Capital, now lost, with labelled images of *George (soldier and martyr, S00259), and *Isidoros (probably the soldier and martyr of Chios, S00425). Found at 'Aqaba, probably originally displayed in an ancient church in 'Aila at the north end of the Gulf of 'Aqaba (Roman province of Palaestina III). Probably 6th-7th c.
E02618
Inscriptions - Inscribed architectural elements
Images and objects - Sculpture/reliefs
The capital was seen in 1914 in a modern house at 'Aqaba by Charles Leonard Woolley and Thomas Edward Lawrence. They provide us with the following description: 'The other is a similar capital, having on each of the two worked sides a half-length figure of a saint. The cutting and drawing of these are utterly conventional; the saints are alike, even in the mutilations that their faces have since suffered, so that it is fortunate that each bears his name in Greek cut into the edge of the capital above him; one is St. George and the other St. Isidore. At their bravest they were only very poor things. It is certainly the capital of a doorway or of a chancel-arch, and as certainly must have come from one of the Byzantine churches of Aila.' The capital was said to have been found 'with the remains of the walls of a small building, in some palm gardens at the north-east corner of the beach. Just to the west of this spot is the ruin-mound pointed out today by all the people of Akaba as the site of ancient Aila.'
To the best of our knowledge there is no published photograph or drawing of the capital, and the inscriptions were never transcribed.
It is likely that the capital comes from the same church as two capitals depicting *Theodore (soldier and martyr of Amaseia and Euchaita, E00480) and *Longinos (centurion at the Crucifixion, S00926): see E02617. We should, however, note that Woolley and Lawrence describe a capital with two named saints on it and seemingly no archangels (whereas Isidoros and Theodore appear alone on each capital, accompanied by archangels), and describe the representations as 'half-figures', not full-length figure (as with Theodore and Longinos), though this latter difference could be attributed to damage.
The Isidoros on our capital is almost certainly Isidoros, martyr of Chios, who, like George, Theodore and Longinos, was well-known as a soldier saint.
Cult building - independent (church)
Use of ImagesPublic display of an image
Discussion
Similar painted images of soldier saints were found in Avdat/Oboda in the central Negev desert (see E04164).Bibliography
Edition:Woolley, C.L., Lawrence, T.E., The Wilderness of Zin. Archaeological Report (Palestine Exploration Fund 3, London: Harrison and Sons, 1914), 129.
Further reading:
Michel, A., Les églises d'époque byzantine et umayyade de Jordanie (provinces d'Arabie et de Palestine), Ve-VIIIe siècle: typologie architecturale et aménagements liturgiques (avec catalogue des monuments; préface de Noël Duval; premessa di Michele Piccirillo) (Bibliothèque de l'Antiquité tardive 2, Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), 420.
Figueras, P., "Monks and monasteries in the Negev desert", Liber Annuus 45 (1995), 405.
Saller, S.J., Bagatti, B., The town of Nebo (Khirbet El-Mekhayyat): with a brief survey of other Christian monuments in Transjordan (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press, 1949), 233, no. 135.
Paweł Nowakowski
28/03/2017
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00259 | George, soldier and martyr, and Companions | Certain | S00425 | Isidoros, soldier and martyr of Chios | Uncertain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E02618 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E02618