Description:
Fragments of painted wall-plaster,
found in small pieces fallen from the wall of a room. Incised with B.4, B.5,
B.6, B.7, B.8, B.9, B.10,
B.11, B.12, B.13, B.14, B.15, B.16, B.17,
B.18, B.19, B.20, B.21,
B.22, B.23, B.24, B.25,
B.26, B.27, B.28, B.29,
B.30, B.31, B.32, B.33,
B.34, B.35, B.36, B.37,
B.38, B.39, B.40.
Text: Scratched within a scratched rectangular panel only partly surviving.
Letters: Neat Greek capitals; cursive epsilon and probably omega, and lunate sigma. Second half of the second or third century CE
Date: Second half of the second or third century CE
Findspot:
Berenike:
Sidi Khrebish, Building H. At a date late in the life of the house the room must have been open to the public who scratched graffiti
on its walls; it seems probable that it had in fact become an hotel.
Original location: Findspot.
Last recorded location:
Benghazi Museum.
English translation
Translation by: Editors
One Zeus Serapis. With good fortune for Kosmikos ?the second and those travelling with him
Commentary
In line 2 the name restored is a conjecture based on B.10, but the rest is offered exempli gratia only. The invocation of Zeus Sarapis suggests an African connection for the writer. He probably prayed for good luck in terms similar to those used by Kosmikos in B.10, though more elaborate.
Since the divine name appears in the nominative case this must be an acclamation not a dedication, as in the inscription on a gemstone also found at during the excavations Reynolds-Kenrick, 2015, A.3, For an account of the history of the Serapis cult, see P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria' 246f.. During the Roman period Sarapis/Serapis became, for some, ‘the unique pantheistic deity,’ see e.g. Tran Tam Tinh in W. Haase (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 17.3 (Berlin 1984) 1713 f. The formula used here expresses this concept and is known from a number of examples; the fundamental study is still Petersen ΕΙΣ ΘΕΟΣ..
Bibliography: Reynolds, 1974-1975, B.vi whence Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1976.793; Reynolds, 1978, 6.vi, whence SEG 28.1555
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
None available (2020).