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E04120: Three floor-mosaics with Greek inscriptions invoking the intercession of unnamed saints and 'All Saints'. Found at the monastery on Tell Iztabba at Beit She'an/Skythopolis (Roman province of Palaestina II). Probably second half of the 6th c.

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posted on 2017-10-07, 00:00 authored by pnowakowski

Inscription 1:

Mosaic panel framed by a tabula ansata. Set in the floor, in front of the main entrance to Hall A (in the centre of the monastery). Dimensions not specified.

+ Πρ(οσφορὰ) ὑπὲρ [μν]ήμης κ(αὶ) τελ(ε)ίας ἐν
Χ(ριστ)ῷ ἀναπαύσεως Ζωσίμου
ἰλλουστρίου κ(αὶ) σωτηρίας
κ(αὶ) ἀντιλήμψεως Ἰωάννου
ἐνδοξ(οτάτου) ἀπὸ ἐπάρχων κ(αὶ) Πέτρου
κ(αὶ) Ἀναστασίου φιλοχρίστων
κομίτων κ(αὶ) παντὸς τοῦ εὐλογιμέν(ου)
αὐτῶν οἴκου, εὐχ[αῖς τῶν ἁγί]ων· ἀμήν +

'+ Offering as a vow for the memory and final repose in Christ of Zosimos of illustris rank, and for the salvation and succour of Ioannes of gloriosissimus (enodoxtatos) rank, the former prefect (eparchos), and of Petros, and Anastasios, the Christ-loving counts (kometai), and of all their blessed household, through the intercessions of the saints. Amen. +'

Text: Fitzgerlad 1939, 13-14, no. I with altered readings in line 1 from Di Segni 1995, 313 and SEG 45, 1980. Translation: G.M. Fitzgerald, adapted.

Inscription 2:

Mosaic panel framed by a tabula ansata. Set in the floor of Hall A, in its northeast corner, close to Structure K (presumed to be a 'small burial-edifice'). Dimensions not specified. The last word is outside the lower frame.

+ Χ(ριστ)ὲ ὁ θ(εὸ)ς ἡμῶν, σκέπη κ(αὶ) ἀντίλημψις γενοῦ
κυρ(ί)ου Ἰωάννου ἐνδοξ(οτάτου) ἀπὸ ἐπάρχων κ(αὶ) τοῦ
εὐλογημένου αὐτοῦ οἴκου, εὐχες τῶν ἁγίων· +
ἀμήν

'+ O Christ, our God, (be Thou) the protection and succour of Lord Ioannes of gloriosissimus (endoxotatos) rank, the former prefect (eparchos), and of his blessed household, through the intercessions of the saints. Amen. +'

Text: Fitzgerlad 1939, 14, no. II. Translation: G.M. Fitzgerald, adapted.

Inscription 3:

Mosaic panel framed by a tabula ansata. Set in the floor of Room D, in front of the doorway to Chapel G (northeast section of the complex). Dimensions not specified.

+ Χ(ριστ)ὲ ὁ θ(εὸ)ς Σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου, ἐλέησον
τὴν φιλώχ(ριστο)ν κυρ(ί)αν Μαρίαν κ(αὶ) τὸν
ταύτης υἱὸν Μάξημον, κ(αὶ) ἀνα-
παῦσον τοὺς αὐτῶν γ(ο)νεῖς,
εὐχαῖς πάντων τῶν ἁγίων· ἀμίν

'+ O Christ, God, Saviour of the world, have mercy upon the Christ-loving Lady Maria and her son Maximos, and grant rest to their forefathers, through the prayers of All the Saints. Amen.'

Text: Fitzgerlad 1939, 14, no. III. Translation: G.M. Fitzgerald, adapted.

History

Evidence ID

E04120

Saint Name

All Saints : S01151 Unnamed saints (or name lost) : S00518

Saint Name in Source

πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι οἱ ἅγιοι

Related Saint Records

Image Caption 1

Inscription 1. From: Fitzgerald 1939, Plate XX.

Image Caption 2

Inscription 2. From: Fitzgerald 1939, Plate XX.

Image Caption 3

Inscription 3. From: Fitzgerald 1939, Plate XX.

Image Caption 4

Plan of the site. From: Fitzgerald 1939, Plate II.

Image Caption 5

The calendar inscription. Watercolour by Muriel Bentwich from: Fitzgerald 1939.

Image Caption 6

Plan of the city. From: Tsafrir & Foerster 1997.

Type of Evidence

Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.) Archaeological and architectural - Cult buildings (churches, mausolea)

Language

Greek

Evidence not before

500

Evidence not after

636

Activity not before

500

Activity not after

636

Place of Evidence - Region

Palestine with Sinai

Place of Evidence - City, village, etc

Skythopolis

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

Skythopolis Caesarea Maritima Καισάρεια Kaisareia Caesarea Kayseri Turris Stratonis

Cult activities - Places

Cult building - monastic

Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs

Prayer/supplication/invocation

Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Women Children Aristocrats Officials

Source

The mosaics come from the monastery on Tell Iztabba, a site located near the north walls of Beit She'an/Skythopolis, sometimes termed the monastery 'of Lady Maria' after a woman who built there at least one chapel. The site was excavated in 1930 by Gerald Milnes Fitzgerald, on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania. The archaeological work was resumed in 1979. The excavated area comprises several rooms organised around a large central courtyard, also termed Hall (A), and an oriented one-aisled 'chapel' (G) with a protruding apse, located in the northeast corner of the complex. Perhaps the most famous find is the floor-mosaic from the Hall, decorated with a large circular panel showing personifications of the sun and moon holding torches, surrounded by twelve full-length figures of personifications of the months, each of them labelled with the name of the respective month and the number of its days. The figures represent different seasonal occupations (sowing, doing fieldwork, etc.). The mosaics of the monastery also show animals, birds, plants, fruits, and geometric patterns. The high quality of execution is clearly connected to the fact that Skythopolis was the capital of the province of Palaestina II, and one of the most important cities in the region. A total of seven inscribed mosaic panels were found on the site, distributed over different rooms. Photographs of two, and summaries of other inscriptions were published by Fitzgerald already in 1931 (with no transcription). In the years which followed, the photographs were reprinted and commented on in a number of works, and transcriptions were offered by Joshua Starr and in the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. In 1939 Fitzgerald republished the entire dossier, including, for the first time, the texts of the three inscriptions which we reproduce. Our Inscription 1 was further commented on by Leah Di Segni in 1995. For a bronze plaque with an image of *Mary, Mother of Christ, found in Room L of the monastery, see E04121.

Discussion

All three inscriptions end with invocations of the intercession of saints. In Inscription 1 and 2 which come from the central Hall, an unnamed group of saints is invoked. Their help is sought for one dead person, Zosimos, and a group of living people: Ioannes, Petros, and Anastasios. Their relationship is not specified, but it is likely that they were members of a very influential, indeed aristocratic, family. They bear high honorific ranks, and some of them held the offices of prefect and count (although they are unlikely to have been, for example, the pretorian prefects or counts of the East). Seemingly, following the death of Zosimos, they made an offering as a vow for his repose. It is possible that the funds they offered were used for paving the Hall, and thus they may even be the patrons of the famous 'calendar' mosaic. Possibly, Zosimos was buried in the 'burial-edifice' marked with the letter K by Fitzgerald, as Inscription 2 was found very close to that monument. When recorded by Fitzgerald, this tomb appeared to have had been looted, and contained just fragments of bone, two bronze crosses, and a bronze coin of the emperor Heraclius, cut as a square. Inscription 3 records a different donation. It invokes 'All the Saints' (which is a rare designation in eastern inscriptions) on behalf of one Lady Maria and her son. It also asks for the repose for their ancestors. Maria also occurs in one of two impressive inscriptions set in floor-mosaic panels inside the chapel, in both east corners of the nave (Fitzgerald 1939, no. IV = SEG 8, 39). That inscription preserves the speech of one Elias, a recluse, who, using rather sophisticated expressions, says that Lady Maria 'built this church' (τόνδε τὸν ναὸν κτήσασα) and that she has the right to be buried there together with other members of her family. Elias threatens with a curse any potential successors who would attempt to deprive the family of that right (or would even remove the inscription), and adds that he buried his sister, Georgia, in the same chapel. Dating: The site is broadly datable to the 6th/early 7th c. Joshua Starr argued that the dating formula, with a partially lost year of presumably the Pompeian era of 64/63 BC (widespread in the region), and the 2nd indiction year, which occur in Fitzgerald's Inscription VI = SEG 8, 38 (Room L), could be restored as corresponding to AD 567. This very plausible restoration was accepted by Fitzgerald and in SEG, but the date refers only to the work done in the room where that mosaic was found, whilst its relation to other texts from the monastery is not clear. In addition, Fitzgerald's Inscription VIII mentions a certain abbot Georgios who has been tentatively identified as Georgios, a monk of Beela near Skythopolis, mentioned in the dedication of Cyril of Skythopolis' Lives of the Monks of Palestine (c. 555-560). This is, of course, a very fragile identification. The latest coins found on the site were those of Heraclius, and, therefore, the excavators presumed that the monastery was occupied up to the Arab conquest of the region (AD 636).

Bibliography

Edition: Madden A.M., Corpus of Byzantine Church Mosaic Pavements in Israel and the Palestinian Territories (Leuven - Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2014), 161-164, no. 237 (Inscriptions 1-3). Fitzgerald, G.M., A sixth century monastery at Beth Shan (Skythopolis) (Philadelphia: Pub. for the University museum by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939), 13-14 and Plastes VI-XXII (Inscriptions 1-3). Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 45, 1980 (Inscription 1). Further reading: Avi-Yoanh, M., "Mosaic pavements in Palestine", Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 2 (1933), no. 20. Braun, E., "Soundings under sixth century monastery at Beth Shean", 'Atiqot 17 (1985), 201-204. Di Segni, L., "The involvement of local, municipal and provincial authorities in urban building in late antique Palestine and Arabia", in: The Roman and Byzantine Near East: Some Recent Archaeological Research (Journal of Roman Archaeology. Supplementary Series 14, Ann Arbor, MI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1995), 313. Fitzgerald, G.M., "Excavations at Beth-Shan in 1930", Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1931), 62-68 and plates I-IV (other inscriptions in photographs, summaries, no transcription). Schick, R., The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeological Study (Studies in late antiquity and early Islam 2, Princeton, N.J: Darwin Press, 1995), 270. Meimaris, Y., Sacred names, saints, martyrs and church officials in the Greek inscriptions and papyri pertaining to the Christian Church of Palestine (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, Center for Greek and Roman Antiquity, 1986), 16, nos. 1-4. Mouterde, R., "", Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph (Beyrouth, Lebanon) 17 (1933), 183-4. Schapiro, M., Avi-Yonah, M., Israel: Ancient Mosaics (New York: New York Graphic, 1960), 19 and Plates XVII-XX. Starr, J., "The Byzantine Inscriptions of Bethshan-Scythopolis", The American Journal of Philology 58 (1937), 83-89. Reference works: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 8, 38-40 (with earlier bibliography). See also: Tsafrir, Y., Foerster, G., "Urbanism at Scythopolis-Bet Shean in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries", Dumbarton Oaks Papers 51 (1997), 104.

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Keywords

S01151 S00518 History

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