Nine new Byzantine Funerary Inscriptions from El-ʿIrāq (Southern Jordan)

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to bring to light and edit nine Byzantine funerary inscriptions discovered in the town of El-^‘Irāq (western Governorate of Karak, southern Jordan). All these pieces belong to the period ranging from the 5th to the 6th centuries ce. Like the majority of the inscriptions from the area, these epigraphs consist of short epitaphs engraved on rectangular tombstones made of local limestone and adorned with Christian symbols. The main novelty of this work is the appearance of two anthroponyms that have not been attested to date in the local epigraphic record: Γομολλα and Ἠλίος.

KEYWORDS:

• Jordan
• Karak
• El-ʿIrāq
• Tharias
• Byzantine funerary inscriptions

Acknowledgement

The authors would wish to express their gratitude to Mr Yazid Elayyan, Director-General of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, for allowing them to study these epigraphs. Finally, the authors highly appreciate the reviewers’ insightful comments on their manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work has been partially supported by the Scientific Research Committee of Mutah University, Jordan.

Notes on contributors

Musallam R. Al-Rawahneh is an Associate Professor of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Mutah University, Jordan, where he previously worked as a Research and Teaching Assistant. Dr Rawahneh is also Assistant Dean of the College of Social Sciences, and Head of the Department of Archaeology and Tourism. His research and teaching interests include the History and Archaeology of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Fieldwork in Jordan, Cultural Environmental Resource Management, and Participation in Conferences and Workshops on Archaeology. He has authored and co-authored several publications and served as editor and reviewer for reputable professional journals and International Conferences, he has an active association with various societies and academies around the world.

Gonzalo Fontana Elboj is Senior Lecturer in Classical Philology at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. He completed his PhD in Classical Philology in 1995, and in 2012 he earned a PhD in Ancient History. Fontana Elboj is the author of thirteen monographs and around fifty academic papers on Classical Philology, Roman Epigraphy and History of Religions. In the last three years, he has published five articles with Dr Musallam R. Al-Rawahneh, Mutah University, Jordan on several Roman and Byzantine epigraphs from the 2nd to 7th centuries ce.

Notes

1 Before presenting the edition of the inscriptions and commenting on their content, it is worth mentioning that all of them have been found and photographed by Dr M. R. Al-Rawahneh during some of his visits to the site of El-ʿIrāq in the years 2018 and 2019.

2 Although there are numerous references to visits to El- ^ʿIrāq by several European travellers since the early 19th century, it was Canova who made the first systematic description and analysis of its archaeological remains (1954, 306–07). After Canova’s work, researchers have discovered and studied many other inscriptions found in southern Jordan. Among the most relevant publications on this matter, it is imperative to mention the general compilations made since the beginning of this century: Meimaris and Kritikakou (2005) and Meimaris (2008). As a methodological note, it should be mentioned that the inscriptions of Ghor es-Safi included in these compilations will be cited in this paper as I. Zoora and that the comments and information belonging to this same work will be referenced as ‘Meimaris and Kritikakou (2005)’. In addition to these general compilations, other works have continued to be published in recent years on particular inscriptions from the area. Without wishing to be exhaustive, it is worth mentioning some of the most relevant ones: Meimaris, Mahasneh and Kritikakou (2007); Karvounis, (2010); Al-Salameen, Falahat et al. (2011); Aliquot, Shdaifat and Weber (2014); J. Aliquot and Shdaifat (2020); Shiyyab (2011); Gatier; Bader; Aliquot et al. (2017); Al-Rawahneh and Fontana Elboj (2022).

3 For a comprehensive picture of the archaeology and the history of the site, see Miller (1991, 117–58) and MacDonald (2015, 32–33). According to Ben David's conjecture (2003, 250–51), this site appears in the famous Mosaic Map of Madaba (Figure 2) under the Aramaic toponym of Tharais (Θαραϊς [IGLSyr 21,2 153]), which would have been included in the map due to its proximity to the Roman road that connected the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea with the Moab Plateau. M. Piccirillo (1993, 27), dated the construction of the Byzantine church of Tharais to the reign of Emperor Justinian (527–565). In any way, it must be stressed that the identification of the El-ʿIrāq site with the locality of Tharais is merely conjectural.