• "Rocks of Jerusalem: Bringing the Holy Land Home”

    Author(s):
    Elina Gertsman, Asa Simon Mittman (see profile)
    Date:
    2017
    Group(s):
    Medieval Art, Medieval Studies
    Subject(s):
    Art, Medieval, Byzantine Empire, Educaton, Middle East--Jerusalem, Art, Byzantine, Pilgrims and pilgrimages
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Relics, Medieval art, Medieval studies, Byzantine studies, Jerusalem, Byzantine art, Pilgrimage
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/115w-n206
    Abstract:
    Our focus is a remarkable object – or, rather, a collection of objects, in turn housed within another object, which bears on it representations of yet other things: a reliquary box, once held in the treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum in the Lateran Palace, containing bits of stone, wood, and cloth, labeled with locations from the “Holy Land”. The box, now in the Museo Sacro in the Vatican, has been credited to sixth-century Syria or Palestine. Its sliding lid (obverse) bears a painting of the cross intersected by what appear to be a lance and a reed with a sponge, forming a schematic Christogram, inscribed within a mandorla and placed on the Golgotha hill; Christ’s initials are inscribed in the upper corners, and alpha and omega are painted on either side of the hillock. On the reverse side, which faces the relics enshrined in the box, is a series of images narrating scenes from the life of Christ: the Nativity, baptism, crucifixion, Holy Women at the Tomb, and ascension. These five scenes portray an encapsulation of Christ’s earthly experience with great economy. Altogether, the contents of the box, the monogram, and the paintings function as a threefold conjuring of Christ: in image, name, and material remains made sacred by contact with Christ. Building on Brown’s observations, we consider this box and its contents through the lenses of thing theory and theories of memory. We pay particular attention to the tensions between the individual objects and the ways their arrangement and proximity create a collective; their invocation of distant locales; and their agentic potential.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    (New York: Routledge
    Pub. Date:
    2017
    Book Title:
    Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500
    Author/Editor:
    ed. Renana Bartal, Neta Bodner, and Bianca Kuhnel
    Chapter:
    Rocks of Jerusalem: Bringing the Holy Land Home
    Page Range:
    157 - 171
    ISBN:
    978-1-4724-5177-4
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
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