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Some new Syriac inscriptions and archaeological finds from Edessa and Sumatar Harabesi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

H. J. W. Drijvers
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During a journey in the Near East I spent some days in Urfa, the ancient Edessa, in the south-east of Turkey, and from there I visited Sumatar Harabesi in the Tektek mountains on 27 and 29 January 1971. The object was to study all known Syriac inscriptions in Urfa and its surroundings, which date from the first three centuries of our era, in situ for their republication in a small corpus. In Sumatar Harabesi my attention was primarily directed upon the inscriptions published by Segal, all situated upon the so-called Central Mount, clearly an ancient cult site. I also visited the cave with bas-reliefs and inscriptions discovered by Pognon. It is now inhabited by a Bedouin family, but in spite of the inconveniences caused by this circumstance, it was possible to read the inscriptions, blackened as they were, by the light of a pocket torch and an oil-lamp, and it was impressive to observe once more how able an epigrapher this French consul was.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 1973 , pp. 1 - 14
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1973

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References

1 The author wishes to express his thanks to the Director of the Turkish Department of Antiquities, who gave kind permission for publication of these finds, to the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Zuiver-wetenschappelijk Onderzoek for financial support, and to Mrs. G. E. van Baaren-Pape, who translated this article into English. On Sumatar Harabesi see Segal, J. B., ‘Pagan Syrian monuments in the vilayet of Urfa‘, Anat. Stud., III, 1953, 97 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar;idem, Edessa, ‘the blessed city’, Oxford, 1970, 56–9.

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5 Opinion expressed by Father J. Starcky in a letter of 25 January 1972.

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38 Drijvers, , Inscriptions, No. 14, 1. 2Google Scholar.

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57 Ryckmans, , Noms propres, i, 81Google Scholar; Harding, Lankester, Index, 640Google Scholar; for Greek forms of this name see Wuthnow, , Menschennamen, 92Google Scholar.

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61 See Pirenne, J., ‘Aux origines’, 122 ffGoogle Scholar.

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64 Drijvers, , Inscriptions, No. 30, 1. 2Google Scholar.

65 See the references in Stark, , Personal names, 70Google Scholar; the reference to Segal, , ‘Some Syriac inscriptions’, 23, No. 8Google Scholar, should be to 1. 1, but it has now become clear tha t in this inscription th e name is not ‘N’ but 'SW cf. Drijvers, , Inscriptions, No. 20, 1. 1Google Scholar.

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72 Nock, A. D., AJA, L, 1, 1946, 169Google Scholar. I shall treat this whole complex of questions concerning the eagle in the cult of Edessa in a forthcoming monograph.

73 cf. Segal, , Edessa, 55Google Scholar and plates 2, 25ab, the relief in the cave-tomb at Kara Köprü, etc.

74 Segal, Edema, plates 1, 2, 3, 16b, 17ab, 18, 19, 20, 43, 44; Leroy, ‘Mosaïques funéraires’; idem, ‘Nouvelles découvertes archéologiques’; Drijvers, , Inscription, Nos. 44–5Google Scholar, with references to earlier literature.

75 Segal writes (letter of 20 May 1972) ‘fragments of one of the Edessa mosaics have recently come to light at Istanbul where they will be on show in the Museum’.

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82 Drijvers, , Inscriptions, No. 57, I. 1Google Scholar; of. Hatra inscription 16 = Donner, and Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, Wiesbaden, 1962–1964, Nos. 241 and 257 (from DuraEuropos)Google Scholar, where also dkrn occurs; see Jenni, E., ‘Die altsyrischen Inschriften’, Theol. Zeitsch., xxi, 4, 1965. 378 fGoogle Scholar.