E02618: Capital with labelled images of *George (soldier and martyr, S00259), and *Isidoros (probably the soldier and martyr of Chios, S00425). Found at 'Aqaba, probably originally displayed in an ancient church in 'Aila at the north end of the Gulf of 'Aqaba (Jordan/Roman province of Palaestina III). Probably 6th-8th c. or later.

The capital was seen in 1914 in a modern house at 'Aqaba by Charles Leonard Woolley and Thomas Edward Lawrence. They provide us with the following description: 'The other is a similar capital, having on each of the two worked sides a half-length figure of a saint. The cutting and drawing of these are utterly conventional; the saints are alike, even in the mutilations that their faces have since suffered, so that it is fortunate that each bears his name in Greek cut into the edge of the capital above him; one is St. George and the other St. Isidore. At their bravest they were only very poor things. It is certainly the capital of a doorway or of a chancel-arch, and as certainly must have come from one of the Byzantine churches of Aila.' The capital was said to have been found 'with the remains of the walls of a small building, in some palm gardens at the north-east corner of the beach. Just to the west of this spot is the ruin-mound pointed out today by all the people of Akaba as the site of ancient Aila.'

To the best of our knowledge there is no published photograph or drawing of the capital, and the inscription has not been transcribed.

It is likely that the capital comes from the same church where *Theodore and *Longinos were venerated, see: E02617. The Isidoros on our capital is almost certainly Isidoros, martyr of Chios, who, like George, Theodore and Longinos, was well-known as a soldier saint.