Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine Prinicipal Investigator Michael Satlow

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zoor0020
zoor0020

Negev. Zoora. March 22, 360 CE to March 21, 361 CE. Sandstone tombstone. Engraved and partially painted. Epitaph.

46 25 03.5

cross above the text March 22, 360 CE to March 21, 361 CE Negev Zoora An Naq cemetery

Found by local inhabitants in the northwest corner of the Bronze Age, Byzantine and Islamic cemetery in the An Naq neighborhood south of the Wadi al-Hasa, probably in secondary use in later graves.

Department of Antiquities of Jordan

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Creation Adding Pleiades IDs to origin/placenames adding period attribute to date element, with Periodo value.

+ Εἷς Θεός ὃν θάροςθάρσος ἔγραψα ΜνημῖονΜνημεῖον Σωσάννα Ὀβέδας ἀποθανόντος ἐτῶν ιʹ ἔτους σνεʹ

One (is) the God, by whose encouragement I wrote (this). Monument of Shoshana, (daughter) of Obedas, who died (at the age) of 10 years, in (the) year 255.

Εἷς Θεός ὃν θάροςθάρσος ἔγραψα ΜνημῖονΜνημεῖον Σωσάννα Ὀβέδας ἀποθανόντος ἐτῶν ιʹ ἔτους σνεʹ

The inscription provides the date as the year 254 according to the Era of the Province of Arabia, that is, March 22, 360 CE to March 21, 361 CE. The tombstone is one of about 700 discovered in Byzantine Zoora. The majority of the Greek tombstones from this location have been identified as Christian. This tombstone was found in four fragments and reassembled. The inscription contains both spelling and grammatical errors and is recorded in a round alphabet. Lines 3 through 8 are engraved and painted, with the exception of the first epsilon on line 8, which is only painted. Lines 1-2 are painted and recorded in a messy hand with much smaller letters than the rest of the inscription and an irregular alignment. This leads the author to suggest that they may have been added as an afterthought. Lines 7 and 8 are also poorly aligned. There is a cross engraved and painted red at the top of the tombstone with a horizontal bar is elongated. The author notes that the phrase "Εἷς Θεός" is found commonly in inscriptions from the East starting in the late third century CE (and becoming increasingly common in the fourth and fifth centuries CE).

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