842. Christian funerary inscription
- Description:
- Tomb-slab of grey limestone (w: 0.92 x h: 1.80).
- Text:
- The inscription is cut in the arms of a lightly-recessed processional cross (w: 0.83 x h: 1.03, plus handle 0.22) from which hangs the customary A and Omega. There appears to have been an erased line of inscription, possibly contemporary, above the cross.
- Letters:
- 0.04-0.095. a) horizontal. b) vertical.
- Date:
- Fifth to sixth century A.D. (context)
- Findspot:
- Lepcis Magna: I Cemetery; Found in situ in the cemetery adjoining Church III, at the head of the Colonnaded Street.
- Original Location:
- Findspot
- Last recorded location:
- Findspot
- Bibliography:
- Not previously published. This edition taken from J. M. Reynolds and J. B. Ward-Perkins, The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, Rome: British School at Rome, 1952.
- Text constituted from:
- Transcription (Reynolds, Ward-Perkins)
<div
type="textpart"
n="a"
>
<ab>
</div>
<lb
n="1"
/>
<orig
>
</ab>
ζωη
</orig>
<div
type="textpart"
n="b"
>
<ab>
</ab>
</div>
<lb
n="1"
/>
<orig
>
φως
</orig>
<g
type="crux"
>
</g>
<orig
>
Primos
</orig>
Translation:
(a) Life. (b) Light. (cross) Primos
Commentary:
For the formula ζωή φῶς arranged cross-wise see Diehl, Bulletin archéologique du Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1909, CLVII and 335-7, and Cabrol - Leclercq, Dictionannaire d'Archeologie Chretienne V.I. 1375 and fig. 4343; a characteristic sixth century formula.
Photographs:
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