Tales from Tombstones - The BAS Library

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Amid the desolate, rocky wasteland of Biblical Zoar, Konstantinos Politis and others have discovered hundreds of remarkable tombstones that preserve detailed portraits of life—and death—among the Christians and Jews who once dwelled there. The often brightly colored and intricately decorated stones are a treasure trove of information about these two communities during the fourth to sixth centuries C.E. when Zoar (then known as Zoara or Zoora) was the seat of a major Christian bishopric and also home to a significant Jewish population. In the accompanying article, two scholars expert in interpreting the epitaphs and iconography of these burial markers—Professor […]

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Endnotes

For a comprehensive study of these tombstones, which were entrusted by Dr. Konstantinos Politis for publication to Dr. Yiannis Meimaris of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens, Greece, see Yiannis E. Meimaris and Kalliope I. Kritikakou-Nikolaropoulou, Inscriptions from Palaestina Tertia, vols. Ia and Ib (Supplement). The Greek Inscriptions from Ghor es-Safi (Byzantine Zoora). Meletemata 41, 57 (Athens 2005, 2008).

See Yiannis E. Meimaris and Kalliope I. Kritikakou-Nikolaropoulou, “The Greek Inscriptions,” in Konstantinos D. Politis, ed., Sanctuary of Lot at Deir ‘Ain ‘Abata in Jordan. Excavations 1988–2003 (Amman 2011), pp. 388–389. See also Konstantinos Politis, “Where Lot’s Daughters Seduced Their Father,” BAR 30:01, p. 28.