Eastern Galilee, 429/430 CE. Tombstone. Funerary (Epitaph).
Basalt
The top of the tombstone was rounded at the edges. It was prepared for secondary use by the removal of the top (including 8 cm of the cross' upper arm) and of the stone's rounded margins, thus effacing the first and/or last letters of five lines of the inscriptions.
The lines are 7-9mm apart and are separated from each other by single horizontal lines. A 62 cm high section of the front of the stone was smoothed and engraved with the inscription, while the remainder of the front and the rounded back of the stone were left roughly dressed
In some of the letters, traces of white plaster attest to the tombstone's reuse in building. The script is curved, apart from the square omega in the first line
The tombstone is of unknown origin, although it may have come from a Druze village in the vicinity of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. It was presented as a gift to the late Yehezkel Hameiri after the Six Days War by Sheikh Kamal Kanj.
Taxonomies for IIP controlled values
Α
ΜΟΥ ΕΤΩΝ
ΚΑ ΕΤΟΥϹ
ΑΛΥ
μου ἐτῶν
Jesus Christ. Alpha-omega. Barsimas son of Maximus; aged 21 years, in the year 431.
The missing segment above the arms of the cross could have contained the letters ΙϹ ΧϹ, Ἰ(ησοῦ)ς Χ(ριστό)ς, which complete the formula: "Jesus Christ, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 22:13). The year of Barsimas death, 431, was probably determined according to the ear of Panias (Caesarea-Philippi), the provincial capital whose rule extended over the north part of the Golan Heights: it would be equivalent to 429/430 CE.