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Epiphanios metropolitan of Kotyaeion (tenth century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of the Virgin her hands held before her, palms outward. On the right: Θ̅Υ: [Μ(ήτη)ρ] Θ(εο)ῦ. Along the border of dots a circular inscription:

ΘΚΕ,ΤΣΔΟΥΛ,

Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ

Reverse

Inscription of four lines beginning with a cross. Border of dots.

+ΕΠΙΦ
ΑΝΗΤΡ
ΟΠΟΛ,ΚΟΤ
ΥΑΓΙΟΥ

Ἐπιφαν(ίῳ) μητροπολ(ίτῃ) Κοτυαγίου

Obverse

Bust of the Virgin her hands held before her, palms outward. On the right: Θ̅Υ: [Μ(ήτη)ρ] Θ(εο)ῦ. Along the border of dots a circular inscription:

ΘΚΕ,ΤΣΔΟΥΛ,

Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ

Reverse

Inscription of four lines beginning with a cross. Border of dots.

+ΕΠΙΦ
ΑΝΗΤΡ
ΟΠΟΛ,ΚΟΤ
ΥΑΓΙΟΥ

Ἐπιφαν(ίῳ) μητροπολ(ίτῃ) Κοτυαγίου

Accession number BZS.1958.106.290
Diameter 15.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 50.3;
Laurent, Corpus, V/2, no. 1598.

Translation

Θεοτόκε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλῳ Ἐπιφανίῳ μητροπολίτῃ Κοτυαγίου.

Mother of God, help your servant Epiphanios, metropolitan of Kotyaeion.

Commentary

The spelling of the name with a gamma is not unknown; it occurs as a variant among the manuscripts used by Darrouzès, Notitiae, no. 8 (Κοτυἅγιον: see the apparatus criticus on line 50).

The see of Kotyaeion/Kotyaion (modern Kütahya) was represented at the Council of Ephesos in 431. It was initially a suffragan bishoproc of Phrygia Salutaria (Synada); it became an archbishopric in the late VIIIth/early IXth century and a metropolis (with three suffragan bishoprics) before the early Xth. See Laurent, Corpus V/2, 429-30; Darrouzès, Notitiae, p. 44, and no. 3, line 420, no. 7, line 44, 669-72; Zgusta, 294-95, ODB II, 1154.

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)
  • Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
  • Kleinasiatische Ortsnamen (Open in Zotero)