Church/Monastery name:
Kefar 'Othnai - Megiddo Prison
Inscription number:
3
Selected bibliography:
41-42 (phs.) (Di Segni) (ed. pr.) | |
751, no. 562 (Feissel) |
Epigraphical corpora:
SEG 56 (2006): 1901; 61 (2011): 1441
Inscription type:
commemorative
Location:
At the eastern side of the southern mosaic panel of the prayer hall.
Physical description :
The inscription is set within a rectangle (38 x 86 cm) in the eastern side of the southern mosaic panel. Its frame and letters are traced in black tesserae; the characters are 7.0–7.5 cm high. There are ligatures of letters in the first and fourth line.
Text:
Mνημονεύσατε
Πριμίλλης καὶ Κυρι-
ακῆς καὶ Δωροθέας,
ἔτι δὲ καὶ Χρήστην.
Translation:
Remember Primilla and Cyriaca and Dorothea, and moreover also Chreste.
Date:
3rd cent.
Summary:
Commemorative inscription of four women, at the eastern side of the southern mosaic panel of the prayer hall.
Epigraphical Abbreviations:
ΝΗ, ΝΕ and ΗΝ in ligatures
Three of the four women mentioned in the inscription have common Greek names; the fourth, Primilla, bears a good Latin name, a diminutive of Prima, which seems to indicate a western origin. Again, although memorial inscriptions of pagans, Jews, Samaritans and Christians alike are found in the thousands in our region, the formula here is unusual; the request to remember is not addressed to God (“Lord, remember so-and-so”; “Let so-and-so be remembered”), but to the community. Notably, the same formula is used in the synagogue at Dura Europus.