Komplex St. Stephanus Kirche
Informative Fototour durch den Komplex um die St. Stephanus Kirche in Umm er-Rasas mit mehreren Kirchen, Kapellen und angrenzenden Bauten.
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Durch eine Inschrift im Mosaikboden auf das Jahr 586 n. Chr. datiert.
Adjoins the Church of St. Stephen. Has an apsed presbyterium, two steps higher than the nave, and a single sacristy to the north. The main entrance is through a paved courtyard, later converted into another church. Two doors on the western facade lead to a baptistry chapel, and to a funerary chapel.
The mosaic of the nave was defaced by iconoclasts. The central carpet is enclosed in a wide frame consisting of scrolls formed by vine shoots originating from cornucopias held by the four Seasons at the corners.
The vine scrolls are decorated with two peacocks facing each other; a vineyard scene with baskets full of grapes and a peasant carrying grapes on the back of a donkey toward a wine press; and a fowling scene with a cage and a hunter with a stick trying to frighten two birds perched in the branches of a tree. The same types of motifs are repeated in the rest of the scrolls.
Except for a strip on the eastern side with scenes of fowling and harvest, the main carpet of the nave is decorated with 10 rows of four acanthus scrolls. In the scrolls there are scenes; on the east there is the personification of the Sea (the Abyss) and on the west, the personification of the Earth.
The benefactors of the church are also shown; these include the sons of John; the sons of Sophia; Ouadia with a censer in his right hand near a church; John with a book in his hand; and an anonymous benefactor who points to a church and holds aloft a boy on his shoulders. In addition, Baricha, Zongon and John, son of Porphyrius, hold a bull while Soel plows with oxen; and Peter and John ride horses. Two unusual images are a phoenix with rays coming out of its head and a man carrying a bed on his shoulders.
Names of other donors are given in a medallion inside the central western door, and there is a long inscription in an inter-columnar space to the north: “O Lord, have mercy on all who toiled on this mosaic. Their names are known to You. [It was done] in the times of Soel, of Kasiseus, of Abdalla, of Obed, and of Elias, your faithful [ones].”
(Aus: Michele Piccirillo, Seiten 234/235)
© Foto: Haupt & Binder
Grundriss: UiU, ausgehend von einer Zeichnung des Department of Antiquities (DoA), Jordanien
Informative Fototour durch den Komplex um die St. Stephanus Kirche in Umm er-Rasas mit mehreren Kirchen, Kapellen und angrenzenden Bauten.
From Medieval Greek = icon / to break
Rejection or destruction of religious images or sacred objects.
During the Byzantine Empire the use of religious images or icons was opposed by religious and imperial authorities within the Eastern Church. A widespread destruction of images and persecution of image veneration supporters took place. The first phase lasted from 730-787.
In Jordan, human and animal images were deliberately destroyed in the mosaics of a considerable number of Byzantine churches. This occurred not because the images were venerated, but rather because of the objection to any depiction of living beings.
The area of modern Jordan, previously part of the Byzantine Empire, became integrated into the Umayyad Empire (the first Muslim dynasty) in the early 7th century. For this reason some attribute the iconoclastic activities to an edict issued by the Umayyad caliph Yazid II (720-724). But its authenticity is questioned, and it is not mentioned in any early Arabic sources.
Often destruction and repair were done simultaneously: the plucked out tesserae were carefully reinserted as pixelated blurs, which indicates a procedure done by the local Christian communities themselves. Therefore, it is likely that the defacement of living beings was a consequence of the socio-religious environment of those communities, and the continued polemics, and persistent criticism from different groups (incl. Muslims, Jews and Christian groups) during that time.
Von Michele Piccirillo
Ein großformatiger Band mit 383 Seiten, 874 Abbildungen, einschließlich Luftaufnahmen vieler Standorte und Plänen der meisten Gebäude mit Mosaiken.
American Center of Oriental Research, Amman, Jordanien. Erste Ausgabe 1993.
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