V 120. Bakla. Fragment of inscription, 1st half of Хth century C.E.
Monument
Type
Architectural member.
Material
Limestone.
Dimensions (cm)
H. 8.0, W. 5.5, Th. 7.0.
Additional description
Broken on all sides, including the back; traces of burning.
Place of Origin
Bakla.
Find place
Bakla.
Find context
Posad, Church of 2003, south wall, outside, fire destruction layer.
Find circumstances
2004, excavations of V.Yu. Yurochkin, A.Yu. Vinogradov and N.E. Gaydukov.
Modern location
Bakhchisaray, Crimea.
Institution and inventory
Bakhchisaray State Historical and Cultural Preserve, АБ–4868/4897.
Autopsy
September 2003.
Epigraphic field
Position
On the front.
Lettering
Lapidary style, letters with serifs; a horizontal line is carved between the two preserved rows of letters. Diamond-shaped theta, iota with diaeresis.
Letterheights (cm)
1.8.
Text
Category
Unknown.
Date
1st half of Хth century C.E.
Dating criteria
Palaeography.
Editions
Unpublished.
<div type="edition" xml:lang="grc">
<ab>
<lb n="1"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/><orig>ΕΤ</orig><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>
<lb n="2"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/><orig>Θ</orig><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>.
</ab>
</div> Translation
Preserved letters do not provide sufficient material for translation.
Commentary
The lettershapes of this inscription and the presence of an incised horizontal line resemble the style of V 66 (915 C.E.) and of V 87 from Cherson. The stone was found in the burned layer whose terminus ante quem is determined by the date of the infill that had covered the socle layer of the church's masonry where the tall-neck pitchers with flat handles of the 2nd half of the IX-XIth centuries (Yurochkin, Vinogradov et al. 2004) were found. It is possible that this stone belongs to the arch with mouldings from the same burned layer.
It is difficult to establish the function of the inscription. If it was an epitaph, then we could cautiously suggest the formula Ἐτ[ελειώ]θι.
Images
© 2015 Andrey Vinogradov (edition), Irene Polinskaya (translation)
You may download this inscription in EpiDoc XML. (This file should validate to the EpiDoc schema.)