Complete

Dimensions: surface: cm

Condition: On two stone slabs from a chancel screen. Now lost. Originally situated between the “wall-pier of nave and capital of the right-hand column” (Palmer 1987, p. 121 after Bell and Mango, Pl. 100). Probably framed by a rectangle with a left-hand ansa still visible when the inscription was examined.

Text: Written from top to bottom.

Date: 801 CE - 900 CE

761/762 and 746/747 CE (respectively, 1072 and 1058 of the Seleucid era – dates given in the text). Alternatively ninth century – date of the inscription assumed by Palmer and Pognon.

The inscription’s dates contain serious chronological flaws, carefully discussed by Palmer. The inscription claims that Elijah built the chancel screen in 761/762. But we know that Isaac held his function in 755/756. So these dates do not overlap. Furthermore, Elijah is said to have died in 746/747. Palmer attempts to explain this error by the supposition that the date was originally written with alphabetic abbreviation 1078 ܐܥܚ and was mistaken for 1058 ܐܢܚ.

Pognon also noticed inconsistencies in the dating as Elijah would not have been able to build the qestroma (or the chancel screen) in tghis chronological sequence. He also observed that the first date was wrong as it postdates the episcopacy of Isaac. There are also other chronological problems, and Pognon similarly suggests that the inscription was engraved long after the death of Elijah, probably at the turn of the eighth and the ninth century when the memory of historical events was blurred and the position of the ecclesiastics mentioned in this inscription not clear at all.

Findspot: Unknown

Original location: Ṭūr ʿAbdīn ʿArdnas (Arnas; Urnus) 37.7133435, 41.41427245 Church of Saint Kyriakos / Mor Cyriac chancel screen

Current repository: Unknown

Text type: christian inscription

Summary:

Inscription from Church of Saint Kyriakos in ʿArdnas (Arnas; Urnus). 801 CE - 900 CE.

Changes history: 2023-01-01 Pawel Nowakowski Creation; 2023-09-04 Pawel Nowakowski Last modification; 2023-11-07 Martyna Swierk Preparation of EpiDoc file

Publication details: University of Warsaw; Warsaw;

Available under licence CC-BY 4.0

Translation

“In the year one thousand and seventy-two of Alexander: The priest and rector Elijah made this templon-screen in the days of our blessed patriarch, Mor Isaac, and in the days of the venerable bishop, Mor Cyriac. May God, for Whose holy Name’s sake he made (it) with eagerness (lit. ran and made), make for his departed ones a good commemoration for ever! Amen. The priest and rector Elijah, the son of the late departed Mor Abraham, went out of this world in the year one thousand and fifty-eight, in the month of April, on the fourth (day) in this (month). [May] his slumber [be] restful with the righteous forever! Amen.”

(tr. A. Palmer)

For the dating formula, Aggoula suggests the following reading: ܒܟܣܗ ܕܐܝܪ which he translates as “à la pleine lune de Mai” instead of Pognon’s ܒܣܟܗ (“at the end of”).

Commentary

Pognon and Palmer observe a number of misspellings in the text. An interesting word is in particular ܩܣܛܪܘܡܐ written instead of ܩܨܛܪܡܐ which is meant to designate the four columns, and the architrave at the chancel, serving as an extension of the presbyterium. Also ܩܶܣܛܪܺܘܡܰܐ (qesṭrūmā), or Greek κατάστρωμα (bema, steps of the bema, etc.). This is the phrasing of eighth cent. Jacobites. The followers of the Church of the East reportedly also named so a plain ground between the gateway of the choir and the choir.

Palmer supposes that Elijah was the son of a priest from Arnas (he is styled with the epithet "Mor" typical of priests), and that his father may have joined a monastery after the death of his wife.

Palmer supposes that the donation of the chancel screen, and perhaps also the death of Elijah, were first commemorated on a "fly-leaf" of a Gospel and the inscription was made when the old "fly-leaf" was discarded. Palmer continues that the reference to the patriarch Isaac is probably an interpolation. In the same way, he perceives the prayer for Elijah’s dead relatives as composed in his lifetime.

Bibliography (edition)

PAES 4B H., Pogon, 1907, Inscriptions sémitiques de la Syrie, de la Mésopotamie et de la région de Mossoul, Paris, 52. I. E., Barṣawm, 1964, Maktbonūtô d‘al atrô dṬūr ‘Abdīn, Lebanon, 136. G.L.M, Bell, M.M., Mango, 1982, The Churches and Monasteries of the Ṭūr ‘Abdīn, London, Pl. 100 (ph., no text). A., Palmer, 1987, A corpus of inscriptions from Tur ʿAbdin and environs, Oriens Christianus 71, 121-123, C.2 (ph.).

Bibliography

B., Aggoula, 1992, Studia Aramaica III: II. Deux inscriptions syriaques de la Syrie du Nord; III - Inscriptions syriaques de Syrie-Mésopotamie, Syria 69, 413, 10.

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