Evidence ID
E02537Saint Name
Martyrs, unnamed or name lost : S00060Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)
Archaeological and architectural - Altars with relics
Inscriptions - Inscribed architectural elementsEvidence not before
500Evidence not after
750Activity not before
500Activity not after
750Place of Evidence - Region
ArabiaPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
MadabaPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Madaba
Sakkaia / Maximianopolis
Σακκαια
Sakkaia
Saccaea
Eaccaea
Maximianopolis
Shaqqa
Schaqqa
ShakkaCult activities - Places
Cult building - unspecifiedCult activities - Places Named after Saint
- Towns, villages, districts and fortresses
Source
Fragment of an architrave, reused in a modern house. The stone is said by its editors to have once formed a part of an altar. There is no published description.
First published in 1897 by Kleofas Koikylides. Re-published from his edition by Henry Stevenson and R. Kraetzchmar in 1897. Revisited by Giuseppe Manfredi and re-edited by him in 1899, based on his own copy. Pierre-Louis Gatier did not examine the object for his edition in I. Jordanie 2. The stone is now probably lost.Discussion
The inscription probably records a district named after martyrs. See: E04324, E04326, and E04314.
The late 19th c. editors dealing with this text suggested that it referred to a place where relics of martyrs were deposited. Gatier points out that the term μέρος is sometimes used in Syria as a designation of a tomb (e.g. in IGLS 5, no. 2400). He concludes that the author of the inscription might have meant a sarcophagus, but does not say clearly whether it would be an original burial place of martyrs or a reliquary shaped in the form of a sarcophagus.Bibliography
Edition:
Gatier, P.-L., Inscriptions de la Jordanie, vol. 2: Région centrale (Amman, Hesban, Madaba, Main, Dhiban) (Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1986), no. 151.
Manfredi, G., "Piano generale delle antichità di Madaba", Nuovo Bulletino di Archeologia Cristiana 5 (1899), 166.
Kraetzschmar, R., "", Mitteilungen und Nachrichten des deutschen Palästina-Vereins (1897), 54.
Stevenson, H., "Di un insigne pavimento in musaico esprimente la geografia dei luoghi santi scoperto in una basilica cristiana di Madaba in nella Palestina", Nuovo Bulletino di Archeologia Cristiana 3 (1897), 101.
Koikylides, K., Ὁ ἐν Μαδηβᾳ μοσαϊκός (Jerusalem, 1897), 24.