Evidence ID
E01670Saint Name
All Saints : S01151
Unnamed martyrs (or name lost) : S00060Saint Name in Source
πάντες μάρτυρεςType of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)Evidence not before
350Evidence not after
700Activity not before
350Activity not after
700Place of Evidence - Region
Syria with Phoenicia
Syria with Phoenicia
Syria with PhoeniciaPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
Beroia
Ḫarāb aš-Šams
Antioch on the OrontesPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Beroia
Thabbora
Thabbora
Ḫarāb aš-Šams
Thabbora
Thabbora
Antioch on the Orontes
Thabbora
ThabboraCult activities - Places
Cult building - independent (church)Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Prayer/supplication/invocationCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Other lay individuals/ peopleSource
A stone plaque, in form of a tabula ansata. H. 0.31 m; W. 0.65 m; letter height 0.03 m.
Found and copied (squeeze) by Georges Tchalenko during World War II in Ḫarāb aš-Šams, to the north of Aleppo. Revisited by Tchalenko in 1963 (copy, photograph, squeeze). First published by Jacques Jarry in 1967, with permission of the Institut français de Beyrouth. Jarry noted that in 1963 the stone was weathered and scarcely legible, and only the recovery of the old squeeze allowed him to read the whole text. Under no. 81 he offers an imperfect edition of the inscription, which he corrects on pages 206-207 of the same paper.Discussion
The inscription commemorates the construction of an unnamed structure at a church dedicated to 'All Martyrs'. Jarry notes that the text might have been translated from a Syriac original, as the syntax and grammar of the Greek version is very poor (the imperative form βοήθησον is followed by the name Davidos in the nominative case in line 2, and there is no article before the noun ἐκκλησία). Therefore, it is likely that another, parallel Syriac inscription was also set up at the site.
Unfortunately, Jarry does not specify the precise findspot of the stone. Thus, we cannot say whether it was displayed, for example, over the entrance to a room in a church, or in another place. Ḫarāb aš-Šams is famous for its 4th c. three-aisled basilica, where a chamber, to the south of the apse, was identified as a martyr shrine (martyrion), see: Butler 1920, 322-325; Strube 1993, 34. But having no data about the archaeological context of the inscription published by Jarry, we are unable to say whether this is the church mentioned in our text.Bibliography
Edition:
Jarry, J., "Inscriptions arabes, syriaques et grecques du massif du Bélus en Syrie du nord [avec 42 planches]", Annales islamologiques 7 (1967), no. 81 + pp. 206-207.
Further reading:
Butler, H.C. (ed.), Syria, Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-1905 and 1909, division II: Ancient Architecture in Syria, part B: North Syria (Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1920), 322-325.
Strube, Ch., Baudekoration im Nordsyrischen Kalksteinmassiv, vol. 1: Kapitell-, Tür- und Gesimsformen der Kirchen des 4. und 5. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. (Mainz: Zabern, 1993), 34.
