann's edition is also very conjectural. He admits that for a long time he ‘could not read a word of it.’ He is not sure if this reading ‘is altogether correct’. He offers two-and-half-a-page of justifications of his readings, which are all very doubtful and sometimes far-fetched. Littmann also wonders whether the stonecutter knew Syriac and whether he used some abbreviated forms on purpose. The readings of the last two names are ‘almost certain’. According to Littmann Yōḥannān, son of Zakhrōn(a), could belong to the family of the presbyter Zakhrōn, son of Yōḥannān from AAES IV Syr. 4 and 5 from chambers cut in the rocks of the Mār Sābā monastery (in Jabal Bārīšā, Syria, our site no. 75 – not the famous laura in the Judaean Desert). He tentatively suggests that they could be father and son. In TIB 15, Klaus Peter Todt and Bernard Andreas Vest suppose that Yōḥannān could be a priest but this is not clear. Based on this inscription, Littmann assumes that the basilica must have housed a miaphysite congregation. According to him, the use of Syriac script was to be a visible marker of miaphysiteism. Such an assumption is disputed by Wolfe, who recognises that the use of Syriac in a specific form (non cursive; left-to-write writing) mimicking monumental Greek epigraphy may not have been indicative of membership of a chosen religious circle, but merely documented an awareness of visual typologies in the epigraphic habit of Late Roman Syria.