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.

DINING AT CAESAR'S PALACE

Hello my Friend and Welcome.

The picture above was taken at Caesar’s Palace alright, just not the one on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Admittedly the complex they’ve built in Las Vegas is pretty impressive… now, but let’s see what it looks like in 2,000 years.

Extrior of the REAL Caesar's Palace

VISITING THE PAST

A recent archaeological dig on the Palatine, a hill where the luxurious palaces and villas of the Caesars and other affluent Roman citizens once stood, has uncovered a richly decorated cavern. The cavern in question lies beneath the palace of Augustus, Rome’s first Emperor. He lived from 63 BC to 14 AD and is mentioned in Luke 2:1with the famous words, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.” I expect we’ve all heard that a time or two while attending Christmas services.

This chamber lies roughly 50 feet beneath the surface. While there have been rumors that it is the Lupercale, the room where Romulus and Remus were nursed and the Romans held annual celebrations in honor of the legendary founders of Rome, most people believe it to be a private dining room. The 125 sq. ft. grotto is circular in design and adequate to comfortably house a triclinium, three Roman dining couches arrange in a U-shaped pattern.

Boring in Through the Ceiling

No one has entered the area since the cave is close to collapse. Instead, they drilled a hole through the ceiling and inserted a light and remote camera to see what was there. What they found was a ceiling encrusted with seashells, marble and mosaics. The walls have rectangular panels filled geometric shapes and flowers. The floor, which is not in good shape, also has elaborate mosaics.

Ceiling Decorations

COOL DINING IN THE SUMMER’S HEAT

It is well known that many Roman Emperors, including Nero and Caligula, had small dining rooms built into the natural hollows in the rock underneath their multi-storied palaces. If you’ve ever lived in home with a basement, you know that the temperature remains very comfortable even on the hottest of days. It’s not hard to imagine old Augustus slipping away on a hot night and descending a stairway to his private retreat where he could recline in comfort and dine on delicacies.

Remnants of the Mosaic Floor

So are we looking at the spot where the great emperor feasted with a small circle of friends on roasted peacock tongues seasoned with fermented fish sauce? We very well could be. One wall of the room displays a white eagle, the symbol of the Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus.

Until next time, we wish you Peace and Blessings.

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ROMAN STONE SHIPS, BARGES, OBELISKS & COLUMNS

Divers Used Floatation Balloons to Raise Column Drums from the Sunken Ship

Hello My Friend and Welcome. 

Among other things, today we’re going to talk about obelisks…those stone pillars with a square base and a pointed top that the Egyptian Pharaohs loved so much. Think of the Washington Monument. In truth, the Washington Monument is not truly an obelisk, but an obelisk-shaped building. The difference being that the obelisks the Egyptians made were carved from a single piece of stone, whereas anyone who’s ever visited Washington, DC knows you can go up inside the Washington Monument.   

GREAT FEATS OF ENGINEERING AND LOGISTICS

But, we’re getting off track. This post was prompted by a story about the recovery of a 1^st Century BC Roman Stone Carrier discovered in waters off southeastern Turkey. The glorious monuments of Egypt, Greece and Rome are clearly architectural masterpieces, but they are also great feats of engineering and logistics.  

The particular ship they found was carrying a column when it sank. It cargo consisted of eight marble column drums, each about five feet across, and a capital. Stacked one atop the other, the drums would have formed a 30-foot-high Doric column.

Ruins of the Temple of Apollo...Note Column Drums

The ship foundered off Kızılburun (Crimson Cape), 40 miles from the Temple of Apollo at Claros, famous for an oracle similar to the one at Delphi. Based on detailed measurements and stylistic analysis, experts are certain the column was intended for Claros. Interestingly, the eight drums in the cargo, which weighed a total of about 50 tons, aren't enough for a single column at Claros. Those were composed of 11 or 12 drums. A ship like the one they found would have had to make 20 trips to supply enough marble for the 14 known columns at Claros. The drums were recovered using balloons to lift them from the sea floor. Marble headstones and basins were also found in the ship’s hull. They too, were probably bound for Claros.  

DWARFED BY A BARGE

But the ship found off Turkey would have been dwarfed by the barge used to transport an obelisk from Egypt to Rome around 38 AD. The huge stone-carrier Caligula had built to transport the obelisk from Alexandria to Ostia was eventually sunk. Pliny the Elder described the sinking of this massive 800 ton ship. It formed the foundation for the lighthouse at the new and larger artificial harbor, Portus Cladius. Constructed north of Ostia between 42 and 62 AD, it was designed to handle the larger cargo ships that could not dock at Ostia, Rome’s original port.

Remains of the barge, 340 feet long and 66 feet wide, were discovered during the construction of Rome's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Fiumicino, Italy. At one time Fiumicino was a Roman port north of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber River. 

Quarries in the Aswan region furnished the stone for most Egyptian monument, obelisks included. One source says the obelisk was quarried at Aswan during the reign of Amenemhet II in the 19^th Century BC and erected at the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis. Others think Octavian, known to us as the Emperor Augustus in Luke’s gospel, installed the obelisk in the Julian Forum in Alexandria. The obelisk is unusual because it lacks hieroglyphics. No one can say why. Perhaps an Egyptian Pharaoh suddenly died before it was completed, or it has none because a Roman Emperor ordered its construction.  

Either way, Caligula transported it to Rome and erected it in the new Caligula Circus. He didn’t live long enough to see the projection completed.  It was completed under Nero’s Reign and called Nero’s Circus. It was the sight of Peter’s crucifixion. Later renamed the Vatican Circus, it became the site of St. Peter's Cathedral erected by Constantine the Great over the great saint’s grave.

The Obelisk at the Center of St. Peter's Square

 THE CENTER OF ST. PETER’S SQUARE

Pope Sixtus V had the obelisk moved to the center of the colonnaded square in 1586 during the construction of the new, or current, St. Peter’s Basilica. It remains there today. All of the obelisks in Rome were toppled in the Middle Ages except for this one. Innumerable Christians, including St. Peter, died in the Vatican Circus. Consequently, it was left standing as the last mute witness to the martyrdom of St. Peter.

Plans Run Amok - The Cracked Obelisk

 A SAD END TO GREAT PLANS

One final point before we leave obelisks. The photo above shows the Aswan Obelisk. This unfinished piece was carved from the rock, but never completely detached because it cracked. This is always a risk when quarrying. As layers are removed, the pressures on the freshly exposed rock change, causing different parts to expand at different rates. Sometimes the rock cracks, rendering it useless.  

On close examination, one can still see pits made by the hammer stones used to shape it. Wet sand and sandstone would eventually have been used to burnish the surface. This obelisk, if it had been successfully detached would have weighed more than a thousand tons, three to six times as much as they typically did. Perhaps that is why it cracked. What it was intended for is not known. 

Next time we’ll have our monthly contribution to the Christian Writer’s Blog Chain. The following Tuesday, we visit the real King Solomon’s Mines. 

Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings. 

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THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE or THE ROMAN COLISEUM

Hello My Friend and Welcome.

 

HAVE A LITTLE FUN

Do you teach Sunday school or other religious education classes? If so, here’s a surefire way to have some fun and grab everyone’s attention.  First, pose a question along the lines of: “I’ll describe a scene and you tell me where it’s taking place. We have thousands of Jewish slaves laboring in the hot sun under cruel taskmasters. They’re lugging massive blocks of stone to build a monument that immortalizes their oppressor.”

Hands shoot up around the room. At least half the class has seen Cecile B DeMille’s The Ten Commandments and, though they didn’t know the answer to that one about Elijah and Elisha, they’ve got this one nailed. “It’s the Jews in Egypt,” they shout.

Now it’s time to spring the trap. “Wrong! This scene is taking place in Rome and those Jewish slaves are building the Flavian Amphitheater.” You’re met with blank stares. Since no one’s ever heard of the Flavian Amphitheater, you now call it by its more common name: The Roman Coliseum.

THE EMPEROR VESPASIAN

Titus Flavius Vespasianus, known as Vespasian, was the ninth Roman Emperor and founder of the short-lived Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96 AD.  It encompassed the reigns of Vespasian (69–79), and his two sons Titus (79–81) and Domitian (81–96).  Vespasian was Governor of Syria when the great Jewish revolt began in 66. He led the forces against the Jews for three years before becoming Emperor. Heading to Rome, he left his son, Titus, in charge. Titus directed the siege and eventual destruction of Jerusalem. He returned to Rome triumphant with over 20,000 Jewish slaves who were put to work constructing the new Amphitheater that came to be known as the Coliseum. 

Vespasian began construction in 72 AD and the building was completed in 80 AD, a year after his death. The huge amphitheater was built on the site of what had been an artificial lake. The lake was part of the park Nero constructed after the great fire of Rome. It also included his Domus Aurea, or Golden House, and a statue of Nero as the Colossus. The proximity of this giant statue of Nero gave the Flavian Amphitheater its popular name. 

The building is immense, forming a 616 by 512 foot ellipse and rising to a height of more than 150 feet. The Coliseum accommodated up to 75,000 spectators who entered the building through no less than 80 entrances. The seating consisted of four levels. Just as in modern stadiums, the lowest section was reserved for the Emperor, his retinue and other prominent citizens. The upper levels accommodated the lower classes with special sections designated for men and for women. Below ground was a labyrinth of rooms and corridors with mechanical devices and cages containing wild animals. The cages could be hoisted, enabling the animals to suddenly appear in the middle of the arena. 

THE FIRST DOMED STADIUM

Predating our domed stadiums by nearly 2,000 years, the Coliseum was covered with an enormous awning known as the velarium. This not only protected the spectators from the sun, it focused light on the arena. It was supported by large poles attached along the top rim and anchored to the ground by large ropes. A team of 1,000 men was required to rig and extend the awning. 

A hundred days of games were held by Vespasian’s successor, Titus, to mark the inauguration of the building in AD 80. In the process, some 9,000 wild animals were slaughtered. The south side of the Coliseum collapsed during an earthquake in 847 leaving it as we see it today. Parts of the building, including its marble façade, were removed and re-used for the construction of other buildings in Rome, including the St. Peter's Basilica.

Next time we’ll continue our Foods of the First Century posts with a look at vegetables.

Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings.

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Here's a video about the Roman Colisuem you may enjoy:

WADI SIKAIT - ROME'S EMERALD CITY

Dorothy and Her Friends Head Off to the Emerald City

Hello My Friend and Welcome.

 

Some of our favorite posts are those that range widely, connecting seemingly unrelated places and events in a memorable way. Hopefully, today’s qualifies. In a moment you’ll understand why we chose the image of Dorothy and her friends skipping along the Yellow Brick Road on their way to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz.

The Carolina Emperor

FINDING THE CAROLINA EMPEROR

But first, let’s examine the impetus for today’s post…a recent news article about an exceptional 65 carat emerald that was found near a cornfield in North Carolina. They’re calling it the Carolina Emperor. It compares in size and quality to one surrounded by diamonds in a brooch once owned by Catherine the Great that Christie's auction house in New York sold for $1.65 million. And to think that the man’s father used to charge people $3.00 a day to dig around and see what they could find. Bet he’s glad no one stumbled upon this whopper.

Roman Woman Wearing an Emerald Necklace

ROMAN WOMEN FAVORED SMARAGDI

Now it just so happens that among precious stones, emeralds ranked very high on the Roman’s popularity chart. Today, the world’s best quality emeralds are found in Columbia. Emeralds are also mined in Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, India, Madagascar, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and, of course, in North Carolina. A quick review of that list pretty much eliminates the Roman Empire. North and South America, Madagascar and Australia were unknown to the Romans. Rome’s power extended into the northern regions of Africa, but the nations mentioned in the list are all in the extreme south. Rome traded with modern India, but primarily for spices, not gemstones.

So how did that the Romans satisfy their desire for emeralds? Instead of a yellow brick road to Oz, let’s follow a sandy trail across the trackless desert wastes of Eastern Egypt to the ancient region of Wadi Sikait, Rome’s Emerald City, or Mons Smaragdus—Emerald Mountain. The first thing we see from the map is Wadi Sikait’s close proximity to the port city of Berenike. As we learned in a recent post on Foods of the First Century, Berenike was a major debarkation point for Indian spices coming into the Roman Empire, especially pepper. Jute bags of peppercorns along with emeralds traveled from this Red Sea port overland by camel caravan to the Nile, then by boat to Alexandria, and from there to Rome via merchant ship. If you missed the one on Spices & Herbs you can find HERE.


Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, addresses the legend, lore and gossip of emeralds, which the Romans called smaragdi. Referencing gems from the Eastern Desert, which he calls them Egyptian or Ethiopian stones, he says they were “so hard as to be unaffected by blows.” Romans valued emeralds above all gems except diamonds and pearls. Pliny also writes, “I have seen Lollia Paulina, who became the consort of Gaius (we know him as Caligula) covered with emeralds and pearls interlaced and shining over her head, hair, ears, neck and fingers, the sum total amounting to a value of 40,000,000 sesterces.” Quite an image, isn’t it? To put this into better perspective, recall that a soldier’s annual wage at that time was around 1,200 sesterces.

DO IT YOURSELF EMERALDS

Like anything of high value, unscrupulous merchants attempted to counterfeit emeralds. Pliny denounced the practice and told how, “There are treatises by authorities describing how, by means of dyestuffs, emeralds and other transparent colored gems are made from rock crystal… And there is no other trickery practiced against society with greater profit.” Some things apparently never change. It is standard practice today to oil emeralds to disguise their flaws.

 

LOST FOR OVER A THOUSAND YEARS

Wadi Sikait was the sole source of emeralds for the Romans. The area flourished, which explains why the Romans called the region Emerald Mountain. Unbelievably, the location of the site was eventually lost. In 1816, Mohammed Ali Pasha, the Ottoman Viceroy to Egypt, set out to find the fabled lost emerald mines of the Romans. He sent Fédéric into the desert to find them. It took him three years, but in 1817 Cailliaud re-discovered the mines.

In his journals Cailliaud spoke of finding a site that contained a beehive like structure consisting of “perhaps a thousand excavations” with long underground causeways interconnecting them to facilitate communication. They were built in such a way that camels could move through the passageways bringing the workmen provisions. He marveled at the labor it would have taken to construct such a complex.

Unable to explore the mines himself, he continued on and three-and-a-half miles from there discovered an abandoned town. The Bedouins of the area called the place Sekket (Sikait) Bendar El Kebyr. He found 500 houses hewn from the native stone and three temples cut into the sides of the mountains. He spoke of wandering the deserted dwellings and finding “various instruments, utensils…fired clay lamps.” He found fragments of vases “of beautiful form” made of both bisque and glass. Cailliaud discovered stone grinding mills still waiting for grain…an entire town “hitherto unknown to all voyagers, which had not been inhabited, perhaps, for 2,000 years and almost entirely standing.

In fact, the area had been abandoned only about 1,300 years. Roman mining ceased there somewhere around the year 500 …a date that coincides nicely with Edward Gibbons date of 476 for the Fall of The Roman Empire.

 

NO LONGER ECONOMICALLY FEASIBILE

Despite Cailliaud success in finding the ancient site, the mines were never re-opened. The heat and the terrain proved too severe and the stones then being mined in South America were superior to those available at Wadi Sikait. One reason for the lower quality could be that the best stones were already removed during Roman times. The Roman writer Strabo, when writing his Geography in the First Century, states that the Arabs dug ever deeper tunnels in their quest to extract emeralds.

One of Cailliaud's Drawings

Cailliaud made several pen and ink drawings of the temples he discovered. Based on current photos of the same buildings, there has either been a lot of destruction during the intervening years or, more likely, his depictions present a fanciful image of how the buildings appeared during Wadi Sikait’s heyday. Note the rather significant differences between current reality and his drawing of the temple façade in the photo below.

WADI SIKAIT AND PETRA

Seeing Wadi Sikait immediately brought Petra to my mind. Petra, the ancient city of rock, is in a much better state of preservation, but anyone familiar with this former capital of the Nabateans can’t help but be reminded of it when viewing Cailliaud’s drawings. Located in what is now the country of Jordan, Petra predates Wadi Sikait by six centuries. 

Like Petra, Wadi Sikait, was a city in the desert. Also like Petra, its principal structures are carved out of the rock face with the interior of the buildings cut into the mountainside. This method of construction was undoubtedly used to combat the temperature extremes of a desert environment. 

SURVIVAL IN THE HARSH CLIMATE

Archaeological expeditions in the last fifteen years have found the remains of many of the mines around Mons Smaragdus. Still, the area elicits more questions than answers. Working conditions must have been, to say the least, brutal. Winter temperatures range into the 90’s, sometimes higher, and can drop into the 30’s at night.  Archaeologists also report that there were days when their thermometers didn’t go high enough to register the afternoon temperatures.

How the people survived day-to-day remains unclear. Researchers have found several ancient wells, but whether they produced sufficient water is impossible to say. There is some evidence that fruit and vegetables were grown on site, but wine, oil, meat (did it come on the hoof or dried and salted?) and fish would have to have been brought in. Other excavations have found evidence that transport animals, especially donkeys, were slaughtered for food. Was that part of an overall plan or does it indicate periods of scarcity?

Experts also do not know if emeralds were mined before control of Egypt passed into Roman hands in 30 BC. Study of potsherds, however, suggests that Wadi Sikait’s history dates back to the First Century…shortly after Egypt became a Roman Province.

Next time we’ll look at Rome’s Flavian Amphitheatre…more commonly called the Coliseum.

Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings.

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