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Mosaic Inscription in Frame (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Mosaic Inscription in frame: Building Inscription for Portico Decoration under Flavius Archelaos, prefect of Lydia
- Date
- “Postérieure à 400 en raison des monnaies trouvées sous la mosaique” (D. Feissel, BE 2009, 616); Evans offers a terminus post quem of ca. 425 AD (Evans, M13, pp. 77–78, Deposit 1)., Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- IN90.021
- Material
- Mosaic
- Object Type
- Mosaic, Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Building Inscription
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
Ἐκεντήθη ὁ ἔνβολος καὶ πάντα τὸν κόσμον εἴληφεν ἐπὶ Φλαβίου 4 Ἀρχελάου τοῦ λαμ(προτάτου) κόμ(ητος) πρώτου βαθμ[οῦ] διέπον- τος τὴν ἔπαρχον ἐξουσείαν. leaf
- Inscription Translation
- “The portico was laid with mosaics and got the entire decoration when the clarissimus count of the first rank Flavius Archelaos was administering the office of prefect of the province (Lydia).”
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- MMS/N
- Trench
- MMS/N 90.1
- Locus
- MMS/N 90.1 Locus 13
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E141 - E143 / S27.5 - S31 ca *98.5
- Findspot
- MMS/N, south colonnade, lower mosaic (under no.
431 ). Mosaic depot.
- Description
Mosaic inscription from Lower Mosaic of south colonnade of Roman Colonnaded Avenue. “Mosaic with geometrical motifs…; inscription in the center within a rectangular panel with double frame” (SEG 41).
- Comments
1 For κεντέω, κέντησις, see L. Robert, RPhil 1958, p. 49 n. 9 (= id., Op. Min. V, p. 189); Hellenica XI–XII, p. 34 n. 7; J. and L. Robert, BE 1966, 229; and BE 1968, 478 (on Kroll, “Inscr. Synagogue,” no. 3 [= no. 488]); SEG refers also to Ph. Bruneau, JSav 1988, p. 58 (SEG 38, 1988) and Gnomon 65 (1993), p. 535; M. Donderer, Die Mosaizisten der Antike (1989), pp. 18–19.
ὁ ἔνβολος: see no. 427, 1–2; SEG 41 refers to SEG 38, 1651.
3–4 “Flavius Archelaus is possibly identical with the homonymous vir clarissimus and comes on record in an inscription from…Syria dated 349 A.D.” [= AE 1933, 17] (SEG, P. Herrmann apud Greenewalt; cf. BE 1993, 491). “S(cheibelreiter) a raison d’exclure toute identification à un homonyme connu” (D. Feissel, BE 2009, 616).
4–6 cf. no. 423, 1 comm.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- Mentioned by C. H. Greenewalt, jr., in KST 13, 1 (1991), pp. 458, 465 (photograph); “we read the text from the photo”: SEG 41, 1031, with addendum SEG 44, 973 (C. Brixhe and A. Panayotou, BE 1993, 491; AE 1993, 1504; D. Feissel, Antiquité Tardive 6 [1998], p. 97, no. 5). Scheibelreiter, Stifterinschriften, pp. 33–35, no. 5, with a drawing of the site and photograph, figs. 10–11.
- Author
- GP