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Byzantine Sculpture
6.9 Front of the pseudosarcophagus 'of the founders'
14th c.
Pantokrator Monastery
Marble, 153 x 75 x 8 cm

 

The Original New Testament

A third of the left edge and the upper right corner are missing. The principal face preserves two arches and the springing of a third. They are supported by unfluted columns, with figures of birds on the capitals. Under the right-hand arch is an Anastasis type (patriarchal) cross, executed in the two-level technique, on a stepped base, with a cypress on either side. The middle arch encloses a Greek cross, its arms terminating anchor-wise in tendrils that meet in pairs to form a palmette. Two small separate half-palmette tendrils fill in the background. The spandrels are decorated with half-palmettes flanking an inverted palmette in a heart-shaped surround.

An arcade enclosing crosses is a very common decorative theme on sarcophagi of the middle and late Byzantine period. The foliate cross appears with particular frequency, with its connotations of salvation and resurrection; according to Byzantine theology, it is the 'life-creating, life-giving wood'.

The two-level cross closely resembles the cross on a pseudosarcophagus from Hortiatis, Thessaloniki, which is dated to the fourteenth century, while the other, rosette-like, cross has counterparts in the painted decoration of the Church of St Nicholas Orphanos in Thessaloniki (1310-20). On this basis, the Pantokrator sarcophagus may likewise be dated to the fourteenth century, a dating which also accords with the tradition connecting it with the monastery's founders, who must have died in the fourteenth century.

Bibliography: Tsigaridas 1978, p. 182, pl. 3α. Pazaras 1988, no. 20, pp. 29, 73, 154, 155, pl. 15β.

T.N.P.
Index of exhibits of Monastery of Pantokrator
14th century

The Authentic Greek New Testament Bilingual New Testament I

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