VIII.—A Byzantine Silver Treasure from the district of Kerynia, Cyprus, now preserved in the British Museum

Ormonde M. Dalton

doi:10.1017/S0261340900011425

VIII.—A Byzantine Silver Treasure from the district of Kerynia, Cyprus, now preserved in the British Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2011

Ormonde M. Dalton

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The treasure described in the following notes was discovered a few years ago in a mound near the monastery of Acheripoetos (Aχειροποιητός), which is situated about six miles west of Kerynia, on the north coast of the island. It originally consisted of three larger objects and about thirty-six spoons, and the whole, with the exception of eleven or twelve spoons, has been acquired by the British Museum. The larger objects are a flat dish, possibly a paten; a basin; and a hexagonal vessel for suspension which was perhaps used as a lamp or censer.

Type: Research Article
Information: Archaeologia , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , 1900 , pp. 159 - 174

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261340900011425 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1900

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^{page 160 note a} Figured by H. Graeven in L'Arte, 1899: Adamo ed Eva sui Gofanetti Bizantini, fig. 13A.

^{page 160 note b} Millet, G., Le Monastere de Daphne (Paris, 1900), 147 note, and plate X. fig. 4.Google Scholar

^{page 160 note c} Acta Sanctorum (Paris, 1868), li. 834 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 161 note a} Procopius, De Aedificiis, book II. c. 9. For inscriptions mentioning the two saints, vide Waddington, Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, No. 1915 and 1921.

^{page 161 note b} Procopius, book I. c. 4. Justinian is said to have owed an especial debt of gratitude to Sergius and Bacchus, because they appeared in a dream to the Emperor Anastasius and warned him not to carry out his project of putting Justin and his nephew to death.

^{page 161 note c} Idem, V. 9.

^{page 161 note d} Acta, 1. c. 855.

^{page 161 note e} Acta, 1. c. 855. Gregory of Tours, Historia, Francorum, vii. c. 31.

^{page 161 note f} Meyer, W., Zwei Antiken Elfenbeintafeln der K. Staatsbibliothek in München (Munich, 1879), plate III.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note a} Molinier, , Histoire générate des Arts appliqués à l'Industrie (Paris, 1896), i. 34Google Scholar. Ivoires, No. 38. Westwood, Catalogue of Fictile Ivories in the S. Kensington Museum, 15, No. 45.

^{page 162 note b} Arneth, J., Die Antiken Gold-und Silber-Monumente des K. K. Münz-und Antihen Cabinettes, Beilage (Vienna, 1850), plate IVGoogle Scholar. In the Vienna MS. of Genesis (c. 5th cent.) Joseph is depicted with a collar very like those on the shield of Theodosius, as well as with the chlamys and tabliom (De Nessel, Plate XLVI.; Grarrucci, Storia dell' Arte Cristiana, iii. plate 123, fig. 2). It will be remembered that in Egypt Joseph was set over the king's house.

^{page 163 note a} D'Agincourt, Sculpture, plate X.

^{page 163 note b} Garrucci, Storia dell' Arte Cristiana, iv. plate 264. In most reproductions of this mosaic the collar is not distinct; in a water-colour drawing in the S. Kensington Museum it is more obvious.

^{page 163 note C} Uvaroy, , Album Byzantin (Moscow, 1890)Google Scholar, coloured plate No. 5 (fig. 8). Dr. Graeven suggests that in the famous copy of the Homilie of Gregory Nazianzene in Paris further examples of court costume may be found.

^{page 163 note d} Meyer, op. cit. 47.

^{page 163 note e} Kondakov, Histoire de l'Art Byzantin, i. 73; and Geschichte und Denkmäler des Byzantinischen Emails, 299, where the costume is discussed in detail. On the costume in general see also De Rossi, Musaici Cristiani, remarks on the figure of St. Theodore in the apse of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and on the mosaics of S. Stefano Rotondo and St. Peter in Vincoli; and Bulletino di Archeologia Cristiana, 1869, p. 7.

^{page 164 note a} Wilpert, , Die Gewandung der Christen in den Ersten Jahrhunderten (Görresgesellschaft, Bonn, 1898), 27.Google Scholar

^{page 164 note b} De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea, iii. plate LI.

^{page 164 note c} Kondakov, Histoire, i. 143.

^{page 164 note d} Molinier, op. cit. 74.

^{page 165 note a} Of. the diptych of Monza, Molinier, op. cit. plate I.; Westwood, op. cit. 14, No. 42; the diptych of Rufius Probianus at Berlin, Molinier, plate IV.; Westwood, 13, No. 39; the Halberstadt diptych already mentioned, (see above fig. 7); the shield of Theodosius (above, note^b on p. 4); the Justinian mosaic at San Vitale; the bust of the Sun in the MS. of Cosmas Indicopleustes; Garrucci, Storia, iii. plate 152, fig. 2; etc., etc.

^{page 165 note b} Cf. a band of similar design sculptured round the top of the drum of a Byzantine column of about the sixth century, figured in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift (1892), i. 576, plate I.

^{page 165 note c} This is a suggestion kindly made by the eminent Byzantine scholar, M. Grustave Schlumberger, to whom rough sketches were sent.

^{page 166 note a} Arneth, op. cit. 78 and plate S. vii.

^{page 167 note a} For instances of the names upon these stamps, and for the name Theodore upon the spoon (fig. 13), see Pape, Wörterbuch der grieehischen Eigennamen; Muralt, , Essai de Chronograpie Byzantine (St. Petersburg, 1855)Google Scholar; Le Quien, Oriens Christianus (esp. vol. ii. for bishops in the Patriarchate of Antioch); Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography. A Sisinnius was martyred under Diocletian, another was patriarch of Constantinople in 426. A Tryphon suffered martyrdom under Decius; another was a magistrate during the Nica riots, etc. etc.

^{page 167 note b} Schlumberger, Gr., Sigillographie de l'Empire Byzantin (Paris, 1884), 19.Google Scholar

^{page 167 note e} The monogram (fig. 9, No, 2 d) is very similar to these of this Emperor on his coins (Cf. Sabatier: Description générate des monnaies Byzantines, i. plate 17), and exagia (Bulletin Archéologique de l'Athenaeum, frangais, 1855, p. 84). Cf. also monograms on a lead seal of the sixth century (Schlumberger, op. cit. 85), and in Santa Sophia (Archaeologia, xlv. 425).

^{page 168 note a} Byzantinische Zeitschrift, v. (1896), 567, and vii. (1898), 29. Cf. also MS. of Cosmas Indicopleustes, p. 108. Garrucci, Storia, plate 146, figs. 2 and 3.

^{page 168 note b} R. Forrer, Die Frühchristlichen Alterthümer aus dem Gräberfeld von Achmim Panopolis, plate VI. fig. 4

^{page 168 note c} Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst, 1896. Article by S. Beissel.

^{page 169 note a} Though St. John the Evangelist (Theologas) is commonly represented in Byzantine art as an elderly man with a beard, the rule is by no means universal. In scenes where he is brought into contact with the Virgin, as for example the Crucifixion and Deposition, he is commonly beardless, as in Western art.

^{page 169 note b} Cf. Statue of an apostle, c. sixth century. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, i. (1892), 585.

^{page 169 note c} Bulletin des Antiquaires de France, 1892, p. 239. This vase, now in the Salle des Bijoux of the museum of the Louvre, is of great size, and apart from the band containing the busts almost without ornament.

^{page 170 note a} It may be just worth while to notice here an inscription beginning in a rather similar manner given by Renan, M., Mission de Phénicie (Paris, 1864), 779Google Scholar. It occurs in one of the niches surrounding a cave with a gallery near Yisch (Gischala). The first line begins with + AY separated from what follows by a cross.

^{page 171 note a} Strzygowski, J., Der Bilderlcreis des griechischen Physiologus (Leipzig, 1899).Google Scholar

^{page 171 note b} Several of the animals upon the spoons are represented in very similar attitudes in the early Byzantine mosaics from the church of St. Christopher at Kabr-Hiram near Tyre, brought from Phoenicia by M. Renan in 1863, and now exhibited in the Galerie Mollien of the Louvre. Of. also the bull upon the column in the Tschinili Kiosk Museum, figured by Strzygowski, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, i. 576, the animals on the chair of Maximianus at Ravenna, etc. In Byzantine MSS. the decorative use of animals falls chiefly between the tenth and thirteenth centuries (Kondakov, Hist. ii. 97–98), though they are sparingly used in the Syrian MS. of Rabula (6th cent.). See Grarrucci, Storia, iii. plates 129, 132, 136.

^{page 171 note c} Schlumberger, , Op. cit. 26–29.Google Scholar

^{page 171 note d} De Rossi, , Bulletino, 1868, p. 81 ff. where the use of such spoons is discussed at length.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note a} de Meuiy, Rohault, La Messe, iv. 185 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note b} Bock, Kleinodien des Heil. Römischen Reichs, plate XX. fig. 27. Garracci, Storia, vi. Plate 430. Cf. also the figures of Our Lord in the MS. of Cosmas, Garrucci, iii. plates 148 and 151.

^{page 173 note a} Bulletino, 1871, p. 153, and plate IX. fig. 1. Garrucci, Storia, vi. plate 460, fig. 10. Kraus, , Geschichte der Christlichen Kunst (Freiburg, 1896), i. 517.Google Scholar

^{page 173 note b} Electrotype in Victoria and Albert Museum. Lessing, Vide, Gold und Bilber (Handbücher der K. Museen, Berlin, 1892), 30.Google Scholar

^{page 173 note c} Garrucci, Storia, plate 453, fig. 1; and plate 457, fig. 2.

^{page 173 note d} Kondakov, , Geschichte und Denkmäler des Byzantinischen Emails (Frankfort, 1892), 284.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note a} Muralt, , Chronographie (1855), 315.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note b} Theophanes, year 6305.

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VIII.—A Byzantine Silver Treasure from the district of Kerynia, Cyprus, now preserved in the British Museum

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