Evidence ID
E01722Saint Name
Mary, Mother of Christ : S00033Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)Evidence not before
500Evidence not after
1300Activity not before
500Activity not after
1300Place of Evidence - Region
Aegean islands and CyprusPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
ChiosPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Chios
Salamis
Σαλαμίς
Salamis
Salamis
Farmagusta
Far
Κωνσταντία
Konstantia
ConstantiaCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Prayer/supplication/invocationCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Other lay individuals/ peopleSource
A grey marble slab. H. 0.27 m; W. 0.59 m. Above the inscription there are carvings of two crosses and other unspecified decorations. The editor says that the third line might have been written by another hand, in an earlier period.
Seen and copied by Georgios Zolotas at the Museum of the Gymnasium in Chios after 1886. Said to have been found at a citadel (phrourion).Discussion
The inscription was authored by a certain Konstantinos, who named himself a servant of God and of the God-Bearer. The name 'Menokritos, son of Menogenes', written on the same stone, comes probably from a different, now lost, text.
The meaning of the last word preserved in line 2, εκτοκουνο, is not clear, and the editor does not say whether the right-hand side of the stone was broken and lost when he examined it. This is, however, possible, and the line might need to be completed. The other option is that the last word in line 2 was erroneously read by the editor, or that the possibly illiterate stonecutter confused this word with the name Theotokos/'God-Bearer'.
Dating: the sophisticated epithets of Mary suggest a fairly late date for the inscription, possibly the 6th/7th c. or even later.Bibliography
Edition:
Zolotas, G., Επιγραφαί Χίου ανέκδοτοι , Athena 20 (1908), 246-247, no. 79.
Further reading:
Kiourtzian, G., "Pietas insulariorum", [in:] Eupsychia: mélanges offerts à Hélène Ahrweiler, vol. 2 (Série Byzantina Sorbonensia 16, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998), 375.
