ABSTRACT
One of the many splendid works of art on display in the Dallas Museum of Art is a mosaic depicting ‘Orpheus Taming Wild Animals’, which has incorporated into it nine lines of Syriac. The inventory of inscribed mosaics from the Edessa region in Drijvers and Healey includes eleven items from Edessa itself, one from nearby and fourteen of unknown provenance, though assumed to come from the same region. The script of the inscription is sufficient to identify the origin of the mosaic as from Edessa or its vicinity. The script in general has features similar to those of other early Syriac inscriptions. It has been argued elsewhere that there were two forms of the early Syriac script, a formal script similar to what is later called estrangela and a cursive script, which even in its earliest attestations has some forms similar to those of the serta script which became popular much later.
