MAMA XI 387 (Southern Lykaonia)
Church door lintel
- Type of monument:
- Church door lintel.
- Location:
- Kesmez (Southern Lykaonia): in a rough building of large blocks, including many spolia, on the lower outskirts of the village.
- Description:
- Reddish trachyte door-lintel, broken at both upper corners. In the centre of the upper moulding, a cross in a circle, flanked by two tabulae ansatae.
- Dimensions:
- Ht. 0.35; W. 1.65; Th. 0.60; letters 0.030-0.050.
- Record:
- Partial squeeze; AH notebook copy; photograph (1957/56=5821).
- Publication:
- Laminger-Pascher 1992: 115, no. 158 (from the photograph published by K. Belke, TIB Galatien Abb.32).
- Date:
- Fifth or sixth century AD.
† αὕτη ἡ πύλη [εἰσ]ελε̣ύσον-
τοῦ Κ(υρίο)υ· δίκεοι [ται] ἐν α̣ὐτῇ †
This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter therein.
Illustrations:
MAMA XI 387 (Southern Lykaonia 19: 1957-56)
Squeeze of MAMA XI 387 (Southern Lykaonia 19: 1957-56)
This inscription is a citation from Psalm 117:20. In late antiquity, this verse was very commonly inscribed on the lintels of churches; some thirty examples are collected by Feissel 1984: 225-6; Dagron and Feissel 1987: 52. For another example in southern Lykaonia, see Laminger-Pascher 1992: 60, no. 58 (Fisandon, territory of Laranda).
The village of Kesmez, east of Karapınar on the slopes of the Karaca Dağ, marks the site of a late Roman and early Byzantine settlement, perhaps the ancient Thebasa: see TIB Galatien 232-4 s.v. Thēbasa; Laminger-Pascher 1992: 114-5.