Niketas bishop of Andros (eleventh century)
Obverse
Bust of the Virgin holding Christ. Sigla partially preserved at left: ̅ : Μήτηρ Θεοῦ. Border of dots.
Obverse
Bust of the Virgin holding Christ. Sigla partially preserved at left: ̅ : Μήτηρ Θεοῦ. Border of dots.
Reverse
Inscription of six lines. Border of dots.
.ΘΚΕ
..ΗΘΕΙ
Ν..ΗΤΑ
.ΠΙΣΚΟ
ΠΑΝ
ΤΡ
Θεοτόκε βοήθει Νικήτᾳ ἐπισκόπῳ Ἄντρου
Accession number | BZS.1958.106.143 |
---|---|
Diameter | 20.0 mm; field: 16.0 mm |
Previous Editions | DO Seals 2, no. 45.1. |
Translation
Θεοτόκε βοήθει Νικήτᾳ ἐπισκόπῳ Ἄντρου.
Theotokos, help Niketas bishop of Andros.
Bibliography
- Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 2: South of the Balkans, the Islands, South of Asia Minor (Open in Zotero)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- Grammatik der byzantinischen Chroniken (Open in Zotero)
- Les îles de l’empire byzantin: VIIIe-XIIe siècles (Open in Zotero)
- Βυζαντιακὰ μολυβδόβουλλα τοῦ ἐν ἈΘήναις Ἐθνικοῦ Νομισματικοῦ Μουσείου (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 1 (Open in Zotero)
- Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
- Hierarchia Ecclesiastica Orientalis: Series episcoporum ecclesiarum christianarum orientalium (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
Note the demotic form Ἄντρου instead of Ἄνδρου. Cf. Psaltes, Grammatik, 94-95. Malamut, Iles, 366, fails to mention our seal in her list of the bishops of Andros.
The island of Andros, located southeast of Euboia, was organized as a bishopric, suffragan to Rhodes, by the mid-5th century. It seems that the island, affluent enough to constitute a separate dioikesis for the collection of taxes (Konstantopoulos, no. 101; Zacos-Veglery, no. 2388), was not abandoned during the Arab maritime raids of the 9th century. At the turn of the 10th it was attached to the metropolis of Athens (Darrouzès, Notitiae, no. 7, line 500). See Laurent, Corpus V/1, 536; Fedalto, 206-7; Malamut, Iles, esp. 210-12, 341, 347.