988. Fragmentary Christian text

Description:
Block of limestone (w: 0.86 x h: 0.45 x d: 0.40) broken and perhaps burnt on the left-hand of the face; inscribed on one face within an incised tabella ansata (originally 0.50 0.36); the surviving ansa is defined by two incised lines and encloses a cross with forked terminals; above it, at an angle, is a roughly incised palm branch; the centre of the panel is occupied by a large monogrammed cross (α, ω) with closed Ρ and forked terminals. 
Text:
Inscribed on one face within an incised tabella ansata; the surviving part of the inscription is cut (a) within the panel, above and below the right arm of the cross, and (b) outside the panel, in the triangle made by the right edge of the panel, the upper edge of the ansa and the palm branch. 
Letters:
Rough incised capitals: l. 1, 0.025-0.04; l. 2, 0.045; l. 3, 0.03; l. 4, 0.035; l. 5, c. 0.03. 
Date:
No indication  
Findspot:
The Eastern Djebel: Al Khadra (Breviglieri Village); Found by Mr. David Oates in the garden of Podere 137.  
Original Location:
Said locally to have been brought to El-Khadra in the course of quarrying operations, from one of two sites on the ridge north of the Podere (map refs. M 089, 217 and M 084, 215).1. 
Last recorded location:
Tripoli Castle. 
Bibliography:
Not previously published. This edition taken from J. M. Reynolds, 'Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania: A Supplement', Proceedings of the British School at Rome 23 (1955), 124-147, no. S.16. 
Text constituted from:
Transcription (Reynolds) 
a
[·· ? ··] Deo
[·· ? ··]THANI
[·· ? ··]ṆỊNETION
[·· ? ··] Stiddin
[·· ? ··]ECOLO[ - - - ]
b
Ṭ A Ị
SE[·]A
a
[·· ? ··]DEO
[·· ? ··]THANI
[·· ? ··]··NETION
[·· ? ··]STIDDIN
[·· ? ··]ECOLO[ - - - ]
b
· A ·
SE[·]A
<div type="textpart" n="a" >
<ab>
<lb n="1" />
<gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character" />
Deo
<lb n="2" />
<gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character" />
<orig >
thani
</orig>
<lb n="2" />
<gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character" />
<orig >
<unclear reason="damage" >
ni
</unclear>
netion
</orig>
<lb n="2" />
<gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character" />
Stiddin
<lb n="2" />
<gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character" />
<orig >
ecolo
</orig>
<gap reason="lost" extent="2" unit="character" extentmax="3" />
</ab>
</div>
<div type="textpart" n="b" >
<ab>
<lb n="1" />
<orig >
<unclear reason="" >
t
</unclear>
a
<unclear reason="" >
i
</unclear>
</orig>
<lb n="2" />
<orig >
se
<gap reason="lost" extent="1" unit="character" />
a
</orig>
</ab>
</div>

a.1, Perhaps [Laus] Deo

a.5, Possibly ...sa]ecolo[rum].

Translation:

(a) [·· ? ··] to God ?praise be to God [·· ? ··] Stiddin [·· ? ··]

(b) Not usefully translatable.

Commentary:

Of the two sites, one is a roughly rectangular ditched gasr with the foundation of a gate-tower projecting from its south-west side: the surviving masonry consists of large blocks carefully cut and laid, but may have been a foundation of re-used material carrying rubble masonry: it is surrounded on all sides by rubble huts forming a small village of the type found at Gasr Hamed (see David Oates, 'Ancient Settlement in the Tripolitanian Gebel, II', PBSR, xxii (1954), 96). The other site, 200 m. from the first, survives only as a mound, 18 x 14, surrounded by a ditch 25 m. wide, which probably represents the remains of a rubble gasr. Olive-press uprights and a stub of concrete walling of these structures, at the earliest belong to the end of the fourth century. For the spread of Christianity into the interior of Tripolitania in the late fourth and fifth centuries, and for the incidence and significance of the use of the monogram cross, see J.B. Ward Perkins and R.G. Goodchild, 'The Christian Antiquities of Tripolitania', Archaeologia, xcv (1953) 72 ff.

Stiddin: for this Libyan name see indices.

Photographs:
none.

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