Nabk: Fresco Painters
Arabic: zayyān
Date: 1192-93
A fresco of the evangelist Matthew in the church of the monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi, near Nabk, includes an Arabic inscription. The text is dated 1504 of the Seleucid calendar (= 558-59/1192-93) and states that the fresco sequence was undertaken ‘by the hands of the decorator (zayyān) Sarkis, son of the priest Ghali ibn Barran’. See also: House painter; Limestone and gypsum burner.
Citation: Toueir, Kassim, ‘Appendix II: The Arabic Inscriptions’, pp. 156-79 in Erica Dodd (with Leonard Chiarelli, James Martin, John McCullough, Kassim Toueir and Nicholas Zammuto), The Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Habashi: A Study in Medieval Painting in Syria, Studies and Texts 139 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2001), pp. 170-72, 178, 179.