Church of St. Stephen complex
Informative photo tour through the Church of St. Stephen complex at Umm er-Rasas, including several churches, chapels and adjacent structures.
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The heavy stone base of the pulpit prevented iconoclasts from disfiguring the bust of a Season in the southeast corner of the border. Surrounded by a vine scroll, the Season is represented as a young woman with a mantle covering her right arm and shoulder, her hair carefully arranged in curls, and holding a cornucopia in her left hand. These busts have no identifying symbol.
(From: Michele Piccirillo, page 234)
© Photo: Haupt & Binder
Groundplan: UiU, based on a drawing by the Department of Antiquities (DoA), Jordan
Informative photo tour through the Church of St. Stephen complex at Umm er-Rasas, including several churches, chapels and adjacent structures.
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.
By Michele Piccirillo
A large format, cloth-bound volume with 383 pages, 874 illustrations, including aerial views of many of the sites and plans of most of the structures which have mosaics.
American Center of Oriental Research, Amman, Jordan. First edition in 1993.
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