Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine Prinicipal Investigator Michael Satlow

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 zoor0192 Zoor 0192

Zoora, April 15, 452 CE. Tombstone. Epitaph.

 35 27 8

Reddish sandstone

Almost rectangular in shape, the stone is curved at the top and at the lower right corner

The smoothed inscribed surface is chipped in a few places and weathered in the upper right part. Ll. 2, 4, 6, 8 are painted over in red color. Square script with a few round exceptions

 Cross with a chi- sign at its centre Centered below the inscription Vaulted incised and red painted frame Surrounding the text on all sides, except the lower one Guide-lines Underneath the first two lines of text Two schematic heraldic birds filled with linear decoration Flanking the cross below the text Leaf-like motif in red paint On the sides of the frame April 15, 452 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 Edited metadata; corrected encoding adding period attribute to date element, with Periodo value.

Εἷς Θεὸς βοηθός. ΜνημῖονΜνημεῖον Παῦλος Σαμμάσας, ἀποθανόντος μετὰ καλοῦ ἀνάματοςὀνόματος καὶ καλῶςκαλῆς πίστεως ἐτῶν ξεʹ, ἐν ἔτιἔτει τμζʹ, μηνὸς Ξανθικοῦ κεʹ, ἡμήρᾳἡμέρᾳ Κυρίου δʹ. ΘάρσιΘάρσει, οὐδὶςοὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος. +

One (is) the God, who helps. Monument of Paulus, (son) of Sammasas, who died having a good name and good faith (at the age) of 65 years, in the year 347, on (the) 25th (day) of (the) month Xanthikos, on (the) 4th day of (the) Lord (Wednesday). Be of good cheer, no one (is) immortal.

Εἷς Θεὸς βοηθός. ΜνημῖονΜνημεῖον Παῦλος Σαμμάσας, ἀποθανόντος μετὰ καλοῦ ἀνάματοςὀνόματος καὶ καλῶςκαλῆς πίστεως ἐτῶν ξεʹ ἐν ἔτιἔτει τμζʹ μηνὸς Ξανθικοῦ κεʹ ἡμήρᾳἡμέρᾳ Κυρίου δʹ ΘάρσιΘάρσει, οὐδὶςοὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος.

The inscription provides the date as the 4th day of the Lord, the 25th of the month Xanthikos, in the year 347 according to the Era of the Province of Arabia, that is, April 15, 452 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. A horizontal bar appears above the abbreviation of βοηθός in line one, the age and year numerals in line six, the month day numeral in line seven, and the weekday numeral in line eight. The text contains both spelling and grammatical errors. The phrase εἷς Θεὸς βοηθός is a variant of εἷς Θεὸς ὁ βοηθῶν.

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