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The "people" (of the monastery) of Kellivara (eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of Christ; indistinct. On either side the inscription: ισ̅-χ̅ : Ἰ(ησοῦ)ς Χ(ριστός). Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines. Border of dots:

+γραφ,
σφραγ,λα
τ..κε
λιRαρ

Γραφ(ὰς) σφραγ(ίζω) λαοῦ τ[ῶν] Κελιβάρ(ων).

Obverse

Bust of Christ; indistinct. On either side the inscription: ισ̅-χ̅ : Ἰ(ησοῦ)ς Χ(ριστός). Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines. Border of dots:

+γραφ,
σφραγ,λα
τ..κε
λιRαρ

Γραφ(ὰς) σφραγ(ίζω) λαοῦ τ[ῶν] Κελιβάρ(ων).

Accession number BZS.1951.31.5.3154
Diameter 16.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 22.3.

Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Thomas Whittemore.

Translation

Γραφὰς σφραγίζω λαοῦ τῶν Κελιβάρων.

I seal the writings of the people (i.e. community) of Kellivara.

Commentary

Dodecasyllabic. The laura of Kellibara, related by traditionto monks from Sinai, is attested from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. See Janin, Grands centres, 229-32. The expression λαὸς τῶν Κελλιβάρων should indicate the monastic community, taken as a militant corps (λαός usually means the army).

The monastic community of Mt. Latros was situated near Milet in Caria. The first secure traces of the community date from the year 787. The community benefited from the largess on the part of Romanos I Lakapenos, suffered considerably from the Turks, starting with the late 70s of the eleventh century, had a new period of flourishing in the twelfth century, and survived until the fourteenth century. It contained several monasteries, the most important of which were the ones of Stylos (or St. Paul) and of Kellibara. The whole monastic community formed a kind of confederation with an archimandrites at its head. See Laurent, Corpus V/2, 156; Janin, Grands centres, 215-40; ODB II, 1188-89; and D. Stiernon in DHGE, fasc. 143 (1993) 1399-1403.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 3: West, Northwest, and Central Asia Minor and the Orient (Open in Zotero)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
  • La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, vol. 2, Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins (Open in Zotero)
  • Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Open in Zotero)