A Syriac Inscription From Deir Al-Surian†
Matthew J.
Martin
Melbourne College of Divinity
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2002
Vol. 5, No. 2
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
license has been granted by the author(s), who retain full
copyright.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv5n2martin
Matthew J. Martin
A Syriac Inscription From Deir Al-Surian†
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol5/HV5N2Martin.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2002
vol 5
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Syriac Inscriptions
Deir al-Surian
Egyptian Monasticism
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This report presents a brief inscription
from amongst the collections of the Monastery of the Syrians in
Wadi al-Natrun. The inscription, poorly executed, appears
to commemorate the embellishment of a chapel in the Monastery
of Mary Deipara in the Nitrian desert. The original
context of the inscription remains unknown.
[1] During
the course of the 1999 season in Wadi al-Natrun, Egypt, Father
(now Bishop) Martyros al-Suriani of the monastery of Deir
Al-Surian acquainted members of the University of Melbourne
mission working at the site of the monastery of St. John Kame
with a Syriac inscription from amongst the collections of the
Syrian monastery. Unfortunately, it was only possible to
obtain a rubbing (Fig. 1) with no entirely satisfactory
photograph. The following description of the inscription
thus remains to some degree provisional.
Fig. 1. A drawing from a rubbing of the
inscription.
Description
[2] The
brief inscription appears upon a cylindrical marble
fragment. The fragment measures approx. 50 cm long with a
diameter of 11 cm. (See Fig. 2)
Photograph courtesy of Caroline Schroeder, Duke
University.
The marble is coarse
grained, of bluish-grey colour with a slightly opaque surface
and a distinctive sulphurous smell when the surface is
abraded. All of these factors are characteristic of
Proconnesean marble from the island of Marmara.
This information was provided in a private
communication by Dr Mat Immerzeel of the Rijksuniversiteit,
Leiden.
Fig. 2. The marble column fragment showing
the inscription.
[3] The
fragment would appear to have originally been part of a column,
perhaps supporting an altar baldaquin or an altar
table.
Such architectural features are known from
Byzantine period churches of Syria and the Lebanon; see P.
Donceel-Voûte, 1988 Les pavements des
églises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban. Décor,
archéologie et liturgie. Publications
d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie
de l’université catholique de Louvain LXIX,
(Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique, 1988) 507-508, 512-513;
Fig.459. The reference in the inscription to four columns
suggests that the other columns may yet exist somewhere in the
monastery. Further investigation needs to be carried
out.
At some later point the column has been
reused as a candle stand. There remain the traces of a
metal pin atop the moulded end of the fragment where the
capital would have been attached. The spacing of the
inscription in two lines upon the marble suggests that the
fragment must be close to its original size. In this
case, given the length of the column section, an original
function as a support for an altar baldaquin or ciborium seems
the most likely possibility, a length of 50 cm probably being
too short to have served as the support for an altar table,
unless the columns had stood upon some form of base.
[4] The
inscription itself is in a reasonably clear, though inelegant,
Estrangela. The poorly calculated spacing of the
inscription would seem to suggest execution by an inexperienced
hand.
Transcription
[5]
1. dshn hlyn 'rbc' 'stwn' lmdbh'
qdysh'
2. dbyt yldt 'lh' dbmdbr'
d'sqt'
Translation
[6] He gave
these four columns for the holy altar of the house of the
Mother of God which is in the desert of Scetis.
Notes
[7] The
opening of the inscription requires comment. The initial
word dshn would appear to be the denominative verbal
form, pael conjugation, deriving from
dašna ‘gift’—‘he
gave’. We may note the fact that we are left with
an unnamed subject, somewhat odd in a dedicatory
inscription. A very clear rosette at the beginning of the
inscription indicates that the text is complete as it
is—nothing appears to have been lost from the front of
the text. We might speculate upon the possibility that,
since we are dealing with three further, as yet unlocated,
columns, the inscription may have continued on one of the other
columns. Dedicatory inscriptions of a form with an
initial verb and a subject named at the end of the inscription
are not uncommon.
E.g. J. Jarry, "Inscriptions arabes, syriaques et
grecques du massif du Belus en Syrie," (Annales
Islamologiques VII, 1967) 141.
[8]
'rbc'— the initial letter of this
word is probably to be read as an alaph. This makes it
the only alaph of serta form in the inscription, but to read a
lamad—as the letter appears to be on first
inspection—results in an otherwise anomalous Syriac
construction. Such a mixing of script forms, particularly
where alaph is concerned, is seen in manuscripts, and is also
evidenced in another inscription appearing in the Church of the
Virgin at Deir Al-Surian.
Manuscript examples: W. Hatch, An Album
of Dated Syriac Manuscripts. (American Academy of
Arts and Sciences: Boston, Mass., 1946) No. 85, 86;
Inscription: no. 14 in K. Innemée and L. Van Rompay,
"Deir al-Surian (Egypt): New Discoveries of January 2000,"
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 3:2 [July
2000], 24 ).
[9]
'stwn'—‘column’, a loan
either from Persian sutuun or Greek
stulos. Cf. Drijvers & Healey 1999 As1, p.
47; Drijvers 1972 no. 27, pp. 19-21. There is a clear
seyame over the semkath.
[10]
mdbh'—the same
term may also apply more generally to the haikal of
the church.
[11]
byt yldt 'lh' dbmdbr' d'sqt'—a common appellation for the
Monastery of the Syrians appearing in the colophons of the
Syriac manuscripts from the monastery’s library.
See Evelyn White 1932, pp. 310-311.
Date
[12] The
import of Proconnesean marbles to Egypt probably came to an end
with the cessation of widespread sea-trade with the Byzantine
empire accompanying the Arabic invasions of the seventh
century. These imported marbles were frequently reused,
and this appears to be the case with our column section.
[13] The
dating of the inscription itself is difficult. The
awkward, lapidary hand provides little in the way of dating
criteria. Furthermore, there is no way of determining
from which of the chapels of the monastery the marble may have
come. Thus it is difficult to associate this altar
dedication with any known programme of renovation carried out
in the monastery.
Such as, for example, the renovations of the Church
of the Holy Virgin carried out by Moses of Nisibis in the early
tenth century. Cf. J. Strzygowski, "Der Schmuck der
älteren el-Hadrakirche im syrischen Kloster der sketischen
Wüste," (Oriens Christianus 1 [1901] ), 365; H.G.
Evelyn White The Monasteries of the Wâdi 'n
Natrûn, Pt.III. The Architecture and
Archaeology. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1933), Plate LXIV; J.Leroy, "Le décor de l'église
du couvent des Syriens au Ouady Natroun," (Cahiers
archéologiques 23 [1974] ), 154-155.
[14]
Between 800 and 1200 CE a number of Syriac inscriptions were
executed upon the walls of the Church of the Virgin at Deir
Al-Surian commemorating building activities and the visits of
important persons. These inscriptions would seem to
suggest that, during this period, Syriac was the official
language of the monastery.
K. Innemée and L. Van Rompay, "Deir
al-Surian (Egypt): Its Wall-paintings, Wall-texts, and
Manuscripts," Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
2:2 [July 1999], 47 ().
But the use of Syriac in the
monastery continued long after this period, until as late as
the sixteenth century.
K. Innemée and L. Van Rompay, "La
présence des Syriens dans le Wadi al-Natrun
(Égypte). Àpropos des découvertes
récentes de peintures et de texts muraux dans
l'Église de la Vierge du Couvent des Syriens,"
Parole de l’Orient 23 (1998)
189-191.
The inelegant, awkward character of
the present inscription suggests that it most likely originates
in a period sometime after the ninth to thirteenth century
heyday of the monastery’s Syriac literary culture, but
beyond this, further certainty cannot yet be obtained. At
present, the closest parallel to our inscription is to be found
in the clumsy inscription on a wooden beam reused in the
construction of a door in the monastery's qasr.
Schmidt and Van Rompay have suggested a date of 1285/1286 for
this particular inscription.
L. Van Rompay and A. Schmidt, "A New Syriac
Inscription in Deir al-Surian (Egypt)," Hugoye:
Journal of Syriac Studies 4:1 [January 2001] ).
[15] It
might be hoped that, should the other three columns mentioned
in our inscription be located in the future and that it is
found that the name of a donor is mentioned somewhere thereon,
more precise dating might become possible.
_______
Notes
†I would like to express my appreciative
thanks to Professor Luk van Rompay of Duke University whose
insightful comments have been of great assistance in preparing
the following.
_______
Bibliography
Donceel-Voûte, P. Les
pavements des églises byzantines de Syrie et du
Liban. Décor, archéologie et
liturgie. Publications d’histoire de
l’art et d’archéologie de
l’université catholique de Louvain LXIX.
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique, 1988.
Drijvers. H.J.W. & Healey,
J.F. The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and
Osrhoene. Brill: Leiden, 1999.
Drijvers, H.J.W. Old Syriac
(Edessean) Inscriptions. Semitic Study Series No.
III. Brill: Leiden, 1972.
Evelyn White, H.G. The
Monasteries of the Wâdi 'n Natrûn, Pt.III. The
Architecture and Archaeology. Metropolitan Museum of
Art: New York, 1933.
Evelyn White, H.G. The
Monasteries of the Wâdi 'n Natrûn, Pt.II. The
History of the Monasteries of Nitria and of Scetis.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York, 1932.
Hatch, W.H.P. An Album of
Dated Syriac Manuscripts. American Academy of Arts
and Sciences: Boston, Mass., 1946.
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Rompay, L. "Deir al-Surian (Egypt): New Discoveries of
January 2000." Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
3:2 (July 2000), (http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol3No2/HV3N2PRInnemee.html).
Innemée, K.C. & Van
Rompay, L. "Deir al-Surian (Egypt): Its Wall-paintings,
Wall-texts, and Manuscripts." Hugoye: Journal of
Syriac Studies 2:2 (July 1999), (http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol2No2/HV2N2Innemee.html).
Innemée, K. and Van Rompay, L.
"La présence des Syriens dans le Wadi al-Natrun
(Égypte). Àpropos des découvertes
récentes de peintures et de textes muraux dans
l'Église de la Vierge du Couvent des Syriens,"
Parole de l’Orient 23 (1998) 167-202.
Jarry, J. "Inscriptions arabes,
syriaques et grecques du massif du Belus en Syrie." Annales
Islamologiques VII (1967), 139-220.
Leroy, J. “Le
décor de l'église du couvent des Syriens au Ouady
Natroun.” Cahiers archéologiques 23
(1974), 151-167.
Strzygowski, J. “Der
Schmuck der älteren el-Hadrakirche im syrischen Kloster
der sketischen Wüste.” Oriens Christianus 1
(1901), 356-372.
Van Rompay, L. and A. Schmidt, A. "A
New Syriac Inscription in Deir al-Surian (Egypt),"
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 4:1 (January
2001), (http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol4No1/HV4N1VanRompay.html)