DID JESUS HAVE LONG HAIR?

Hello My Friend and Welcome.

In the recent post about togas and how they were misused in various works of art depicting Jesus and his disciples, I used a picture portraying him with long, flowing hair. I chose the picture because he was wearing a toga and completely overlooked his hair. After all, aren’t we all accustomed to seeing Jesus with shoulder length hair?

Perhaps we are used to seeing it, but some people still question it. Another question that arises involves how they would have cut their hair. Did they have scissors, or did they just hack away at it with a knife?

Let’s address the second part first. They didn’t have scissors, if by scissors you mean a two- piece device joined at its axis by a screw. They did, however, have shears. There is a picture of a pair of modern shears at the top of this chapter. They’re still used to shear sheep. Clearly, one blade moves across the other just as it does with a scissors. I’ve watched them being used and confess I don’t understand exactly how to make them work. The mystery lies in the exact hand motion that produces the cut. God forbid I should ever be forced to actually use them.

Modern Sheep Shears

The word scissors derives from the Latin word cisoria, meaning a cutting instrument. I would guess that a wide variety of shears existed in the First Century, coarse ones for shearing sheep, and they sheared a lot of sheep because their clothes were mostly wool. Finer ones would have been used for trimming hair, etc.

Egyptian Brass Sheers

To bolster my case, I offer a pair of Egyptian bronze shears from the Third Century BC owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although their decoration is characteristic of the Nile culture, they show a strong Greek influence. The shears illustrate the high degree of craftsmanship which developed in the period following Alexander's conquest of Egypt. Decorative male and female figures, which complement each other on the opposing blades are formed of solid pieces of metal inlaid in the bronze of the shears.

WHAT ABOUT THE LENGTH OF JESUS’ HAIR?

Enough of the easy stuff; now we move on to the first, and more difficult, question: Did Jesus have long hair? If you begin researching the topic, you’ll find a wide range of opinions. There are occasional references to Josephus and Eusebius, but when I checked them out I couldn’t find any useful information in either source. Next, I turned to Alfred Edersheim’s books. A converted Jew, Edersheim wrote extensively in the late 1800’s about Jewish life in ancient times. Nothing there either. I also scanned Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus by the German author, Joachim Jeremias, and came up empty again.

Several people insisted Jesus had to have short hair because the Romans and the Greeks did. Just take a look at their statues. This train of thought ignores the fact that the Maccabean Rebellion in 167 BC was a response to the Hellenizing influence of the Seleucid Empire. They didn’t want to be like the Greeks. First Century Judaic society was also dominated by the Pharisees. Their strict adherence to the laws of the Torah and zeal for a regulated society would have led them to resist the prevailing cultural norms rather than copying them. Judea was known as a particularly difficult region to govern because its people were so unbending and noncompliant.

There were also references to the Nazarite movement which, among its precepts, prohibited the cutting of the hair or consuming alcoholic beverages. I found people confusing Nazarite and Nazerean, meaning someone from Nazareth, and therefore assuming Jesus would have had long hair. John the Baptist is often believed to have been a Nazarite, but Jesus clearly never took the Nazarite vow.

Another surprising insight came to me from the movie Fiddler on the Roof. It depicts Russian Jews living in a society divorced from that of their neighbors. The Jews wear distinctive clothing, the men have beards and their gentile neighbors don’t. Some dress in black coats and have distinctive hair styles similar to modern Hassidic Jews. Again, we see the Jews stubbornly resisting the dominant cultural influences.

But in the end, none of these provides truly convincing. For this we have to turn to Jesus himself…or at least the imprint his body left on his burial cloth. About 25 years ago I read a book written by a physician who had analyzed the Shroud of Turin. I recall him mentioning that the person on the shroud had his hair braided in the back, which was the style at that time. I couldn’t find a clear enough image of the back portion of the shroud to verify this. I did, however, find two other pieces of evidence.

The first comes in the form of an ancient coin minted in the realm of Herod Phillip, the son of Herod the Great and his fifth wife, Cleopatra of Jerusalem. He was a half-brother to Herod Antipas who divorced his wife to marry Herodias, Phillip’s former wife. You’ll recall she’s the one who wanted John the Baptist’s head on a plate.

Coin of Herod Phillip

Phillip had a coin minted with his image on it. Coins from that region and era with images on them are extremely rare because of the Torah’s injunction against graven images. Because Phillip ruled the easternmost region of Herod’s Empire, he didn’t have to worry as much about offending Jewish subjects. Even though the coin is a couple of thousand years old and shows plenty of wear, it still appears to me that Phillip has his hair braided in back.

THE IKON AND THE SHROUD

Be that as it may, my search for shroud-based evidence took me back to the Christ Pantokrator Ikon. The image known as Christ Pantokrator is believed to have been derived from the discovery in 544 AD of a cloth hidden above a gate in Edessa’s city wall that bore an image of Jesus. Six years later, an icon, the Christ Pantokrator, was produced at St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai. It represented a dramatic change in the way Jesus was portrayed. Previously on coins, frescos and mosaics he had been shown in storybook settings as a young shepherd or modeled after the Greek god Apollo. Suddenly he had become a living, breathing human being.

We can confirm the relationship between the two images by digitally overlaying one on top of the other. I found the results startling. The congruence between the two is unmistakable. Clearly the Christ Pantokrator was derived from the Shroud of Turin in the same way that a forensic sculptor creates the likeness of a living person from their skull. Is it a perfect likeness? No. Hair color and eye color have to be guessed at…although since Jesus was of Middle Eastern descent, that task is made much easier.

Shroud of Turin overlaid on Ikon Christ Pantokrator

My point here is not to claim that Christ Pantokrator is an exact portrait of Jesus. Such a thing is beyond the realm of possibility. But just as with forensic reconstruction, what we arrive at is a generally recognizable likeness. And that likeness indicates the person to whom it belonged had long hair.

Until next time, we wish you Peace and Blessings.

DID JESUS WEAR A TOGA?

 

Hello My Friend and Welcome. 

Do inaccuracies in fiction bother you as much as they bother me? For the fictive dream to become reality, the reader/viewer must relinquish control to the author, entering their world and experiences.  This entails the tacit agreement that the author will not play fast and loose with facts and emotions.  When non-congruous facts and details enter the narrative, they diminish the author’s credibility and destroy the fictive dream.  

A NAIL SALON ON A DESERT ISLAND?

For example, last night I watched a TV show in which a woman, who was supposedly marooned on a desert island, lost her wedding band. Earlier, she’d had been digging in the sand with her hands and when she returned to the spot her ring was there in the hole. This is when everything went awry. She reached into the hole, picked up the ring and put it back on. In so doing, she held her hand up to the light. Her long, neatly manicured fingernails were clearly visible. This was only the first of many inconsistencies and impossibilities.  

There are several things that could be going on here. A. The writer didn’t know and never bothered to find out, B. The director either didn’t care about accuracy or also didn’t know, or C. They assumed the viewer is too stupid to notice. But at least some of us do.

THE MOST COMMON MISTAKE

One of the most common misrepresentations of ancient dress is the toga. It becomes almost a cliché — ancient times, everyone wears togas. Not true. 

The toga, which most everyone has seen in movies and paintings, began as a simple wool wrap that was thrown on like a cape when going out in cool weather. From there, it grew and grew, becoming longer and longer and less and less practical. This distinctive Roman garment eventually became a twenty feet long piece of woolen cloth which was wrapped around the body over a linen tunic. The first togas were unisex garments, but that all changed around the second century BC. After that, the toga became exclusively a man’s garment and women were expected to wear the stola, a long, loose tunic.

A number of rules evolved regarding togas. For instance, only Roman citizens were allowed to wear them. The toga was considered the only decent attire when out-of-doors. Harkening back to their more humble origins, they were typically taken off indoors. They were also removed when performing physical labor. This is evident from the story of the Roman General, Cincinnatus, who was plowing his field when the messengers of the Senate arrived to tell him he had been made dictator. On seeing them approach, he sent his wife in to fetch his toga from the house so that he could be properly attired to receive them.

EVOLUTION OF THE TOGA

The toga gradually gained increased importance as a ceremonial garment and came to signify different stations within society. As early as the second century BC the toga became the characteristic badge of Roman citizenship. It was worn by magistrates on all occasions as a badge of office. It would have been highly improper for a magistrate to appear in any other attire.  

Augustus grew so upset when he observed a meeting of citizens without togas that he quoted Virgil's phrase, “Romanos, rerum dominos, gentemque togatam” —Romans, lords of the world, the toga-wearing race — when giving the order that no one was to appear in the Forum or Circus without it. 

Formal occasions demanded a plain white toga for Roman men of legal age. The first wearing of this toga virilis, also known as a toga alba or toga pura, became part of a boy’s maturation celebrations. There was also the toga candida a toga bleached to a dazzling white and worn by candidates for public office. Our term, candidate, was derived from the word candida, Latin for bright white; hardly appropriate in today’s political climate. During the Imperial period, the right to a wear the toga praetexta, an ordinary white toga with a broad purple stripe on its border, signified the honor of high rank.  

There was also the toga pulla, or dark toga. It was worn mainly by mourners, but could also be worn in times of private danger or public anxiety. It could also be used as a protest. For instance, when Cicero was exiled, the Senate resolved to wear togae pullae to protest his banishment.

Most elaborate of all was the toga picta a solid purple garment, embroidered with gold. Magistrates giving public games wore them, as did consuls and the emperor on special occasions. 

WHAT ABOUT JESUS?

Many, if not most, of the paintings of Christ and his disciples depict them wearing one form or another of what appears to be a toga. Is this portrayal accurate, possible, reasonable? No, of course not. They were Jews who would have most likely rejected all aspects of the Roman culture. They wore an ankle length tunic accompanied by a long-sleeved robe, or cloak, when needed for warmth.

Of all the apostles, only Paul of Tarsus was a Roman citizen and therefore entitled to wear a toga. He very well may have worn one on his missionary journeys to enhance his credibility in cities such as Athens or Corinth. Whether he did or not, of course, we can never know. What we can know is that, even in Rome, Peter never wore a toga. He was forbidden to by Roman law. 

On Friday we’ll be adding our link to the Christian Writers Blog Chain. Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings. 

If you reached this post via a link, click the HOME tab above to see other recent posts and visit our archives.

ROMANS IN THE AMERICAS

Ancient Amphorae at the Bottom of the Sea

Hello My Friend and Welcome.

As a youngster did you learn the rhyme, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue?” Despite what the rhyme taught us, we now know that Columbus was most likely not the first to set foot on the American continents. Believers in pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact propose interaction between indigenous peoples of the Americas who settled the Americas before 10,000 BC, and peoples of other continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, or Oceania), which occurred centuries before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492.

CLAIMS OF PRE-COLUMBIAN CONTACT

Many such contacts have been proposed, based on historical accounts, archaeological finds, and cultural comparisons. However, claims of such contacts are controversial and much debated, due in part to the ambiguous or circumstantial evidence cited by proponents.

The scientific responses to most claims range from serious consideration in peer-reviewed publications to a quick dismissal. Despite the barrage of negativity, believers continue to press their claims. One of the most famous, Thor Heyerdahl, sailed 3,770 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean on his self-built raft, the Kon-Tiki, from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in 1947. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between apparently separate cultures.

IS NEWFOUNDLAND ACTUALLY VINLAND?

Even though journeys to North America are supported by literary, historical and archaeological evidence, only one instance of pre-Columbian European contact – the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada c. 1000 AD – is accepted by scholars as demonstrated.

In 1961, archaeologists Helge and Anne Ingstad uncovered the remains of a Norse settlement at the L'Anse aux Meadows archaeological site on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, Canada. A connection is frequently drawn between L'Anse aux Meadows and the Vinland sagas. These are written versions of older oral histories that recount the temporary settlement of an area to the west of Greenland, called Vinland, led by a Norse explorer, Leif Erikson. It is possible that Vinland may have been Newfoundland. Finds on Baffin Island suggest a Norse presence there after L'Anse aux Meadows was abandoned.  

HENRY SINCLAIR’S 14^TH CENTURY VOYAGE

But there is other tempting evidence. People claim that carvings in Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland depict Indian corn, or maize. Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and feudal baron of Roslin (1345 –1400) was a Scottish nobleman. He is remembered because of the legend that he took part in explorations of Greenland and North America almost 100 years before Christopher Columbus. William Sinclair, Henry’s grandson and 1^st Earl of Caithness, built the Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh, Scotland in the mid 15^th Century. Maize was unknown in Europe at the time and not cultivated there until hundreds of years later. This would seem to prove that Henry Sinclair, travelled to the Americas and returned with ears of corn. Like everything in this field, this conclusion is not without controversy. Others interpret the carvings as stylized depictions of wheat, strawberries or lilies.

MADOC IN THE 12^TH CENTURY

 According to British legend, Madoc, a prince from Wales, explored the Americas as early as 1170. While most scholars consider this legend to be untrue, it was used as justification for British claims to the Americas, based on the notion of a Briton arriving before other European nationalities. Local legend holds that Devil's Backbone, a rock formation near Louisville, Kentucky, was used as a citadel by Madoc and his companions. A memorial tablet erected at Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay, Alabama reads: "In memory of Prince Madog, a Welsh explorer, who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language." The Mandan tribe of North Dakota were said to be Welsh-speaking.

WHAT IF ROMANS ARRIVED 1000 YEARS EARLIER?

Yes, you read that correctly. Perhaps it’s not as preposterous as it sounds at first glance. We know that the Romans traveled to most of modern Europe. They also sailed from North Africa to India and conducted trade with China on what came to be called The Silk Road.

Let’s start with a recent find and work backwards. The photo illustrates what is known as the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head. Made of terracotta, it was probably part of a larger figurine. It was discovered in 1933 in the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca zone in the Toluca Valley, about 40 miles southwest of Mexico City. Because the head appears to be similar in style to artifacts of Roman origin, some believe that it is evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact between Rome and America.

An assessment of the case in 2001 by Romeo H. Hristov of the University of New Mexico and Santiago Genovés T. of the National Autonomous University of Mexico made the hypothesis of Roman origin –among other possibilities– applicable. The identification of the head as Roman work from the II-III century A.D. has been further confirmed by Bernard Andreae, a director emeritus of the German Institute of Archaeology in Rome, Italy. According to Andreae, “the head is without doubt Roman, and the lab analysis has confirmed that it is ancient. A stylistic examination tells us more precisely that it is a Roman work from around the II century A.D., and the hairstyle and the shape of the beard presents the typical traits of the Severian Emperor’s period [193-235 A.D.], in the fashion of that epoch.”

Ancient Roman Ship

ANCIENT TRAVELS

Such an event has been made more believable by the discovery of evidences of travels by the Romans, Phoenicians and Berbers as early as the 6^th or 5^th Century BC to Tenerife and Lanzarote in the Canaries, and of a 1^st Century BC Roman settlement on Lanzarote Island. Lanzarote was probably the first Canary Island to be settled and the Phoenicians may have settled there around 1100 BC, though no material evidence survives. The Greek writers and philosophers Herodotus, Plato, and Plutarch described the garden of the Hesperides, a mythic orchard at the far west of the world, which many identify as the Canaries.

A WRITTEN RECORD FROM PLINY

The first known record comes from Pliny the Elder where he describes in his encyclopedia Naturalis Historia, an expedition to the Canary Islands. The names of five islands (then called Insulae Fortunatae, the Fortunate Isles) were recorded as Canaria (Gran Canary), Ninguaria (Tenerife), Junonia Major (La Palma), Plivalia (El Hierro) and Capraria (La Gomera). Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the two easternmost Canary Islands, were only mentioned as the archipelago of the purple islands. The Egyptian astronomer and geographer Ptolemy calculated their precise locations. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Canary Islands were ignored for the next 500 years.

COMING TO AMERICA

There is a large submerged rock in Guanabara Bay near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Lying just three feet beneath the water’s surface, it is called Xareu Rock after the fish that congregate there. In the late 1970’s, a local fisherman using nets around Xareu Rock kept catching some large —3’ tall— heavy earthen jars. He mistakenly assumed they were macumba jars, which are used in voodoo ceremonies and then thrown into the sea. So, as the jars were hauled up, he smashed them with a hammer and tossed the pieces back into the water to prevent them from snagging his nets.

Eventually a scuba diver spear fishing around Xareu Rock found eight of the jars. He took them home and began selling them to tourists. He only had two left by the time Brazilian police stopped him and confiscated the jars. Archaeologists immediately identified them as Roman amphorae from the 1^st Century BC.  

Ex-marine, underwater explorer and treasure-hunter Robert Marx claims to have discovered a long-forgotten Roman shipwreck in the Bay of Guanabara. It appears to have hit the rock at a high speed, spilt apart and sank in 75 feet of water. While diving to examine the wreckage, Marx removed parts of the ancient amphorae. They eventually ended up in the hands of Dr. Elizabeth Lyding Will, an expert on Roman amphorae. She says they’re similar in shape to jars produced in kilns at Kouass, on the west coast of Morocco.

The Institute of Archaeology of the University of London performed thermo-luminescence testing, which is a more accurate dating process than Carbon 14 dating, and set the jar’s manufacture date around 19 B.C. Many more amphorae and some marble objects were recovered, as well as a Roman bronze fibula, a clasp device used to fasten a coat or shirt.

From the Salt Mines to Rio de Janeiro

PASS THE SALT, PLEASE

This is where the story gets really interesting, and it all starts with salt. Salt was one of the most valuable commodities around the beginning of the 1^st Century. It represented the only reliable way to preserve fresh meat and fish. In fact, salt was so valuable that at times it was used in place of money. The word salary derives from the practice of paying laborers in salt. And from that, came the familiar term he’s not worth his salt.

 

The Romans had a large salt production facility on Ilha do Sal, Salt Island, in the Cape Verde Islands, which are 350 miles off the coast of West Africa. The map illustrates the general path a ship would take to go from there to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil… a trip of about 2900 nautical miles. If that seems prohibitive, consider that Roman ships regularly sailed from Antioch of Syria to Londinium in Britannia, a distance of about 1,600 nautical miles. Trade vessels also left Egypt headed for India and returned laden with spices. This represents a round trip of 4,600 nautical miles. Remember also, Heyerdahl sailed 3,770 nautical miles on a raft!

Rotation of the North Atlantic and South Atlantic Currents

HOT WINDS AND CIRCULAR OCEAN CURRENTS

Salt Island is located directly in the path of the hot, dry winds of the Sahara Desert, which can easily blow 60 knots from the east. It is believed that this Roman merchant vessel was heading for Salt Island to pick up a load of salt and to provision the local army garrison when it was caught in a fierce Sahara storm. Roman ships were clumsy by modem standards and would have no choice but to lower their sails and to run with the winds to avoid capsizing. The Sahara winds can blow continuously for many days. The ship would have been driven south into the Guinea Currents that could have moved it into the circular flow of the North Atlantic current. In the equatorial regions this southern flow intersects with the rising South Atlantic current. Passing from one to the other, the Roman sailors would have found themselves being pushed south and west toward Brazil. They would, of course, have no way of navigating since the southern constellations would have been unfamiliar to them.

FINAL CONCLUSIONS

Was this a one-time event that ended in tragedy? Or, did these early sailors use it as an opportunity to make contacts, in which case the sunken ship was not the first Roman ship to make the voyage. For all we know, they might have been on the first stages of a regular trade run. And, when they didn’t return, this new venture was abandoned.

What about the men aboard? Were there survivors? Did they make their way ashore, make contact with the natives, and live happily ever after? As tantalizing as it may be to speculate on the possibilities, the answers to these and other questions have been lost to history.

 Until next time, we wish you Peace and Blessings.

 If you reached this post via a link, click the HOME tab above to see other recent posts and visit our archives.

HOARD OF BOADICEA’S GOLD FOUND IN BRITAIN

Gold Saters Minted about the Time of Boadicea

Hello My Friend and Welcome. 

In the past we’ve dealt with Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, or as the Romans called her, Boadicea. We looked at her rebellion, which nearly overthrew Roman rule in Britannia, in a post entitled Queen Boadicea, Warrior Queen of Britannia and also examined the consequences of that rebellion on the city of Camulodunum in Boadicea’s Legacy in the post ATale of Two Cities and the Arthurian Legend. Today, we want to take a look at a huge cache of gold coins discovered a few years ago in East Anglia, Britain. Interestingly enough, this hoard of Iceni coins circulated during the period of Boadicea’s reign. 

FORTUNE SMILES ON A TREASURE HUNTER

Here is a tale that will warm the heart of even the most discouraged treasure hunter. Michael, a 60-year-old mechanic who prefers that his full name not be used, had been metal detecting for 25 years and never discovered a gold coin. One spring day, he decided to explore a field which had been used as a pasture for almost 30 years. He found very little at first…a rusty nail here, an old bolt there. Then he stumbled upon his first gold coin. He checked the Internet and found that his find was known as a Freckenham gold stater, a coin used by the Iceni during the last century BC and the First Century AD. 

Freckenham gold staters are a somewhat unique coin known as base gold staters or what dealers call rose gold staters. They are made with an alloy mix of about 40 per cent copper, 20 per cent silver and 40 per cent gold. They continued to be minted up to and beyond Boadicea’s reign. Note the coppery color of the gold coins made during the Boadicean era. 

THE FIND OF A LIFETIME

It snowed the following weekend, but that didn’t dissuade Michael. He returned to the pasture on Easter Sunday and, under a light covering of snow, dug up eight more of the staters. Then, in his own words, “my machine suddenly went doolally and I knew for sure I was standing right on top of a crock of gold.” In an amazing display of self-control, he marked the spot and went home for a cup of tea. He returned to the field the following day, Easter Monday, and dug into clay soil which hadn’t been plowed since 1980. Six to eight inches beneath the sod he found a cache of 774 gold staters, many of them still in their original container, an earthenware pot. The top of the pot had been sheared off years before by a plowshare which scattered coins over a 30 foot area.  

All of but two of the 825 coins eventually recovered were minted by the Iceni, Queen Boadicea’s tribe. The coins were minted over a number of decades under several Kings and many predated Boadicea’s rule by a generation. Below is a coin minted by Prasutagus, Boadicea’s late husband.



What 774 Gold Staters Looks Like



 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Who accumulated and buried these coins, now easily worth several million dollars? Such a huge accumulation of gold could not have been the savings of a rich merchant, a prosperous farmer, a skilled craftsman or a mercenary warrior. Their sheer quantity and extreme value of the original deposit indicates the coins most probably belonged to a wealthy king…or queen.  

What was the purpose of this hoard? A number of possibilities have been suggested. It might have been the life savings of a king who died without telling anyone where he stashed the family fortune. Or they could have been gathered to make a very specific and important payment of some kind. If so, to whom and to what end? The fact that the hoard consists solely of gold staters —no gold quarter staters, no silver coins, no gold jewelry, no gold or silver bullion— and that the coins were mostly minted within 20–30 years of deposition suggests they were hoarded very quickly to make a specific payment.  

THREE POSSIBILITIES FOR THEIR INTENDED USE

But what sort of payment? The hoard may have been a votive offering, made on behalf of the tribe during a period of anxiety.  The Wickham Market hoard, as it’s come to be called, was buried close to the boundary of a ditched enclosure close to the southern border of the Iceni’s realm. Several similar hoards have been found along the tribal borders, which seem to imply some sort of  religious significance…a gift to the gods, perhaps. Could the ditched structure have been a temple? However, the special nature of this group, all gold staters, implies it had some special purpose. We examined a similar situation in a cache collected for the Temple Tax buried on Mt. Carmel in the post A Lost Hoard of Shekels Tell Their Story.  

It also may have been a war chest, gathered in anticipation of an imminent military threat. The early years of the First Century seem to have been a time of political upheaval in Britannia and perhaps the Iceni felt threatened by the aggressively expansive Catuvellauni, and prudently accumulated hoards of gold staters in readiness for a military campaign. Almost the only monetary transaction for which there is documentary evidence is the purchase of military service. While coinage was undoubtedly used for other commercial purposes, its most common use appears to have been in governmental transactions. The historical record is replete with the monthly rates of military pay, various taxes and levies, etc.  

And, finally, the coins might have been gathered as a tribute payment to a more powerful king. The proximity of Addedomaros, king of the Catuvellauni’s, to the Iceni may have necessitated a political alliance between the two tribes…an alliance of compliance, with the Iceni as the weaker partner. When Cunobelin invaded the Trinovantes sometime around AD 10 he may have scrapped this treaty and demanded a massive payment of tribute from the Iceni in exchange for not invading them too. This begs the question, if so, why weren’t they paid? 

Clearly, such caches of coins are the stuff of legend and they pose questions which can never be answered. Rather than making it less interesting, it piques the imagination to speculate on why someone buried that jar of gold coins, who they were, and why they did it. 

Until next time, we wish you Peace and Blessings. 

If you reached this post via a link, click the HOME tab above to see other recent posts and visit our archives.

OLDEST PAINTING OF STS. PETER & PAUL

Saint Paul is Clearly Identifiable in this Frescoe

Hello My Friend and Welcome. 

On the liturgical calendar June 29^th is the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, making it an opportune time to examine the oldest known image of the Apostles. To do that, we must head to Rome. Put on a light jacket and bring your flashlight because we’ll be going into the catacombs. More specifically, we’ll be visiting the tomb of a Roman noblewoman in the Santa Tecla catacomb. 

SAINT THECLA

For those not be familiar with Santa Tecla, or Saint Thecla, she was reputed to have been a pupil of the Apostle Paul and is the heroine of the apocryphal Acta Pauli et Theclae — The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Our knowledge of her is derived exclusively from these writings, which appeared about 180. According to the narrative, Thecla was a virgin from Iconium whom Paul converted to Christianity. She was miraculously saved from death several times and traveled with St. Paul to Antioch in Pisidia. From there, she went to Myra where the Paul was preaching, and finally to Seleucia where she died.

With the consent of St. Paul she acted as a female Apostle and proclaimed the Gospel. Notwithstanding the purely legendary character of this story, it’s very possible that it in some way relates to an historical person. It is easy to believe that a virgin of this name who was a native of Iconium was actually converted by St. Paul and then, like many other women of the Apostolic and later times, labored in the work of the Church. In the Eastern Church the wide circulation of the Acts led to her veneration. She was called Apostle and proto-martyr among women. Her veneration was especially strong in Seleucia where she was buried, Iconium, and Nicomedia.

Good Shepherd

HEADING UNDERGROUND

And so we now head deep into an ancient catacomb dug beneath an eight-story office building in a working-class neighborhood of Rome. Watch you head, the ceiling’s low in places. Follow this long corridor, turn the corner…a little further, and here they are. Hidden away in this dank, damp manmade cave are the earliest known icons of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The paintings, which date from the second half of the 4th century, also include the earliest known images of the Apostles John and Andrew. The paintings adorn what is believed to be the tomb of a Roman noblewoman in the Santa Tecla catacomb and represent some of the earliest evidence of devotion to the apostles in early Christianity.

Peter is Easily Identifiable as Well

Vatican officials announced the discovery of the icon of Paul in June, 2009. Their announcement was timed to coincide with the end of the Vatican's Pauline year. At the time, Pope Benedict XVI also announced that tests on bone fragments long attributed to Paul seemed to confirm that they did indeed belong to the saint.

 Vatican archaeologists recently opened up the tomb to the media and revealed that the image of Paul was not found in isolation, but was part of a square ceiling painting that also included images of three other apostles — Peter, John and Andrew — surrounding an image of Christ, the Good Shepherd. "These are the first images of the apostles," said Fabrizio Bisconti, superintendent of archaeology for the catacombs, which are maintained by the Vatican's Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology.

TWO-YEAR RESTORATION EFFORT 

The Vatican office oversaw, and paid for, the two-year restoration effort. This was the first time lasers were used to restore frescoes and paintings in a catacomb. The damp, musty air of these underground tombs makes preservation of paintings particularly difficult and restoration problematic. In this particular case, the small burial chamber at the end of the catacomb was completely encased beneath inches of white calcium carbonate deposits. Previous restoration techniques would have just scraped it away by hand. This method requires them to leave a filmy layer on top so as to not damage the paintings underneath.

FIRST USE OF A LASER

The new laser technique allows them to remove the entire thing.  The use of the laser allowed restorers to burn off centuries old deposits without damaging the dark colors of the original paintings underneath.

Until next time, we wish you Peace and Blessings.