An ancient Greek tombstone reused in a village house has revealed the first documented physician in Mysia Abbaeitis, a region of Roman Anatolia in present-day western Turkey. The stone names Alexandros and honors him as “the best physician of all,” providing the earliest inscriptional evidence of a doctor in the area, according to a 2026 study.
The memorial was recorded in Ihlamur village, in the Simav district of Kütahya province. Historian Ahmet Türkan of Eskişehir Osmangazi University examined it among seven previously unpublished inscriptions documented during archaeological surveys led by Zerrin Erdinç in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Published in the journal Gephyra, the research explores what the texts reveal about ancient communities.
The gravestone is a gray marble block measuring 33 centimeters (13 inches) high and 36 centimeters (14 inches) wide. Its top and bottom are damaged, but six lines of Greek lettering survive. The block remains set into the wall of a house.
Ancient Greek tombstone names a physician in Roman Anatolia
The surviving Greek text indicates that a woman dedicated the memorial to her young children, Alexandros and Onesimos, and her husband, also named Alexandros. The woman’s name is missing from the damaged text. She described her husband as “all-wise” and praised his medical work in the dedication.
Türkan identified the Greek word used for Alexandros’ profession as a poetic term meaning doctor. It is the first known inscription naming a physician in Mysia, Abbaeitis. The study dates the stone to the fourth or fifth century A.D.
The description “all-wise” is also unusual. Türkan noted that the Greek word appears in relatively few inscriptions elsewhere, many dating to late antiquity.
Mysia Abbaeitis lay between the ancient regions of Lydia, Mysia and Phrygia. Its two principal cities were Synaos and Ankyra Sidera. The area had relatively little urban development, making the newly recorded texts useful evidence of life beyond its main settlements.
Other stones reveal family bonds and Emperor Trajan
Other inscriptions studied by Türkan tell family stories. One honors Nike, a foster mother commemorated by Telesphoros. Another was erected for Ammion by her mother, Ammias. A second gravestone embedded in the same house as Alexandros’ memorial records two sons honoring their father, Diokles, and their mother, Polla, who was still alive when it was made.
A separate inscription, dated to A.D. 112 or 113, honors Emperor Trajan and provides the earliest inscriptional references to Ankyra Sidera and Krollenon. It also supplies the first firm evidence that the region used the Actian dating system. Together, the seven texts preserve names, family ties, and civic details from a region with a limited surviving record.
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