Evidence ID
E04388Saint Name
Symeon the Elder, stylite of Qalat Siman, ob. 459 : S00343Saint Name in Source
ܡܪܝ ܫܡܥܘܢType of Evidence
Inscriptions - GraffitiEvidence not before
500Evidence not after
700Activity not before
500Activity not after
700Place of Evidence - Region
Syria with Phoenicia
Syria with Phoenicia
Syria with PhoeniciaPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
Beroia
Deir Seman
Qal'at Sem'anPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Beroia
Thabbora
Thabbora
Deir Seman
Thabbora
Thabbora
Qal'at Sem'an
Thabbora
ThabboraCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Prayer/supplication/invocationSource
Graffito scratched on a stone on the outside east wall of the church in the so-called 'Southwest Convent' (also termed: 'South Monastery'). Dimensions of the inscribed field: H. 0.21 m; W. c. 0.37 m. Letter height 0.02-0.04 m. Fine lettering.
First recorded by the Princeton Archaeological Expedition to Syria and published by Enno Littmann in 1934.Discussion
This is one of about a dozen Syriac graffiti recorded in the village (on different buildings) by Butler's expedition. It is very probable that they were made by pilgrims to Qalat Semaan, the famous sanctuary of Symeon the Elder (one of them, Littmann's no. 41, names the hometown of its author as Harran). The other published examples, however, do not invoke saints.
Littmann suggests that the present graffito could be used to identify the church, on whose wall it was scratched, as dedicated to Symeon. This is, however, a very tentative hypothesis, and Littmann himself admits that another graffito from the same church invokes the Trinity, another possible patron of the sanctuary. In fact, both texts may be, actually, habitual invocations, which had nothing in common with the dedication of the church.Bibliography
Edition:
Littmann, E., Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-5 and 1909, division IV: Semitic Inscriptions, Section B: Syriac Inscriptions (Leiden: Brill, 1934), no. 49.
