A GREEK BYZANTINE GOLD CROSS CIRCA 5TH-7TH CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A BYZANTINE GOLD INSCRIBED CROSS PENDANT, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, CIRCA 5TH-7TH CENTURY A.D. Of Latin form with flaring arms terminating in trefoil finials, the body cut from sheet gold and surmounted by an integral suspension loop formed from a flattened tab pierced and bent over at the top. Each arm bears a raised border following the contour of the terminal, enclosing a recessed field engraved with Greek majuscule letters. The inscription, distributed across the four arms, reads KE BOHΘH followed by a continuation of the invocation across the horizontal and lower arms, the letters cut with a firm hand and showing the squared epsilon, lunate sigma, and broad theta characteristic of late antique and early Byzantine epigraphy. The surface retains a warm, unburnished tone with light wear to the high points of the lettering consistent with long wear against the body. The inscription is a contracted form of the standard Byzantine apotropaic invocation Κύριε βοήθει, "Lord, help," a formula encountered across the full spectrum of personal Christian objects from the fourth century onwards, frequently extended with the name of the wearer. Here the phrase is repeated or extended across the arms in a manner that converts the cross itself into the bearer of prayer, the body of Christ's instrument of victory inscribed with the petition for divine assistance. The trefoil terminals, a feature widely diffused in Byzantine cross design from the fifth century, evoke the budding or flowering cross, the crux florida, an image of the instrument of the Passion transformed into the tree of life. Gold pectoral crosses of this type were worn directly against the skin as encolpia, personal devotional objects that combined the protective force of the cross with the prestige of the metal. The use of gold for such objects was not incidental. Within the late antique and early Byzantine world, gold was the material of imperial coinage, ecclesiastical liturgical plate, and the votive offerings deposited at major shrines; a wearer who carried a gold cross against the body carried a substance understood as incorruptible, an earthly analogue to the eternal kingdom invoked in the prayer engraved upon it. Such pendants are recovered from sites across the Eastern Mediterranean, from Constantinople and Asia Minor through Syria-Palestine and into Egypt, and span a range of qualities from court production to provincial goldsmiths working for a prosperous lay clientele. The script and form here place the piece within the broader corpus of inscribed gold crosses produced in the centuries between the establishment of the Christian empire under Constantine and the iconoclast disruptions of the eighth century. The letterforms, the trefoil terminals, and the simple integral loop all conform to the conventions of the period. This pendant exemplifies the early Byzantine encolpion in its most direct form, in which the sign, the material, and the inscribed prayer are brought together without figural ornament, the cross itself acting as both image and text. It belongs to a class of personal devotional gold that bridges the worlds of late Roman jewellery and mature Byzantine liturgical art. Height: 4.2cm

图片