Michales, the younger.

 

The cistern, which had been discovered in the summer of 2002, was filled in the following autumn. For this reason, I had an opportunity to inspect the inscriptions in situ only during two short visits in the summer of 2002, when I could take neither measurements nor photographs. During those visits, 14 texts were identified on the walls of the cistern, not counting separately inscribed letters. In her publication, А. Brzóstkowska (2006) did not mention inscriptions 1, 4, 7 and 13. In addition, she did not offer critical editions for any of them, instead providing diplomatic transcriptions and translations; in rare cases, where she attempts to provide a reading, we find mistakes (e.g., ζώντα (Brzóstkowska 2006, 56)).

All inscribed texts belong to the short period during which the cistern functioned as a prison (end of the Хth – 1st half of the XIth century). Objections to this interpretation of the cistern's function (Sorochan 2008) are met by Texts 10 and especially 2. Most texts are short graffiti: names (Texts 1, 3, 4, 7; the range of names is typically Christian), invocations of God such as "Lord, help" (Texts 9, 11, 13) and the formula "Jesus Christ is victorious" as a heading to the drawings of crosses (Texts 6, 13). The meaning of Text 12 is unclear. Only Texts 2, 8, 10 and 14 are of some length.

2. The epithet νέος, accompanying the graffito of the author, can have several possible meanings: the younger (by contrast to some other Michales who was older) or the new (in the sense of "newly arrived").

 

Oh our voucher, we who are imploring you, our true defensor Sebastianos (?) [M]aniakos, are accused of..., deserted places, Mesebrians Thomas, Sophrebis, Tegealmage, Sougealmage.

 

Brzóstkowska left Text 2 without translation, but remarked on the mostly Greek letters of the text, with a possible admixture of Cyrillic at the end of lines 8 and 9. Indeed, the text is full of difficulties: lines 5 and 6 are damaged by another graffito, and some words are abbreviated. This has to do with the nature of the text, which appears to be a draft of a letter that was supposed to be copied onto a different writing stock.

The letter is addressed to a Byzantine official called defensor who represents the noble family of Maniakoi, well known in the early XIth century (see PMBZ II # 22514, 22562). The reason for writing this letter appears to have been some accusation of a crime brought against its authors, possibly connected with some remote or deserted places (?), and due to which accusation they must have ended up in a Chersonian prison. The epithets applied to the addressee suggest his close connection with the senders; it is possible that the letter was to be sent to Constantinople or to Cherson where the presence of an ekdikos-defensor is attested.

Four Mesembrians appear as authors of the letter (we should note that this city ethnic seems to be inscribed by a different and less literate hand than the rest of the text), that is, residents of Mesembria (modern Nessebar in Bulgaria), of whom only the first bears a common Christian name Thomas, while other names are non-Greek and non-Christian. The name Sophrebis can be compared with the modern Adygean name Soferbiy. The last two names share the second compound element –almage, which is a cognate of widely attested Turkic names that start with Alma- and can be compared with the name Almaji (Raszonyi 52). The first element Tegi- is also known in Turkic names (Raszonyi 727), while the element Sugi- has no clear parallel. The similarity of the two names possibly suggests that their owners were brothers.

 

Departure of Nicholas, George, Michales.

 

The term ἐκδημία can signify "departure" in the sense of release from prison, or death.

 

I, Kos(tas?).

 

Kostas, as a form of the name Constantine, is also attested in V 124.

 

Lord, help your servant Nicholas.

 

1–2. On the formula, see Introduction IV.3.E.a. 3. The name Nicholas is known in Cherson: V 4, V 48, V 67, V 82.2.

 

J(esus) Ch(rist) is victorious.

 

On the formula, see Introduction IV.3.C.e.

 

Of Nicholas.

 

See commentary to Text 5.

 

This. The place. The living. The grave.

 

See commentary to Text 10.

 

Lord, help.

 

On the formula, see Introduction IV.3.E.a.

 

This is for the song. A living man into [the earth (?)...] The grave [took?] the friend... The investigator and... Enemy's pleasure, which... Triumph and joy... For your every friend...

 

Text 8 represents a draft of the first words from Text 10: for some reason, the line which starts with Ὁ τόπος was omitted in the latter. Brzóstkowska rightly noted that the damage in the right half of Text 10 does not allow us to determine the length of lines with certainty. Nevertheless it is clear from what remains that the text was a dodekasyllabic poem with a caesura after the third foot and that it was preceded by a heading (line 1). The content suggests two four-line stanzas, and in the first stanza, the first line beginning with Ὁ τόπος was omitted. The first half of the poem tells of a friend (the poet?) who finds himself underground (?) and in the hands of a prosecutor, as if a living man in a grave. In the second half of the poem the protagonist triumphs over his enemy. τέλψις is, without a doubt, a corruption of τέρψις. Rhoby's edition is based on my prelimiary edition of the text, so correspondences in our readings are not noted in the apparatus. The Austrian scholar did not, however, make a note of Text 8, nor of the broken lines in Text 10. He therefore restored a poem on the basis of the preserved words, in the process rejecting the existing line breaks and adding another hypothetically lost line after τέλψης. His amendation of π[ρ]οσόδην (i.e. προσόδιν/προσόδιον) to π[ρ]οσoδήν is also unjustified.

 

Lord, help.

 

On the formula, see Introduction IV.3.E.a.

 

...

 

The meaning is unclear.

 

Jesus Christ is victorious. Light. Lord, help.

 

On the formulae, see Introduction IV.3.C.e; IV.3.C.c; IV.3.E.a.

 

Lord, here I often fornicated with men.

 

Those under arrest in this Chersonian prison not only bemoaned their fate and challenged thier unlawful incarceration, but also apparently repented. This is indicated by Text 14, in which the author confesses of having had carnal relations "here," that is, apparently in Cherson. Lines 5-6 ("with men") were added by a different hand, crude and illiterate, and were probably meant to mock the author of lines 1-4.