Evidence ID
E00931Saint Name
Paulos, martyr in Derbe (Lycaonia, central Asia Minor), ob. 3rd or 4th c.? : S00613Saint Name in Source
ΠαῦλοςType of Evidence
Inscriptions - Funerary inscriptionsEvidence not before
200Evidence not after
400Activity not before
200Activity not after
400Place of Evidence - Region
Asia MinorPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
DerbePlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Derbe
Nicomedia
Νικομήδεια
Nikomēdeia
Izmit
Πραίνετος
Prainetos
NicomediaCult activities - Places
Cult building - unspecifiedCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Ceremonies at burial of a saintCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Other lay individuals/ peopleSource
A limestone plaque found on a small hill at Emir Han, to the south-west of Güdelisin (area of Derbe, Lycaonia, central Asia Minor), near the road to Laranda, close to the ruins of probably a church. H. 0.9 m; W. 0.96 m; Th. 0.31 m. letter height 0.03-0.04 m. Said to have been brought from Çürük Ümü Ören. The front face is decorated with carvings of three aediculae. They were partially erased in order to engrave the inscription. It seems that the plaque is a reused pre-fabricated grave-stone, that was at some point inserted in a wall of a building.Discussion
The inscription refers to 'Paulos the martyr', an otherwise unattested figure. It records literally the embellishment of Paulos. The formula 'embellished' (ekosmesan) is popular in 3rd c. Lycaonian epitaphs and the word is used there in the meaning 'give due honours (to the deceased)'. Therefore, the inscription is considered as an original, certainly pre-Constantinian, epitaph of a martyr by the editors of Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum and by Denis Feissel. Also Margaret Ramsay commented: “the formula with the verb ἐκόσμησαν is common in the epitaphs of Lycaonia about the third and fourth centuries; and it is natural to infer that this stone was, like the rest of the Dorla monuments, a grave stone, and not a mere honorary inscription in a building erected at a later date to a martyr of former times”. But she also considered the possibility that the plaque had been mounted on a wall of a supposed martyr shrine of Paulos later in the 4th c., as the inscription differs palaeographically from local 3rd c. inscriptions (see: Ramsay A.M. 1906, p. 62).
Margaret Ramsay suggested that the stone is of Dorla (Isaura Nova, c. 10 miles to the west of Derbe) and not of Derbe type, which means that it was perhaps brought from a workshop at Dorla.
If the inscription was intended to foster the cult of Paulos, here is no evidence that this occurred.
Dating: 3rd-4th c. (based on the supposition that the inscription commemorated the embellishment of the tomb of a local martyr).Bibliography
Edition:
Laminger-Pascher, G. (ed.), Die kaiserzeitlichen Inschriften Lykaoniens, vol. 1: der Süden (Denkschriften, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Ergänzungsbände zu den tituli Asiae Minoris 15; Denkschriften, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 232, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992), no. 10.
Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua VIII, no. 200.
Ramsay, A.M., "Isaurian and East-Phrygian art in the third and fourth centuries after Christ", in: W.M. Ramsay, Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1906), 60-62.
Paris, P., Radet, G.A., "Inscriptions de Pisidie, de Lycaonie et d'Isaurie", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 10 (1886), no. 18.
Inscriptionae Christianae Graecae database, no. 644: http://www.epigraph.topoi.org/ica/icamainapp/inscription/show/644
Further reading:
Delehaye, H., Les origines du culte des martyrs (Bruxelles : Société des Bollandistes, 1912), 191.
Destephen, S., "Martyrs locaux et cultes civiques en Asie Mineure", in: J.C. Caillet, S. Destephen, B. Dumézil, H. Inglebert, Des dieux civiques aux saints patrons (IVe-VIIe siècle) (Paris: éditions A. & J. Picard, 2015), 65, note 14; 89.
Mendel, G., "Catalogue des monuments grecs, romains et byzantins du Musée Impérial Ottoman de Brousse", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 33 (1909), 348.
Mitchell, St., Anatolia. Land, Men and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. 2: The Rise of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 65.
Reference works:
Chroniques d'épigraphie byzantine, 388.
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 42, 1247.
