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Ignatios bishop of Bathia (tenth/eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of a bearded saint blessing with his right hand and holding a book in his left hand. Unintelligible traces of an inscription. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines, a decoration above. Border of dots.


ηγνα
τεπησ
κRαθι
ασ

Ἠγνάτ(ιος) ἐπήσκ(οπος) Βαθίας

Obverse

Bust of a bearded saint blessing with his right hand and holding a book in his left hand. Unintelligible traces of an inscription. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of four lines, a decoration above. Border of dots.


ηγνα
τεπησ
κRαθι
ασ

Ἠγνάτ(ιος) ἐπήσκ(οπος) Βαθίας

Accession number BZS.1955.1.4646
Diameter 20.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 4, no. 33.1.

Translation

Ἠγνάτιος ἐπήσκοπος Βαθίας.

Ignatios, bishop of Bathia.

Commentary

No mention is made of a Bathia in the Notitiae Episcopatuum. A similar place-name (Βαθὺς λιμήν) referred to the modern city of Batumi in the southeastern corner of the Black Sea (Bryer-Winfield, Pontos, 346-47), and to a monastery of the Mount Latros confederation (Janin, Grands centres, 222-23). Of the two, Batumi is more likely to have been the seat of a bishop in the tenth century. It was a rising Georgian town that could well have been held by the Byzantines round 950 (when Byzantine occupation east of the Çoroh is attested: cf. Tziliãpert, "Organisation," 287-88), and certainly after the campaigns of Basil II in the year 1000. The absence of the bishopric from the existing notitiae may be explained by the brief duration of Byzantine control.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 4: The East (Open in Zotero)
  • The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos (Open in Zotero)
  • La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, Vol. 1, Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat oecuménique, Pt. 3, Les églises et les monastères (Open in Zotero)
  • L’organisation de la frontière orientale de Byzance aux Xe-XIe siècles et Le Taktikon de l’Escorial (Open in Zotero)