Edessa; Şanlıurfa; Ūrhāi; Riha; Urfa; Urhay; Antiochia Kallirhoe Complete

Description

Edessa (also called Ōrhāy; Urhā’; Urfa / Şanlıurfa) was a major city in the Roman – Parthian/Persian frontier. Formerly the capital of the Kingdom of Osrhoene, it became part of the Roman Empire in the later Severan period. It was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa that developed into the literary variety of Classical Syriac. Edessa had a reputation of an invincible city as a result of the legendary exchange of letters between King Abgar and Jesus where he promised that its walls will be unshattered, and a relevant Greek inscription displayed on the city walls documented this. In the early seventh century, however, Edessa fell victim to the Persian invasion. As in the case of places with a continuous occupation, the possibilities of archaeological and epigraphic research has been limited. A number of inscriptions fell victim to reuse and were lost. Literarture: M. Debié, The eastern provinces of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, in: D. King (ed.), The Syriac World (London – New York: Routledge, 2019), 11–32; H.J.W. Drijvers, The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene (Leiden: Brill, 1998). J. B. Segal, Edessa ‘The Blessed City’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001). For the Greek inscriptions, see: F. Canali De Rossi (ed.), Iscrizioni dello Estremo Oriente Greco (Inschriften Griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien, Band 65, Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 2004), nos. 26–32. We also list Syriac inscriptions dating from Late Antiquity from the following publications: Puech, É., ‘Une inscription syriaque sur mosaïque’, Liber Annuus 38 (1988), 267–270. (building inscription for a tomb) CSLA.E04396 – P. Nowakowski, The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity database, http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E04396 Halloun, M., "Two Syriac inscriptions", Liber Annuus 38 (1988), 271–275 and Pl. 11–12. (a building inscriptions mentioning clergy and monks, dated 496 CE) Halloun, M., "Two Syriac inscriptions", Liber Annuus 38 (1988), 271–275 and Pl. 11–12. (a name)