Past, Present, and Future. Encoding and Accessing Memories in Epigraphy in Post-Classical Mediterranean. On-line workshop, Leiden University, 13–15 January 2021.
Paweł Nowakowski is giving a talk at the on-line workshop Past, Present, & Future. Encoding and Accessing Memories in Epigraphy in Post-Classical Mediterranean, Leiden University, 13–15 January 2021.
The workshop is organised by Grzegorz Ochała within the framework of his IaM NUBIAN project, funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 842112.
Please, register by sending an email to g.p.ochala@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Paper’s title: Epigraphy, historical memory, and a kneading-trough at the abbey of Qartmīn (13 January, 12.30pm CET)
Abstract: In 1907 Henri Pognon published a Syriac inscription from a massive limestone slab with a sunken surface, to be found in the nave of the ‘great church’ of the abbey of Qartmīn. Since that time, the object has been commented on by a number of scholars, and in 1987 Andrew Palmer produced a revised edition. Interested scholars agree that the stone served as a kneading-trough, originally installed elsewhere in the monastery, almost certainly in a domed octagonal building of unknown purpose, situated ‘next to the kitchens’. The intriguing inscription, incised onto one of the narrow sides of the trough, describes how the stone was quarried and brought to the abbey by a certain Zechariah of the village of ‘Aynwardo, aided by his cousin, Isaiah of Fofyath, in AD 776/777. Notwithstanding, the story is in striking opposition to a passage from The Life of Mor Gabriel of Qartmīn where the hagiographer credits the protagonist (ob. 648) with having brought the impressive stone to the convent in a most miraculous way. In my talk I shall be looking to explore the interplay between the intentions and methods of the work of the hagiographer, and the historical testimony of the inscription (apparently ignored, though still clearly visible to the entire monastic community of Qartmīn when The Life… was penned sometime in the mid-ninth cent.). Similar cases of objects triggering the distortuous historical imagination of Eastern hagiographers, for example, a broken marble lid from the reliquary of Saint Niketas the Goth at his martyr shrine at Mopsuestia, or a door-jamb damaged during a monastic strife at the Great Laura in Palestine, will also be discussed.
Programme of the workshop.