Jesus Dynasty Blog
Reading the Names on the Mariamene Ossuary
03/16/2007
By Dr. James D. Tabor
March 16, 2007 @ 8:28 pm.
For those unfamiliar with Greek all the discussions about epigraphy and paleography regarding the Talpiot ossuary inscriptions can be a bit confusing. Let me summarize two views that have been proposed regarding the Mariamene inscription and how it reads. I want to emphasize here that the epigraphy discussion, per se, should be unconnected to speculations or proposals as to who this woman (or these women) might have been in relation to the discussion of whether or not the Talpiot tomb might be the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.
The clear issue is rather how does on properly read the inscription itself, that is, what does it say?
- The reading proposed by Rahmani, the editor of standard Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the State of Israel Collection (and supported by Leah Di Segni who recently revisited the question) is the following:
[This is the ossuary] of Mariamene [aka] Mara
According to this reading we have two names for one woman. The first name is rare in this diminutive form, it is in the possessive case (showing whose ossuary this is), and the “aka” is signified by a little stroke that stands for the Greek letter “eta,” which is the feminine article, like saying “the one also known as.”
- The “corrected” reading proposed by Stephen Pfann and others (though I have only seen Stephen’s paper on this so far):
Mariame and Mara
According to this reading there is no name “Mariamne” at all, but rather the more common name Mariame, and then the name of a second woman named Mara (that Pfann takes as Martha). Pfann also thinks the second name was added later, by a different “hand.” His conclusion is that the ossuary held two women.
So to put it simply:
One woman with two names, including the rarer form Mariamne or
Two woman with two separate but more common names, Mariame & Mara/Martha.
In considering this question I encourage those interested with access to Rahmani to also look at ossuary #108 in his catalog, where we have a second “Mariamne,” also in the genitive, with just the same style and form of letters. It seems to me to be rather decisive in favor of Rahmani, et al. More on this later.
To read more entries of Dr. Tabor’s blog, please visit his website at The Jesus Dynasty Blog site.
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