Instead of working on the next chapter of my Revelation writing project, yesterday afternoon I spent a fair amount of time labeling photos I took at Um er-Rasas (known in the ancient world as Kastrom Mefa'a) in Jordan. The site,
a UNESCO heritage site, is interesting for a number reasons, including the fact that in a relatively small area 16 Byzantine churches have been uncovered. A number of these churches have incredible floor mosaics, including the Church of St. Stephen. There are a number of interesting things about the mosaics at St. Stephen, besides their detail. First, an inscription names the mosaicist. The mosaic includes an "inscription" naming the mosaicist as Staurachios Ezbontinos. It also says that his colleague Euremios paved the presbytery in March 756. Second, the mosaic includes a border section depicting ecclesiatcial cities in the region. The images begin in the right corner next to the presbytery with Kastrom Mefa'a, move on to Madaba, Philadelphia (modern Amman), etc. Opposite Kastrom Mefa'a is they "Holy City" or Jerusalem. The mosaic (see above) includes an image of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, just as the Madaba map!
Another interesting thing about these mosaics is that you can see the work of iconoclasts. While we often think of iconoclasts destroying figural art, it is interesting to see how they actually reconstructed the mosaics into non-human figures. The image to the left, for example, is a fish that has been put in the place of a human figure that was apparently riding some sea animal. You can see the blacked out human face in the upper-right corner. They also "scrambled" many human figures in the central part of the mosaic and even replaced some with symbols, such as spades. The explicitness of their work is thought provoking . . .
Instead of working on the next chapter of my Revelation writing project, yesterday afternoon I spent a fair amount of time labeling photos I took at Um er-Rasas (known in the ancient world as Kastrom Mefa'a) in Jordan. The site, a UNESCO heritage site, is interesting for a number reasons, including the fact that in a relatively small area 16 Byzantine churches have been uncovered. A number of these churches have incredible floor mosaics, including the Church of St. Stephen. There are a number of interesting things about the mosaics at St. Stephen, besides their detail. First, an inscription names the mosaicist. The mosaic includes an "inscription" naming the mosaicist as Staurachios Ezbontinos. It also says that his colleague Euremios paved the presbytery in March 756. Second, the mosaic includes a border section depicting ecclesiatcial cities in the region. The images begin in the right corner next to the presbytery with Kastrom Mefa'a, move on to Madaba, Philadelphia (modern Amman), etc. Opposite Kastrom Mefa'a is they "Holy City" or Jerusalem. The mosaic (see above) includes an image of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, just as the Madaba map!
Another interesting thing about these mosaics is that you can see the work of iconoclasts. While we often think of iconoclasts destroying figural art, it is interesting to see how they actually reconstructed the mosaics into non-human figures. The image to the left, for example, is a fish that has been put in the place of a human figure that was apparently riding some sea animal. You can see the blacked out human face in the upper-right corner. They also "scrambled" many human figures in the central part of the mosaic and even replaced some with symbols, such as spades. The explicitness of their work is thought provoking . . .
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