842. Christian funerary inscription

Description:
Tomb-slab of grey limestone (w: 0.92 x h: 1.80).  
Text:
The inscription is cut in the arms of a lightly-recessed processional cross (w: 0.83 x h: 1.03, plus handle 0.22) from which hangs the customary A and Omega. There appears to have been an erased line of inscription, possibly contemporary, above the cross.  
Letters:
0.04-0.095. a) horizontal. b) vertical. 
Date:
Fifth to sixth century A.D. (context)  
Findspot:
Lepcis Magna: I Cemetery; Found in situ in the cemetery adjoining Church III, at the head of the Colonnaded Street.  
Original Location:
Findspot 
Last recorded location:
Findspot 
Bibliography:
Not previously published. This edition taken from J. M. Reynolds and J. B. Ward-Perkins, The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, Rome: British School at Rome, 1952.  
Text constituted from:
Transcription (Reynolds, Ward-Perkins) 
a
ΖΩΗ
b
ΦΩΣ crux PRIMOS
a
ΖΩΗ
b
ΦΩΣ crux PRIMOS
<div type="textpart" n="a" >
<ab>
<lb n="1" />
<orig >
ζωη
</orig>
</ab>
</div>
<div type="textpart" n="b" >
<ab>
<lb n="1" />
<orig >
φως
</orig>
<g type="crux" > </g>
<orig >
Primos
</orig>
</ab>
</div>

Translation:

(a) Life. (b) Light. (cross) Primos

Commentary:

For the formula ζωή φῶς arranged cross-wise see Diehl, Bulletin archéologique du Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1909, CLVII and 335-7, and Cabrol - Leclercq, Dictionannaire d'Archeologie Chretienne V.I. 1375 and fig. 4343; a characteristic sixth century formula.

Photographs:

Ward-Perkins Archive, BSR (Sopr. DLM 1383 Leica)
 Ward-Perkins Archive, BSR (Sopr. DLM 1383 Leica)

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