ISic001362: Funerary inscription for Leontia and Kalliope
- ID
- ISic001362
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
Text based on photographs; Torremuzza and Franz observed only the first epitaph, without the indication of the age; 9: The second menorah is followed by an ethrog (or a shofar according to Ferrara)
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Triangular marble plaque. In the lower corners are two menorah and a conic figure, perhaps an ethrog.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 19.5 cm, width: 29.5 cm, depth: 2 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- No data
- Text condition
- No data
- Letter heights
- Lines 1-9: 11-21mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: not recordedmm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Original discovery not recorded; probably from Catania (according to Ferrara and Noy), but possibly from the Monteverde catacomb in Rome (according to Ferrua and Korhonen).
Current location
- Place
- Catania, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Civico di Catania , 541
- Autopsy
- Observed by Torremuzza and Kaibel in Museo Biscari, later by Korhonen in magazzino superiore, collezione Biscari (formerly sala VII, 85)
- Map
Date
Probably 4th century CE. (AD 301 – AD 400)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
These two Jewish epitaphs may not come from Catania: in describing the Biscari collection, Ferrara gives an imprecise indication of the provenance of this inscription and the structure ἔνθαδε κεῖται ὁ δεῖνα ἐτῶν is rather typical of the inscriptions from the Monteverde catacombs and not attested elsewhere in Catania. On the provenance, see the discussion in Korhonen 2001: 90-93. In any case, a Jewish community is well attested in Catania, as IMusCatania 228 = ISic000781 of the 4th cent. CE confirms. The two girls were probably related (perhaps sisters). Both names are attested in the Jewish environment: both Leontia, probably a Jewish translation of Judith attested in CIJ 369 (Rome), and Kalliope, attested in BS II 136, 137, 200 (Beth She’arim, see also the Christian inscriptions of Syracuse IGCVO 948, 1321), however, are also popular among non-Jews (on both names, see Rutgers 1997: 249-250).
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 491452
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 38000201
- PHI: 140866
- PHI: 316312
- Printed editions
- Gabriele Lancillotto Castelli principe di Torremuzza, Siciliae et objacentium insularum veterum inscriptionum nova collectio (Panormus: Excudebat Cajetanus Maria Bentivenga, 1769), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Castelli1769, at 174 no.71
- Gabriello Lancellotto Castelli Principe di Torremuzza, Siciliae et objacentium insularum veterum inscriptionum nova collectio prolegomenis et notis illustrata, et iterum cum emendationibus, & auctariis evulgata, 2nd (1st is 1769) (Palermo: typis regiis, 1784), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Castelli1784, at 185 no.73
- A. Boeckh et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, 4 vols (Berlin: Ex Officina Academica, 1828), at 4.9494
- F. Ferrara, Storia di Catania sino alla fine del secolo XVIII (Catania, 1829), at 351 no.2
- G. Kaibel, Inscriptiones Graecae Siciliae et Italiae, additis graecis Galliae Hispaniae, Britanniae, Germaniae inscriptionibus, Inscriptiones Graecae consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae Editae. Volumen XIV., XIV (Berlin: Georgius Reimerus, 1890), at 14.0536
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 51.1199
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 46.1243
- Antonio Ferrua, «Osservazioni sulle iscrizioni cristiane catanesi», Bollettino Storico Catanese 3 (1938): 60–74, at 72 no.2
- J.-B. Frey and B. Lifshitz, Corpus of Jewish Inscriptions, vol. 1 (New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1975), at 1(2).650
- R.J.A. Wilson, Sicily under the Roman Empire: The Archaeology of a Roman Province, 36 B.C. - A.D. 535 (Warminster: Aris and Philips, 1990), at 310-311 fig.264b
- D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), at no.146
- Clara Gebbia, Presenze giudaiche nella Sicilia antica e tardoantica, Supplementi a Kókalos 11 (Roma, 1996), at 68
- Kalle Korhonen, Le iscrizioni del Museo civico di Catania : storia delle collezioni, cultura epigrafica, edizione (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2004), at 364
- Discussion
- L.V. Rutgers, ‘Interaction and Its Limits: Some Notes on the Jews of Sicily in Late Antiquity’, Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 115 (1997): 245–56, at 248 no.29, 249-250
- Kalle Korhonen, «Osservazioni sul collezionismo epigrafico siciliano», Arctos: acta philologica fennica 35 (2001): 85–102, at 90-93
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- Marta Fogagnolo
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Serena Agodi
- Simona Stoyanova
- system
- Last revision
- 10/31/2022