ISic001655: Epitaph of Nassiana
Edition
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Apparatus criticus
- Text of Ferrua 1940, controlled against photograph ;
- 11: Ferrua suggests that a monogram of some sort may be missing before the name
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A circular disc of white marble, borken into at least five fragments, reconnected with plaster; a small part missing from the upper middle, and much of the lower left quadrant lost. The pieces were found scattered and original context is uncertain; the stone is itself, in Orsi's view, a re-use, with the older use being 'una elegante corona di lauro con bacche' carved on the reverse.
- Object type
- plaque
- Object condition
- fragments, contiguous
- Dimensions
- height: 29 cm, width: 29 cm, depth: cm
Material
- Description
- marble
- Type > subtype
- stone.marble > unverified
Inscription
- Layout
- The text is set out over 14 lines (including the christograms), and becomes more compressed and uneven in the lower section; a palm branch occupies part of the space lower right.
- Text condition
- incomplete
- Technique
- chiselled
- Pigment
- No data
- Lettering
Lunate sigma and epsilon, cursive mu, uncial omega.
- Letter heights
- Line 1: mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Syracusae
- Provenance found
- Found in pieces in two separate campaigns (1895 and 1896) in the soil in the vicinity of the 'tomba del Santo', in the Catacomb of S.Giovanni; now on display in Sector F of the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Sicilia
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi
- 14439
- Autopsy
- None
- Map
Date
Christian (AD 301 - AD 600)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The text was essentially established by Ferrua, who disposed of the speculative restorations of Strazzulla and clarified the various orthographic variations.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645092
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Paolo Orsi, «Nuove esplorazioni nelle catacombe di S. Giovanni nel 1894», Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1895, 477–521, at (1895), 509 no. 234
- Paolo Orsi, «Gli scavi a S. Giovanni a Siracusa», Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Alterthumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte 10 (1896): 1–59, at 14 no. 13 (282)
- V. Strazzulla, «Osservazioni all’epigrafe di Chrysiane in S. Giovanni di Siracusa e di alcuni rapporti tra la Sicilia e l’Asia anteriore», Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Alterthumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte 11 (1897): 1–29.
- Antonio Ferrua, «Nuovi studi nelle catacombe di Siracusa», Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 17 (1940): 43–81, at 69 no.12
- S.L. Agnello, Silloge di iscrizioni paleocristiane della Sicilia (Rome, 1953), at no.102
- Vittorio Giovanni Rizzone, Opus Christi edificabit: stati e funzioni dei cristiani di Sicilia attraverso l’apporto dell’epigrafia (secoli IV-VI), Documenti e studi di Synaxis 25 (Troina: Citta aperta edizioni, 2011), at 262-263
- Gioconda Lamagna e R. Amato, La Rotonda di Adelfia. Testimonianze archeologiche dalla catacomba di S. Giovanni (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2014), at 24 no.4
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 5/11/2026