Inscriptions from Israel and Palestine
About Stories Resources Contact

Images

Location

KHAN0001

Khirbet el Khan (H. Hanot), 563-609 CE. Mosaic. Dedicatory.
Transcription

Ἐπὶ τοῦ εὐλαβεστάτου καὶ θεοφιλεστάτου Θεοδώρου πρεσβυτέρου καὶ ἡγουμένου ἐγένετο τὸ πᾶν ἔργον τῆς προσθήκης τής κόνχης καὶ ζωγραφίας καὶ πλακόσεως τοῦ πέρματος τοῦ ἱερατίου σύν τοῦ διακονικοῦ ἐκ θεμελίων, μηνὶ Ἀπριλίῳ ἰνδικτιῶνος ιβ.

Translation

Under the most pious and God-loving Theodore, priest and hegumen, was done all the work of the "addition" (προσθήκη) of the apse and of the painting and facing with marble of the end-wall of the presbytery, together with the diaconicon, from the foundations, in the month of April of the 12th indiction.

Diplomatic

[no diplomatic]

Terminus post quem:
Terminus ante quem:
Notes
Paved mosaic of two rows of black letters with no border. Horvat Hanot seems to have been a road station between Jerusalem and Beth Govrin at which a church was located. The title of hegumen which the priest Theodorus bore suggests that there was also a monastery in this location. The meanings of two words in the inscription are noted to be unclear: πέπμα and προσθήκα. The first, it seems, refers to the back wall of the sanctuary. This wall seems to have been partly faced with marble and, as the editor points out, partly painted with figures (ζωγραφία). She indicates that προσθήκη is a difficult term to deal with, suggesting that it ought to be understood as "addition" in this context, though to what exactly it refers is unclear. Di Sengi dismisses the idea that is refers to an apse, instead proposing that it refers to a nave. She concludes this based upon other its context, other attestations of the word and Lampe's lexicon of Patristic Greek. The issue is further clouded, however, by the only partial nature of the excavation of this site. The dates 563/564 CE, 578/579 CE, 593/594 CE, and 608/609 CE all took place during a twelfth indication and are thus all possible, though the author favors the two latest options as the most likely. The inscription makes use of lunate sigmas and large miniscule omega's rather than their majuscule equivalent.

Languages

Greek

Dimensions

H: ca. 4 m cm; W: —; D: —

Date

563 CE to 609 CE

Current location

No provenance provided.

Figures

No figures described.

Bibliography

Source of diplomatic

No bibliography available for diplomatic transcription.

Source of transcription

  • Di Segni, L. “A Greek Inscription at Horvat Hanot.” In One Land - Many Cultures: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Stanislao Loffreda OFM. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 2003.
    Zotero

Source of translation

  • Di Segni, L. “A Greek Inscription at Horvat Hanot.” In One Land - Many Cultures: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Stanislao Loffreda OFM. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 2003.
    Zotero
View XML

Cite This Inscription

IIP is committed to the idea that the public good is best served by keeping our data free for use and reuse. You can cite and use this inscription under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Note also that all images are either in the public domain or used with permission, and unless noted we do not hold copyright to them. For permission to reuse the images, please contact the copyright holder, noted in the illustration credit.

The project can be cited as:

Satlow, Michael L., ed. 2002 - . “Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine.” Brown University. https://doi.org/10.26300/PZ1D-ST89

This inscription can be cited as:

"Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine," KHAN0001, 14 July 2026. https:doi.org/10.26300/pz1d-st89