An ancient Greek funerary stele carved with two portrait busts and a Greek inscription has turned up in northwestern Syria, part of what local reports describe as an ancient burial.
The stone fragment was uncovered in the Bilbil district of the Afrin countryside, and it has since been moved to the Aleppo National Museum for safekeeping and study. Two figures are set one above the other in sunken panels, framed by a carved border.
The upper one is bare-headed, with thick curled hair and a garment draped across the chest, while the lower has a cloth pulled up over the head. Weathering has worn both faces nearly smooth. Below them, six lines of Greek inscription run across the foot of the slab.
A brother named “Aristophanes” and bones carried back from Alexandria
Ageed Hasan, a Kurdish activist, shared details of the find with Greek Reporter. He mentioned that the burial sits near Bilbil and was exposed during sewage work.
A possible reading of the inscription runs as follows:
“ΟΣΤΑ ΚΑΣΙΓΝΗΤΟΥ ΦΙΛΩΝΟΣ ΚΟΜΙΣΑΣ ΑΠΕΔΩΚΕΝ ΤΥΜΒΩΙ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΦΑΝΗΣ ΒΑΙΑ ΣΤΡΑΤΕΥΣΑΜΕΝΟΥ ΙΣΧΥΡΑ ΛΕΓΕΩΝΙ ΤΗΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΙΗΙ”
“Aristophanes, having brought back the bones of his brother Philon, restored them to the tomb; [Philon] having served [ΒΑΙΑ (?)] in the Strong Legion in Great Alexandria.”
That rendering remains preliminary, and a specialist will be needed to settle what the text actually says. The possible explanation is that a soldier died in service at Alexandria, in Roman Egypt, and that a family member carried his remains back for burial.
Local reports place the piece in the first centuries A.D., though a firm date will depend on close study of the carving, the letter forms and the stone itself, along with comparison against records of Greek inscriptions already known.
A Greek inscription and portrait busts deepen Syria’s Hellenistic record
Whatever the final reading, the Greek inscription and the busts add to a thin record of Greek and Roman presence in this corner of Syria, which sat inside the Seleucid kingdom before it passed to Rome.
That history runs deep in the Afrin countryside, which holds the ruins of Cyrrhus, known locally as Nebi Huri. The city was founded around 300 B.C. by Seleucus I Nicator, a Macedonian officer who served under Alexander the Great and built his own kingdom out of the wars that followed Alexander’s death in 323 B.C. He named it after a town in Macedonia.
Rome later turned Cyrrhus into a garrison town on the road from Antioch to the Euphrates crossing at Zeugma, and the Roman historian Tacitus places the Tenth Legion Fretensis there in A.D. 18.
The unit remained until it was transferred to Judaea after the Jewish revolt of 66 to 70. A grave marker for a soldier would not be out of place in a landscape like that.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
