Sometimes the inscription is found upside down, being probably thus placed by one unable to read. In the following example, from the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, a dove was afterward added, to correct in part the mistake of the ignorant fossor. Probably the epitaph may
have been scratched on the stone by the dim light struggling through a luminare, but when brought to the grave it was too dark to see which side was uppermost.
Fig. 125.—Inscription upside down.
In one example in the Lapidarian Gallery, represented in [Fig. 126], the inscription is actually written backwards, like Hebrew text. Probably, as Maitland suggests, the stonecutter took the impression on marble from a written copy, and was too ignorant to perceive that it was, of course, reversed.
Fig. 126.—Reversed Inscription.
Read: Elia Vincentia. qui vixit an ... et mesis II, cum Virginis que vixit annu diem.