Stela of Eulogia

The grief provoked by the sudden death of a young person is conveyed by the inscription on this marble stela of Eulogia. The Coptic text is preceded by a cross, after which there is a lament for the dead: ‘Oh, death – a bitter name in anyone’s mouth – that cuts a man off and keeps him apart from his father, a daughter from her mother, a bride from her groom! I, pitiful Eulogia, I who was still a small girl, so young, and lived for such a short while – was suddenly wrenched away by death, while I was blooming like a lily in the field’. The young Eulogia’s date of death is given, and can be rendered according to the Gregorian calendar as 2 October 759.