Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
In May and June 1952, as a member of the Anglo-Turkish expedition working at Sultantepe, between Harran and Urfa, I excavated a bath building in the Roman settlement at the foot of the mound. The main hall of the bath was paved with a fine mosaic, decorated with geometric patterns, some of which had affinities with motifs current at Antioch on the Orontes during the first half of the fifth century A.D. At the northern end of the pavement, incorporated in the mosaic, was a five-line hexameter inscription in a tabula ansata (Fig. 1). The inscription was almost undamaged, except for a diagonal break at the left-hand end (which resulted in the loss of about four letters in ll. 1/2, and of about three or two in ll. 3/5), and a small hole which obliterates three letters not far from the beginning of l. 1.