On 5–6 December, Pawel will present a paper titled “Domestic” inscriptions from the Limestone Massif (North Syria) as manifestations of religiosity in late antique townscapes at the workshops “Artemis in the Taberna. Religious Entanglement and Appropriation in Urban Spaces,” organized by Verena Fugger and Anna-Katharina Rieger at the Austrian Archeological Institute, Vienna.

Abstract: Subsequent surveys of the towns and villages of the Limestone Massif in North Syria brought us unique datasets for the history of settlement networks in the hinterland of Antioch-on-the-Orontes in Late Antiquity. In the voluminous publications by Howard Butler’s American/Princeton Archaeological Expeditions to Syria, George Tchalenko’s missions, and subsequently of more recent Syrian, French, and German explorers, one comes across a significant number of reports signalling the presence of Greek and Syriac inscriptions commemorating the construction of ordinary houses and dwellings, and of graffiti (or better: “secondary inscriptions”) casually scratched on the walls of buildings. Often overshadowed by the spectacular epigraphy of churches and large civic establishments, these “domestic” inscriptions also deserve a study of their own. Even more since a usual part of their formulae are religious exclamations, prayers, and requests for protection which may illustrate the religious mindset of the local dwellers. In my paper, I will explore the types of religious contents one can find in these texts and will contextualize them in the realities of life in a late antique small town.

Workshop programme.

Abstracts.