Church/Monastery name:
Khirbet el-Messani; Khirbet el-Maṣani; Khirbet al-Meṣani; Ḥorvat Miṣna - NEW ST. ZACHARIA (?)
Inscription number:
1
Selected bibliography:
22*, fig.10 (dr.) (in Hebrew) (ed. pr.) |
Epigraphical corpora:
SEG 50 (2000): 1504
CIIP I.2 (2012): 857 (dr.)
Inscription type:
label/sign
Location:
Findspot: In a side room of the church (Room H).
Pres. loc.: IAA.
On a moveable object:
reliquary
Physical description :
Fragment of a soft limestone box with some incised Greek letters.
Text:
˹Ἐ˺λ˹αι˺ονα
Translation:
Eleona.
Apparatus:
ΗΛΗΟΝΑ for ΕΛΑΙΩΝΑ.
Summary:
Fragment of limestone reliquary bearing the misspelled name Eleona, found in a side room of the church.
Eleona is the name of the church built by Constantine over the cave where Jesus taught his disciples, and where the Ascension was also commemorated, before the erection of the Ascension Church (Acts 1,3; cf. Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica 6.18; Vita Constantini 3.43; It. Burd. 595, etc.). The reliquary may have contained earth or a stone from the cave.