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ends divided like the corresponding part of a hinge; a pin is passed through both; and from the ring at the top a cord of some kind would pass to a corresponding ring on the other end, by which it would be carried round the neck of the cleric or the lay custodian.

Mr. Longfield has called my attention to a shrine, described in Worsaae's "Catalogue of the Copenhagen Museum," very similar in shape to this which I now exhibit. It will be found at p. 110 of that work. The bosses are in the same positions. The roof is hipped, but, with this difference, that it is slightly curved. Where in our shrine there is a plate covering the joining of the sides and the roof, there are in the Copenhagen shrine two hinges, to allow it to be opened. The scroll-work both on the sides, roof, and bosses, shows distinctly that it is of Irish workmanship.

XIX.

ON A STONE WITH A GREEK

INSCRIPTION

(EARLY BY CHARLES H.

CHRISTIAN) FROM UPPER EGYPT.
KEENE, M.A. (Plate XI.)

(COMMUNICATED BY REV. J. H. BERNARD.)

[Read FEBRUARY 8, 1892.]

THE stone now exhibited (Plate XI.) I brought from Upper Egypt last spring. It was said to have been found at Erment, the ancient Hermonthis, a few miles above Luxor, and it was in the neighbourhood of that place I obtained it. The Rev. Maxwell Close has kindly examined the stone, and pronounces it to be chalk.

It is one foot nine inches long, eight inches high, and about three inches thick, with one side smoothed, so as to receive the inscription, and the other left in its rough state. It was evidently intended to close a niche in a columbarium similar to those still so common in Italian cemeteries.

The inscription, which I have not been able to find in any published collection, is as follows:

:

ΠΡΙΝ ΣΕ ΛΕΓΕΙΝ Ω ΤYMBE TIC Η TINOC ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΑΙ

Н СТАН ВОАА ПАСІ ПАРЕРХОMENOIC

COMA MEN ENOAAE KEITAI AEIMNHCTOY MAKA_ PEIHC

NC EOOC EYCEBEON гEYCAMENON OANATOY ΑΥΤΗ Δ' ΟΥΡΑΝΙΗΝ ΑΓΙΩΝ ΠΟΛΙΝ ΑΜΦΙΠΟΛΕΥΕΙ MICOON ΕΧΟΥΣΑ ΠΟΝΩΝ ΟΥΡΑΝΙΟΥΣ CTE EXOYCA

ΦΑΝΟΥΣ

"Before thou canst say, O tomb, who or whose child lies here, the stele proclaims to all who pass, the body lies here of the ever-to-beremembered Makareia, having tasted death, as is the wont of the pious, but she herself is a ministering spirit in the heavenly city of the saints, having a heavenly crown as a reward for her sufferings."

The phrase Tís Tívos, in the first line, occurs several times in the Anthology.

Aurý, "herself," in the fifth line, of course denotes the spirit, as distinguished from the body, and presents an interesting contrast to the Homeric point of view in the well-known passage at the beginning of the Iliad, where the same word denotes the body, as distinguished from the spirit.

The only word in the inscription that presents a difficulty is Makaρeins. This we must suppose to stand, by poetic licence, for Makapías, a variation the more natural, as and a are often confounded by scribes, and, indeed, Cobet remarks that he never saw a MS. in which the confusion did not occur.

The use

Makapia may be either an adjective or a proper name. of μακάριος in the same sense as μακαρίτης, i.e. the departed, in reference to the dead, is found in Plat. Legg. 947 D. If this be the sense here, however, the name of the deceased will not appear at all, and we cannot suppose it to have occurred in another part of the inscription, for the incised border by which it is surrounded shows that we have the entire epitaph.

It is best to suppose that Μακαρείης)α stands for Μακαρία, proper name. The name was borne by at least two martyrs mentioned in the martyrologies, and the festival of one of these was celebrated at Alexandria. It is hardly possible, however, to identify the lady referred to, though, doubtless, the reference to sufferings and a heavenly crown would be suitable on a martyr's tomb.

Below the inscription there is a remarkable combination of Greek and Egyptian symbols, for the monogram of Christus stands beside the ankh, or symbol of life, which, on Egyptian monuments, is so familiar as an emblem in the hands of gods and kings.

The familiar monogram of Christus occurs twice, the ankh once. There is a fourth symbol, which consists of a p with a transverse stroke across the stem, and which, at the first glance, might be supposed to be the unskilful attempt of a Greek stone-cutter to represent the Egyptian ankh. This view is to some extent favoured by the shape of the symbol and the symmetry of the design, for the archaically rounded head of the p is not unlike the loop of the ankh, and the position of the transverse line in both is identical; and as the monogram of Christus is twice repeated, once on the left extremity and once on the right, the design would be symmetrical if the Egyptian symbol of life were given twice in the centre. It seems pretty certain, however, that the symbol is what is known as the transverse

monogram of Christus. This form of the monogram is somewhat later than the other. It is said to be for the most part used when it is desired to emphasize the mode of Christ's death on the Cross, and is therefore, as being the great Christian emblem, specially suitable in conjunction with the important religious symbol of Egypt, the ankh.

In attempting to assign a date to the inscription, we must take the form of the letters as the principal guide. From a comparison of the characters with the tables given by Gardthausen, in his Griechische Palaeographie, it appears that the letters in the inscription whose forms are sufficiently distinctive to furnish a criterion of date are a, ß, y, d, e, i, λ, p, and perhaps w. The forms of these letters correspond closely with the specimens given by Gardthausen from the Sinaitic MS., and we would thus be led to fix the date of the inscription in the fourth or fifth century A.D., though, of course, it is possible that the old forms of the letters were preserved longer in inscriptions than in MSS. This resemblance is very striking in the a, consisting of an acute-angled triangle applied to the middle of the lower or left-hand side of a line sloping upwards from right to left; in the ẞ, with the upper loop considerably smaller than the lower; in the 8, the righthand line of which is continued beyond the apex of the triangle, and in the λ, which has more resemblance to the ordinary small λ than to the usual uncial form. The is in several cases, though not in all, prolonged so as to rise above and descend below the line, thus corresponding with one of the forms of that letter in the Sinaitic MS. The resemblance in the form of the p is also very remarkable, and the w has the same high centre stroke and inward curving sides that are found in the MS. The μ, though it does not depart widely from the Sinaitic type, is nearer to a form quoted by Gardthausen as belonging to the seventh century. It may, however, be referred to the sixth century, as it appears to be the regular form in Codex Z, in Trinity College Library, and in the Cyril Papyrus recently deciphered by Professor Bernard, both of which belong to that century.

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The

Of the 7, we find two distinct forms in the inscription. older, which resembles the 7 of the Codex Sinaiticus, in the absence of projecting extremities to the transverse stroke, occurs only at the commencement of the first word, and is perhaps used much as we would use a capital at the beginning. The other form has projecting extremities to the horizontal stroke, as is the case in the Codex Alexandrinus, belonging to the fifth century.

The a, ẞ, y, 8, and κ correspond closely to those on the Rosetta

R.I.A. PROC., SER. III., VOL. II.

2 B

stone (196 B.c.), and the inscription, as a whole, resembles that stone in the words not being divided from one another, in the absence of breathings, accents, and marks of punctuation, and in the square shape of the letters, which are as broad as they are high.

The only diacritic sign in the inscription is an apostrophe, to mark the elision of thee of dè in the fifth line.

The letter, which in the Codex Sinaiticus has the horizontal line strengthened on the left side by a point or small knob, in the inscription agrees with the Rosetta stone, and is found in the oldest form, consisting of two straight lines of like thickness, the horizontal being bisected by the lower and vertical one.

It may be remarked, that the shapes of the a and μ are distinctively characteristic of Egyptian writing, being known as the Coptic a and μ.

On the whole, the form of the letters would seem to place the date of the inscription between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D.

The name Makapía may possibly point to the same period. As has been said above, it is hardly possible to identify the woman referred to under that name, but it is perhaps not unreasonable to conjecture that Makapía may have been a favourite name among female believers, owing to the fame of several Christians who, in the early centuries, bore the name of Macarius. It will suffice to mention two of these-Macarius Ægyptius, commonly called the Great, whe lived in Scete, or Scetis, a part of the great Libyan desert, and Macarius of Alexandria, called Toλirikós, who was a victim of the persecution of Valens. Both of these men, who died at the ages of 90 and 100 years respectively, lived between 300 and 400 ▲.D.

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