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Kellia Inscription Q. Ereima 142 Revisited

Author(s): Leslie S. B. MacCoullSource: Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 163 (2007), pp. 215-216Published by: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn (Germany)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20476412.

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215

KELLIA INSCRIPTION Q.

EREIMA 142 REVISITED

For over forty ears theFranco-Swiss

rescue

excavations

at

themonastic

site

of

Kellia in northwest

Egypt have been adding

to

and indeed

rewriting

ur

understanding

f

the lived

Christianity

f

late

antiquity.'

ontinuing to try

nd save the

site from

modern

encroachment,

he

team

of

experts

has

vastlyexpanded our contextualized nowledge ofmonastic settlementayout

nd life

n a

large

multi

purpose complex of many dwellings that hanged

over

time.

One

especial

revelationhas been the

finding rom he bundance of inscriptions hat he ohairic (or

Nile

Delta)

dialect of

Coptic

grew

to

dominant

osition

as the utochthonous ernacular

langue

vehiculaire' of

this

rea

much earlier than

had been

thought.2

nd recently he ellia epigraphicmaterial has been the asis for he

formulation

f

a

bold new hypothesis bout thedating formulas sed

in

Coptic-language

inscriptions.3

f

Luisier

is

right, orty-eightf these texts se for 'indiction'not theexpectedGreek in./ (expected,that s, in

Sahidic

material),

but

rather

henative

&xn,

more

usually

'hour'4

ut in these

ontexts

year'.5

f

this

s

indeed the ase,

it

houldbe noticed n future orks on the hronological ystems fByzantine gypt.

Indeed, some of the nscriptionsuisier reinterpretso fall in theByzantine period: for xample,

one that

xplicitly

mentions the

reign

f

Justinian,

ne

that f Justin

II), two

that

fMaurice,

and

one

that

f Phocas (in

the

ist

n

uisier,Annees,

221-22).6

Testing

his

hypothesis ut further,should like

to look at another, ater tem

n

Kellia's epigraphy, ne that as

&xn

(readby the ditors s 'heure'), to

see

if t

toomightbe 'indiction ear' and,

if

o, how

the

text ight be re-read oyield informationbout

something

hat

appened

to

the

ommunity

fter he

onquest

such

being the xcavators' dating f this

part f

the

ite).

In thevolume

Explorations

aux

QouCour

HIgeila

et 'Ereima

lors des campagnes 1987, 1988 et

1989,

ed.

Ph.

Bridel

et

al.,

MSAC

4

(Louvain, 2003), 423-424,

no.

142,

we

are

presentedwith the

fragments

very fragmentary of an inscription hat nce tookup a large space on the astwall of a

complexdesignated E (QasrEreima) 39. Top, right ide,bottom dge, and large hunks remissing; a

line

indicates he eft ide.What

we

have of the eginning ppears tomention the holy lace' and state

that,

s

readby the d. pr. editors,

t the

8th

our' something appened.Though the ditors ead twice)

in line2 lBl, ohairic for thirst',nd render 2-3)

'we

had

a

great thirst, thirst or od' (metaphorical,

or

meaning

a thirst

rom

God,

i.e. a

drought?), learly

on the

plate

in line 2 one can

divide thewords

differently

nd read

U)wN

,

'sickness,

isease'. IfLuisier's

hypothesis

scorrect, he

'8th

our' could be

the

8th ear', i.e. indiction ear. id

a

plague strike ellia in

an

eighth ndiction ear?

1

A.

Guillaumont

et

al.,

"Kellia",

in The

Coptic Encyclopaedia,

8 vols.

(New

York,

1991),

5:

1396-1410;

P.

Gross

mann,

Christliche Architektur

in

?gypten

(Leiden, 2002),

262-266,491^499.

2

R.

Kasser,

Langue

copte

bohairique:

son

attestation

par

les

inscriptions

de

Kellia

et

leur

?valuation

linguistique,

in

?gypten

und

Nubien

in

sp?tantiker

und

christlicher

Zeit,

ed.

S.

Emmel

et

al.,

2

vols.

(Wiesbaden,

1999),

2:

335-346.

3

Ph.

Luisier,

Les

ann?es de l'indiction

dans

les

inscriptions

de

Kellia,

ZPE

159

(2007):

217-222.

4

As

Luisier, Ann?es,

218 with

n.

8

points

out,

sometimes

one

finds

'hours' numbered above

12,

which is

a

clue that

something

is

odd.

5

Luisier, Ann?es,

219

with

n.

9,

and

Vycichl/Kasser,

Dictionnaire

?tymologique,

193-194

s.v.

cn-/^c-.

According

to

F?rster,

W?rterbuch,

347,

cen

is the

(Fayumic) Coptic equivalent

for

Lv?lxxlcdv. For

the

Egyptian-language background

of

the

sound-

and

semantic shifts

see

T. S.

Richter,

Rechtssemantik und

forensische

Rhetorik

(Leipzig,

2002),

63

n.

284,

69

n.

318

(hypothesizing

'Grundform'

?,cn-),

70 with

n.

322,264

(? 133);

cf. 186

(? 14).

6

Note that he

inscriptions

n this istdo

not

bear

explicit

year

dates

by

the

era

ofDiocletian in their

exts:

uisier has

added

those

correspondences

himself

(after

equals signs).

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216 L. S. B. MacCoull

Such years

in

Umayyad times

were

664, 679, 694, 709, 724, 739 (CSBE 2 301-303). Plague did

indeed strike gypt in

724.7

If

Luisier is right, better ranslation or E 142might run long the ines

of "... theholy topos ... in the ighthyear [= indiction] pon us all came a sickness sent)by/fromod,

and this swhat happened tous, these things s we wrote them own on 13Hathyrof the [8th]ndiction

...

his petition

N1THClc)8 o

(take away?)

the

captivity

&?x(H&AwCe&)9

i.e. the sickness] from the

monks of thisholy topos thathas come)

on account

of

our

sins.And

God,

themerciful

one,

the

good,

hadmercy

on us

again and turned gain the aptivity f the lace

(Psalm 125:1)

and

set

it

right,

n 21

Phaophi of the

9th

ndiction, etting

t

right gain.

Be

so

good,

everyone

who

may

read

this

loud,

as

to

remember e, Victor; and remember arnabas who

was

taken

aptive i.e. died

of the

ickness) ...".No

thirst, o

return

f deportees.

f

Luisier

is

right,

his

nscription

ould reflect

nd

witness

to

the

plague

that ffected gypt

in 724-725

and

how

it

struck

he

ellia

community,

eing

brought

o an

end

only

elevenmonths later

nd,

of

course,by

the ffectual

rayers

f

one

of

the

monks.

These

few remarks

re

just

a

first

xperiment

o test ut

whether

tcanmake sense to

read

&Xn

as

'indiction'.This may turn ut to be a legitimate ariantusage in non-literary, on-WadiNatrun

Bohairic,10

ver

against

urmore familiar default

etting'

ahidic

dating

lauses.

Many

furtherrials f

this ariable

are

needed.

Readers

are

invited

o

try

heir wn

experiments.

Society

for

optic Archaeology (North merica)

Leslie S. B. MacCoull

7

D.

Stathakopoulos,

Crime

and Punishment: he

Plague

in the

Byzantine

Empire,

541-749,

in

Plague

and the nd

of

Antiquity:

The Pandemic

of

541-750,

?d.

L. K. Little

(Cambridge,

2007),

99-118,

at

104,

gives

an

up-to-date

chronological

list of the later waves of plague.

8

F?rster, WB,

20-22.

9

F?rster,

WB,

22-23.

0

See

E.

Grossman,

Worknotes

on

the

Syntax

of Nitrian

Bohairic,

in

Actes

du huiti?me

congr?s

international

d'?tudes

coptes,

?d.

N.

Bosson and

A.

Boud'hors,

2

vols.

(Leuven, 2007),

2:

711-727,

here

711-716.

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