Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine Prinicipal Investigator Michael Satlow

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 zoor0184 Zoor 0184

Negev. Zoora. March 6, 449 CE. Tombstone. Epitaph.

Purple and yellowish sandstone

48.5 39 0.8

Cross (see note) March 6, 449 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. Edited metadata and corrected encoding Corrected encoding for letters height

+ + + Εἷς Θεός. ΜνημῖονΜνημεῖον Σαμμασέου Ἄντυος, ὑποδιακόνου, ἀποθανόντος μετὰ καλοῦ ὀνόματος ἐτῶν νʹ, ἐν ἔτιἔτει τμγʹ, μηνὶ Δύστρῳ κʹ. Θάρσει, οὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος.

One (is) the God. Monument of Sammaseos, (son) of Antys, (the) subdeacon, who died having a good name (at the age) of 50 years, in the year 343, on (the) 20th (day) of (the) month Dystros. Be of good cheer, no one (is) immortal.

Εἷς Θεός. Μνημῖον Σαμμασέου Ἄντυος, ὑποδιακόνου, ἀποθανόντος μετὰ καλοῦ ὀνόματος ἐτῶν νʹ ἐν ἔτι τμγʹ μηνὶ Δύστρῳ κʹ Θάρσει, οὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος.

The inscription provides the date as the 20th day of the month Dystros in the year 343 according to the Era of the Province of Arabia, that is, March 6, 449 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. The irregularly shaped tombstone is curved at the left side and top, chipped all around, and broken in the lower right corner. Written in square elongated script, the text is engraved upon a smoothed surface, which is flaked off in several places. Three incised crosses appear above the inscription. The interior of the first two is decorated with a simple incised cross, while the interior of the third contains partially preserved chi-signs. A horizontal bar appears above and below the age numeral in line six of the text as well as the month day numeral in line eight. The editor suggests that the deceased, Sammaseos, was probably the brother of the Petros mentioned in inscription no. 162. He also notes that the abbreviation of the phrase Θάρσει, οὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος found in this inscription is uncommon. The text contains both spelling and grammatical errors.

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