New Roman Boundary Stone Discovery Writes of Lost Settlements
A new paper tells of a discovery in northern Galilee: a Roman boundary stone dated to the Roman 3rd century, and a surprise for researchers. The boundary stone, used to denote territorial limits and to act as a signpost, contains inscriptions relating to hitherto unknown people and places.
The boundary stone was originally discovered in 2022 in the northern Hula Valley, according to a paper published in Palestinian Exploration Quarterly. It was recovered from a grouping of burials from the Mamluk era some 1,000 years later, where it had apparently been recycled as a grave cover, its inscription face down.
The inscription has now been deciphered, and it reveals several new pieces of information about the Roman occupation of the Levant at this time. Firstly, it references a previously unknown imperial surveyor who was responsible for marking out the territory in the region: Baseileikos.
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The surveyor, know to Romans as a “censitor” was responsible for dividing the land for the purposes of implementing the tax reforms in Rome’s provinces, as ordered by the Roman Emperor Diocletian. These reforms, started in the late 3rd century, help narrow down a date for the stone, as does the fact that Diocletian is directly referenced on such stones.
Furthermore, two places are mentioned on the stone which are unknown: Tirthas and Golgol. The authors of the paper, Avner Ecker and Uzi Leibner, have hazarded a guess that these may be two places from a 19th century Palestinian survey, but these are only suggestions.
A large area of ruins 3.5k from where the boundary stone was found on the Mamluk grave is described by the survey as Kh. Turritha, a similarity which is probably beyond coincidence. The ruin is described as “large heaps of basalt stones” but somebody will have to visit the site in person to confirm whether this is a Roman-era settlement.
Golgol may be on or near Tell ‘Ajul, a low round hill less than a kilometer from where the boundary stone was found. Ajul and Golgol both have the same root derivation, GL meaning “round” and describing the hill. The Palestininian survey describes the hill as a “Tell” as does its modern name, suggesting it is a man-made feature.
Around 40 other such boundary stones are known, 22 of them (including this one) in the territory of Paneas specifically referenced at the top of the inscription. The stones date to the Tetrarchy period, during which the Diocletian toyed with the idea of a power sharing arrangement with two caesars, initially Diocletian and Maximian, each with an heir. This did not end well.
It also appears that the boundary stone may also show evidence of some kind of mass production process. The initial lines, which mention the Emperor Diocletian, are carefully carved and suggest that such stones were produced in bulk. The lower levels of the stone, containing information unique to this boundary, are much less well carved, for all the word like the stone was an ancient Roman form to be completed with site-specific details.
Header Image: The boundary stone, with a lot of forgotten information about this Roman province. Source: DOI: 10.1080/00310328.2024.2435218.
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