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"Taken from nature and lithographed by A. Hoffy; P.S. Duval lith.er ('er' raised half way up), Philad. a ('a' raised up half way).
The sarcophagus/brought from Syria and presented by Cume(?) Elliott to the Girard College/this sarcophagus was discovered by a countryman, who was planting a mulberry tree, about sixteen feet underground, three fourths of a mile east from Beirut, in the centre of the spot where once stood the ancient Berytus,/and six hundred feet over the level of the sea; it required nearly five hundred men to remove it a mile and a half on board the vessel./The sarcophagus is cut out of a solid piece of white marble, and has a cover in form of a sloping roof, of one piece of marble. On the principal side it has this inscription/ 'Julia C. FIL/MAMAEA/ Vixit.Ann.XXX'/ Its dimensions are seven feet four and a half inches long by two feet seven and three fourths inches wide within the cornice, and it stands four feet three inches high by the apex of the cover, which is nineteen inches deep./We learn from Gibbon that the Emperor Severus A.D. 208, married Julia Domna of Emesa in Syria. She has a sister Julia Maesa who resided for a time at Emesa with her two daughters Somias and Mamara, each of whom/had a son, the first was the Emperor Elagabalus, the other Emperor Alexander Severus: during the early part of his reign Julia Mamara remained the sole agent of her son and the empire/ Published by A. Hoffy, 41 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia."