ISic001628: Funerary inscription for Jason the Elder
- ID
- ISic001628
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
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Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- 2: The form of the final Μ is curious/heavily compressed, but also obscured by the modern repainting.
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Small irregular square plaque of white marble; previously set in plaster, removed and cleaned in 2016/2017. The rear is finished smooth, the edges cut back roughly on the rear face (for mounting).
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 14.5 cm, width: 16.5 cm, depth: cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Eight lines of Greek filling the face, with the final line only made up of the last two letters. Double guidelines between lines 2-3 and 4-5, single guidelines above line 1 and line 7.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 5-20mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: not measured
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Probably from Catania: the text is similar to another inscription found on via Antonino di Sangiuliano, and now in the Museo di Archeologia of Università di Catania (inv. 05/136 = ).
Current location
- Place
- Catania, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Civico di Catania , 268
- Autopsy
- Display, Voci di pietra no.33
- Map
Date
4th — 5th century CE (AD 301 – AD 600)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
Jason is a common Jewish name. Presbyter simply means ‘elder’, but in this context signifies membership of a council of elders. It is not certain that this text is Jewish, but the word entole is a distinctively Jewish term in epitaphs, signifying the Mosaic law. The word koupa is very rare in Greek (two out of three other instances also from Catania), transliterating the Latin cupa, which generally describes a tomb in the shape of a half-barrel (cut lengthways). It is common to record the purchase of the burial space in this way.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 494022
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 38000204
- PHI: 178073
- PHI: 316297
- Printed editions
- Association pour l’encouragement des études greques, « Bulletin épigraphique », Revue des études grecques, 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/797735566, at 1960.0459
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 56.1081
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 17.0440
- Guido Libertini, Il Museo Biscari (Milan: Casa editrice D’arte Bestetti e Tuminelli, 1930), at 317 no.5
- Antonio Ferrua, «Osservazioni sulle iscrizioni cristiane catanesi», Bollettino Storico Catanese 3 (1938): 60–74, at 73
- S.L. Agnello, Silloge di iscrizioni paleocristiane della Sicilia (Rome, 1953), at no.60
- Antonio Ferrua, «In margine al Congresso Internazionale di Epigrafia», Archivio Storico Siracusano 4 (1958): 171–75.
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Iscrizioni tardo-imperiali di Catania», in Atti del terzo congresso internazionale di epigrafia greca e latina (Roma 4-8 settembre 1957) (Rome: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 1959), 347–51, at 348-349 tav.40.2
- D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), at no.149
- Kalle Korhonen, Le iscrizioni del Museo civico di Catania : storia delle collezioni, cultura epigrafica, edizione (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2004), at 229
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Giudei grecanici nella Sicilia di eta imperale (documentazione epigrafica e figurativa)», Minima Epigraphica et Papyrologica 9–10 (2005 2004): 357–72, at 362 fig.4
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Serena Agodi
- Simona Stoyanova
- system
- Last revision
- 2/1/2024