Description: Cipollino column.
Text: Graffiti:
i. plus a roughly incised rectangular frame containing further incisions which cannot be interpreted, above;
ii. a little lower and to the left; written vertically (perhaps not, as Stucchi described, set out in
the form of a cross).
Letters: Variable in size, some seem to be written back to front.
Date: Fourth to fifth centuries CE
Findspot:
Cyrene:
Valley Street, lying in front of Temple F.
Original location: Possibly portico of Building F.
Last recorded location:
Findspot.
Apparatus
ii.1: above this line: X Stucchi, 1981ii.4: made out no characters in this line Stucchi, 1981
ii.5: above these traces: H Stucchi, 1981
ii.10: Μ Stucchi, 1981
ii.11: Η : or Μ; ΣΕ Stucchi, 1981
ii.12: or ligatured: ΚΕ; Γ Stucchi, 1981
ii.13: or just possibly Γ
ii.14: Ε Stucchi, 1981
English translation
Translation source: Reynolds-Ward-Perkins-Goodchild, 2003
i. God.
ii. Christ, life and light? Maria?
Commentary
Reynolds, with great reservations, suggests the possibility of X(ριστος) ζωὴ φῶς (Christ, life and light) at the beginning; the reference to Mary in the lower part on the text may be right, but we should not, perhaps, rule out the possibility of χάρις, grace.
Bibliography: Stucchi, 1981, 220-2 with plate, whence SEG 31.1579, PHI 324547; Reynolds-Ward-Perkins-Goodchild, 2003, 167.a
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
None available (2020).