TY - JOUR
T1 - Gertrude Bell’s resolution of a disputed inscription
AU - Cadwallader, Rev Prof Alan Harold
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - One inscribed tombstone was placed at Appa station on the Ottoman Railway line from İzmir to Dinar. The inscription was published by three different copyists in the course of eleven years. Each person who transcribed the inscription, Georg Weber, William Mitchell Ramsay and Georges Cousin, made no acknowledgement of each other. Moreover, each transcription and reconstruction differed from the other in more lines than the number of lines in which they were in agreement; the provenance for the stone was credited to different locations and the minimal description of the form of the stone left considerable doubt as to the tombstone’s design. No sketch or photograph was provided. The names on the epitaph have been assigned by the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names to a site (Sanaos) to which none of the three published editions actually tied the inscription. The dispute might have been left unresolved, but for a photograph taken by Gertrude Bell in 1907. She never published it, but, for her, it was the fitting compensation for a failed visit to the site of Colossae. By careful enhancement of the photograph and close study of its contents, the three disputed elements – the form of the tombstone, its original location and the wording of the inscription – can be resolved to a high degree of probability. The restored inscription becomes particularly valuable for a name that may connect with one of the (in)famous features of Colossian religious life — the worship of angels.
AB - One inscribed tombstone was placed at Appa station on the Ottoman Railway line from İzmir to Dinar. The inscription was published by three different copyists in the course of eleven years. Each person who transcribed the inscription, Georg Weber, William Mitchell Ramsay and Georges Cousin, made no acknowledgement of each other. Moreover, each transcription and reconstruction differed from the other in more lines than the number of lines in which they were in agreement; the provenance for the stone was credited to different locations and the minimal description of the form of the stone left considerable doubt as to the tombstone’s design. No sketch or photograph was provided. The names on the epitaph have been assigned by the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names to a site (Sanaos) to which none of the three published editions actually tied the inscription. The dispute might have been left unresolved, but for a photograph taken by Gertrude Bell in 1907. She never published it, but, for her, it was the fitting compensation for a failed visit to the site of Colossae. By careful enhancement of the photograph and close study of its contents, the three disputed elements – the form of the tombstone, its original location and the wording of the inscription – can be resolved to a high degree of probability. The restored inscription becomes particularly valuable for a name that may connect with one of the (in)famous features of Colossian religious life — the worship of angels.
KW - epigraphy, Colossae, onomastics, epitaphs, burial monuments, Gertrude Bell
UR - https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/gephyra
U2 - 10.37095/gephyra.708896
DO - 10.37095/gephyra.708896
M3 - Article
SN - 1309-3924
VL - 20
SP - 1
EP - 26
JO - Gephyra
JF - Gephyra
ER -