Saints Nestor & Demetrius in the church of Plumbuita monastery in Bucharest (current building dating from 1647). I hope someone - particularly among my Greek friends - might help me solve the puzzle of the writing on the wall - see description, please
The two saints are definitely Nestor and Demetrius - that much I could read on the wall. But the writing of their names puzzles me.
Doesn't seem church Slavonic or old Romanian cyrillic or any version of the Greek alphabet that I know of.
In 1585, this monastery in Bucharest was dedicated to Xeropotamou Monastery on Mount Athos by Wallachian prince Mihnea Turcitul, and remained so until 1864.
So the language is most likely what it seems - Greek: Agios Nestor and Agios Dimitrios.
But why is the first letter in the word for Saint "O" instead of "A"?
There are a few ligatures:
"N" with "E" in "Nestor";
"O" and "C" merged into something looking a little like "Q" in "Agios" and "Dimitrios";
Greek (and Slavonic) letter for G ("Г") in "Agios" seems ligated with some other letter that I can't identify in front of it.
In "Dimitrios", "τ" and "ρ" might be ligated. Also, in Dimitrios, the first "i" is written with a character identical to the Latin one, while the second "i" is written with the cyrillic "и", which is a hint the letters might be Romanian cyrillic which used both. But the language is not Romanian and there are glyphs not used in this script, as far as I know.
Also, either cyrillic "С" or Greek lunate sigma is used for latin "s".
Saints Nestor & Demetrius in the church of Plumbuita monastery in Bucharest (current building dating from 1647). I hope someone - particularly among my Greek friends - might help me solve the puzzle of the writing on the wall - see description, please
The two saints are definitely Nestor and Demetrius - that much I could read on the wall. But the writing of their names puzzles me.
Doesn't seem church Slavonic or old Romanian cyrillic or any version of the Greek alphabet that I know of.
In 1585, this monastery in Bucharest was dedicated to Xeropotamou Monastery on Mount Athos by Wallachian prince Mihnea Turcitul, and remained so until 1864.
So the language is most likely what it seems - Greek: Agios Nestor and Agios Dimitrios.
But why is the first letter in the word for Saint "O" instead of "A"?
There are a few ligatures:
"N" with "E" in "Nestor";
"O" and "C" merged into something looking a little like "Q" in "Agios" and "Dimitrios";
Greek (and Slavonic) letter for G ("Г") in "Agios" seems ligated with some other letter that I can't identify in front of it.
In "Dimitrios", "τ" and "ρ" might be ligated. Also, in Dimitrios, the first "i" is written with a character identical to the Latin one, while the second "i" is written with the cyrillic "и", which is a hint the letters might be Romanian cyrillic which used both. But the language is not Romanian and there are glyphs not used in this script, as far as I know.
Also, either cyrillic "С" or Greek lunate sigma is used for latin "s".