A New Jewish Epitaph Commemorating Care for Orphans

Abstract

This article presents an edition of a previously unpublished Greek epitaph in the J. Willard Marriot Library at the University of Utah. The inscription commemorates a woman by the name of Helene who is identified as a Ἰουδαία and who was remembered for showing love to orphans. While Helene is identified as a Ἰουδαία she is also styled as an Ἄµα, a title that otherwise only occurs for certain Christian women in late antique Egypt. Thus, this inscription appears to resist a straightforward classification as it employs terminology that straddles religious categories.1