ISic001547: Epitaph for Zosimianos
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text checked against photograph, and as per IGPalermo
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Marble slab with the upper and right edges preserved at right angles, the other two edges being curved.
- Object type
- plaque
- Object condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 14 cm, width: 18 cm, depth: 2 cm
Material
- Description
- Fine-grained, veined, white marble, likely Lunense, Docimian, Göktepe, Hymettan, Pentelic. Digital microscopy: homeoblastic fabric (identification based on pXRF, digital microscopy)
- Type > subtype
- stone.marble > Lunense, Docimian, Göktepe, Hymettan, Pentelic
Inscription
- Layout
- No data
- Text condition
- No data
- Technique
- chiselled
- Pigment
- No data
- Lettering
Lunate Σ and Ε, cursive Μ and Ω.
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 15-25mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Original discovery not recorded, but from Catania (Ferrua 1958, 172), previously thought to have come from Agrigento (Frey 1931, 122-125; Lifshitz 1963, 258-259).
Current location
- Place
- Palermo, Sicilia
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas
- 8743
- Autopsy
- None
- Map
Date
4th — 5th century CE (CE 301 - CE 500)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The inscription records the purchase of a tomb by the deceased Zosimianos (the name is not attested elsewhere in Sicily, for the form Ζώσιμος, see LGPN IIIA 191). The purchase is expressed by the noun ἀγορασεία, a term attested at Catania (see IG XIV 530b, 552; SEG IV 60; Libertini 1931, 369 no. 1). The burial place was most likely a loculus, as suggested by the small dimensions of the slab, and is designated by the term ἔμβασις (for this term at Catania, see IGCVO 866; SEG XLVI 1261; IMusCatania 176; cf. Ferrua 1958, 172). Formulae expressing the purchase of a tomb by means of ἀγορασία followed by the genitive of the purchaser's — or, in funerary contexts, the deceased's — name are particularly common at Syracuse, but are also attested at Catania (SEG IV 60). In the present inscription, the genitive of the object purchased also appears, as is perhaps likewise the case in Libertini 1931, 369 no. 1 (see Korhonen 2004, 109 n. 152). The menorah engraved at the end of the inscription identifies it as belonging to the corpus of Jewish inscriptions. For the Jewish presence in Sicily, and particularly at Catania, during Late Antiquity, see Gebbia 1996.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 493899
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 41300018
- PHI: 175603
- PHI: 178074
- Printed editions
- Association pour l’encouragement des études greques, « Bulletin épigraphique », Revue des études grecques, 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/797735566, at (1964), 631
- J.-B. Frey, « Inscriptions juives inédites », Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 8 (1931): 83‑125, at 122-125 ph
- J.-B. Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum: recueil des inscriptions juives qui vont du IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ au VIIe siècle de notre ère, 2 vol. (Vatican City: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1936), at 1.654
- J.-B. Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum: recueil des inscriptions juives qui vont du IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ au VIIe siècle de notre ère, 2 vol. (Vatican City: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1936), at n. 654
- Antonio Ferrua, «In margine al Congresso Internazionale di Epigrafia», Archivio Storico Siracusano 4 (1958): 171–75, at 172
- Lifshitz (1963) at 258-259 no.3
- M.T. Manni Piraino, Iscrizioni greche lapidarie del Museo di Palermo, Sikelika 6 (Palermo: S. F. Flaccovio, 1973), at 10
- D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), at no.150
- Discussion
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 8/3/2026