E01773: Bronze lamp with a Greek dedicatory inscription to 'holy Saba'. Found at Khirbet esh-Shubeika near Tyre (north west Galilee/southwest Phoenicia). Probably 6th-8th c.

A bronze lamp, found at Khirbet esh-Shubeika, at the corner of building G, in layer IIIA, during the salvage excavations by the Israel Antiquity Authority in 1991/1993. The lamp is shaped as a discus with two elongated nozzles and two chain suspension hooks between the discus and the nozzles. Decorated with engravings of circles around the opening and at the opposite end of the discus. It was probably attached to a stand, and not hung, as is shown by traces on its base.

The inscription is on one wide side of the lamp. The editors suppose that it was engraved some time after the manufacturing of the lamp.

First mentioned by Mordechai Avi’am in 1995; first published by Dina Avshalom-Gorni, Ayelet Tatcher, and Vassilios Tzaferis in 2001, and again by Vassilios Tzaferis in 2002. Seen and examined by Leah Di Segni.

ἁγίῳ Σάβ<β>ᾳ Χα-
λείπας ἀνέθηκε
χς

1-2. Χα|λείπας or Χα|λείφας or Χα|λέσπας Tzaferis 2002, possibly Χα|λαπας Di Segni in SEG || 3. χζ΄ = χ(ρόνοις) ζ΄Avshalom-Gorni, Tatcher & Tzaferis 2001, χς = χ(ρόνοις) Tzaferis 2002, = χ(ρόνοις) ςʹ (ἰνδικτιῶνος) or αγ = ἅγ(ιε) Di Segni in SEG, = χ(ρόνοις) ϛ΄ (ἰνδικτιῶνος) or χς΄ = 606 Feissel in BE

'To saint Sabbas. Chaleipas offered (it).' (possibly followed by a date)

Text: SEG 52, 1669 with remarks by D. Feissel in BE (2005), 524.