Evidence ID
E02086Saint Name
Elijah, Old Testament prophet : S00217Saint Name in Source
ἨλίαςType of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)Evidence not before
586Evidence not after
590Activity not before
586Activity not after
590Place of Evidence - Region
Syria with Phoenicia
ArabiaPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
Damascus
ṢalākhedPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Damascus
Thabbora
Thabbora
Ṣalākhed
Sakkaia / Maximianopolis
Σακκαια
Sakkaia
Saccaea
Eaccaea
Maximianopolis
Shaqqa
Schaqqa
ShakkaCult activities - Places
Cult building - independent (church)Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Construction of cult buildingsCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Merchants and artisansSource
Large stone lintel, broken and lost at the right-hand end (the inscribed field is, however, almost fully preserved). H. 0.30 m; W. 1.55 m; Th. 0.40 m. Letter height 0.06-0.09 m. At the left-hand end decorated with a carving of a cross below a semi-circle.
Seen and photographed by Maurice Sartre. When recorded, it was reused over a doorway in a house in the northeast sector of the village. A preliminary transcription was published by Annie Sartre-Fauriat in 2000. The proper first edition, by Maurice Sartre, followed in 2014. In the meantime the text was commented on by Denis Feissel in Bulletin épigraphique and Chroniques d'épigraphie byzantine, and by the editors of Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.Discussion
The inscription commemorates the construction of a sanctuary, termed oikia (literally house, apparently a church), of Saint Elijah. This is almost certainly the Old Testament Prophet who was highly regarded in monastic milieus in the East and appears in other inscriptions from the Hauran (see, for example: E02116; E02174; E02193; E02194; E02206).
The actual meaning of the last phrase: χηρὶ Γεοργίου αὐτο[ῦ]/'by the hand of Georgios himself' is not clear. Perhaps this is the signature of the artisan who built the shrine or carved the lintel.
Two dates have been suggested for the inscription. Originally Annie Sartre-Fauriat dated it to the 484th year of the 'era of Christ', an expression she erroneously read in line 2: Χριστοῦ ἔτ(ους) υπδ΄, and which she considered puzzling. She rightly noted that dates in other inscriptions from this region were computed according to the era of the province of Arabia, and its year 484 corresponded to AD 589/590. In his comments Denis Feissel plausibly suggested that the enigmatic expression Χριστοῦ ἔτ(ους) υπδ΄ was rather a misread indictional date, χρ(όνων) ἰ(νδικτιῶνος), followed by a year of the era of the province of Arabia: ἔτ(ους) υπδ΄. His idea was accepted by the Sartres in Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, but Maurice Sartre notes that the indiction year, given in line 2, is most probably γ΄ = 3. The third indiction year, however, did not fall in 589/560, and so Sartre proposes that the era year should be corrected to υπα΄ = 481 = AD 586/587 (but even after this correction the month of September, also mentioned in the dating formula, does not fall in the 3rd indiction year). To sum up: if the readings offered by the Sartres are correct, either the indiction era year was confused by the author of the inscription and the text dates to AD 589/590, or the era year was mistaken and the inscription was carved in AD 586/587.Bibliography
Edition:
Sartre-Fauriat, A., Sartre, M., Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, vol. 15/2: Le plateau du Trachôn et ses bordures (BAH 204, Beyrouth: Institut Français du Proche-Orient, 2014), no. 402
Further reading:
Sartre-Fauriat, A., "Georges, Serge, Élie et quelques autres saints connus et inédits de la province d'Arabie", in: Fr. Prévot (ed.), Romanité et cité chrétienne. Permances et mutations. Intégration et exclusion du Ier au VIe siècle. Mélanges en l'honneur d'Yvette Duval (Paris: De Boccard, 2000), 304.
Reference works:
Bulletin épigraphique (2001), 515.
Chroniques d'épigraphie byzantine, 837.
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 50, 1518; 50, 1541.
