Lecture Summaries: 9 June, 2004

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Synagogues and Churches in the Roman Near East: Builders and Benefactors

The central theme of the lecture is commemoration, namely the recording of the roles of individuals. It is narrower than the title might suggest only in that the material discussed are mosaics, and virtually all of these are floor-mosaics. It is wider in the sense that the treatment tries to explore the wider artistic, representational, narrative and information -- possibilities provided by mosaics, and the place within that wider spectrum which was occupied by the delivery of information about the contemporaries responsible either for providing funds or for carrying out the work.

There are more general questions relating to the possible use of mosaics, within paganism, Judaism and Christianity, for portraying narrative scenes derived from texts which were either sacred or had a central place in traditional culture. Beyond that, were such representations ever used in sequence to tell a story? Are the characters portrayed identified by name by mosaic inscriptions, and are words ever attributed to them?

The key feature of the mosaic as a vehicle of religious meaning or of commemoration is in fact precisely the incorporation of text. Benefactors and builders are often named within mosaics whose design is purely formal, and non-representational. But their names, and a record of their roles, may also be fitted in within representations of scenes from the Biblical past. In short, the varied forms in which the visual potentialities of mosaic were exploited to combine representation with narrative on the one hand and the recording of contemporary services represent a complex field, in which there turn out to be contrasts between churches and synagogues which are the contrary of those that one might expect.