I started reading the book “Der Gral” by Konrad Burdach [1], which I already had mentioned in a German text [2]. I like the literary style of the late Burdach, which consists of high standard German, Latin and Old Greek (which I can't read, I have to admit).
Burdach tells us about the mosaic at Madaba [3]. He describes a bulbous, double-handled cup which, without the handle, would be more like a vase, but which would correspond to sixth-century depictions of the eucharistic chalice. As I hadn't seen such a chalice on the mosaic at St. George's Church in Madaba [4], I decided to do some research.
Burdach quoted a notice of three pages in the “Nuovo bullettino di archeologia cristiana” from 1897 by Orazio Marucchi [5]. Marucchi writes: “Finalmente fra le due iscrizioni, e sempre nel pavimento della nave stessa, è rappresentato pure in musaico un vaso ansato in forma di calice dipinto di colore azzurro imitante il vetro, il cui interno è colorito in rosso, per indicare che conteneva del vino.” [6] and: “Il calice rappresentato a musaico nel pavimento della basilica di Madaba sarebbe senza dubbio un calice ministeriale, cioè destinato alla comunione dei fedeli; ...“ [7] The second half of Burdach's footnote referred to a book by August Heisenberg, which did not yield any additional information to the topic [8]. Marucchi's notice included a painting of the chalice, which looked quite like “The new Lod mosaic with doves” as mentioned by Bowersock [9]. So the chalice on the mosaic could be a eucharistic chalice or a hint at the grail, but still -: why didn't I see it?
I remembered that portions of the Madaba Map had been destroyed when the new church had been built on the remnants of the olf Byzantine church. The homework of a student in Greifswald has been very helpful [10]. Rest of the old foundation had been destructed after the decision to rebuild the church in 1886. The old floor with more mosaics had been almost complete destroyed. “Only Kleophas Koikylides [11], a librarian of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, recognized the importance of what he saw while inspecting the construction site, but it was already too late for about 2/3 of the so-called Madaba map. Around 800,000 of the approximately two million mosaic stones are still preserved today.” Marucchi didn't have a photograph of the mosaic or of the chalice and I doubt that he had access to first photograph of the Madaba Map by Germer Durand (1897), which shows better, what has been destroyed, than recent pictures [12]. So we have to be contended with the drawing of a part of the lost mosaic in Madaba.
 |
| Chalice, vase or amphora - at Gerasa |
 |
| Chalice, vase or amphora - at Petra |
Now I can calmly go back to my reading about the Grail. Let's see if this leads me back into the Holy Land.
Links and Annotations:
[1] Konrad Burdach: Der Gral. Forschungen über seinen Ursprung und seinen Zusammenhang mit der Longinuslegende. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt, 1974. ISBN: 3534068084. Enriched reprint from the original of 1938. Konrad Burdach lived from 1859 until 1936; so he didn't see his research in print.
[2] Translation of my German text: I held the book "Der Gral" [The Grail] by Konrad Burdach, a late medievalist, in my hands and leafed through it, because you should think twice about whether you want to commit yourself to 550 pages, got stuck on p. 72 and read: "But if we walk in the light as he is in the light...". Just two weeks ago I read these verses with surprise. But I think that Isidore of Pelusium, or to learn more about his role in the legend of the Grail, were the decisive factors in reading the book. https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2022/01/sammelsurium-205-15012022.html
[3] Burdach, loc. cit. p. 117
[4] For more on the Madaba Map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madaba_Map
[5] Orazio Marucchi: Nuove scoperte a Madaba (Palestina). In: Nuovo bullettino di archeologia cristiana: ufficiale per i resoconti della Commissione di Archeologia Sacra sugli Scavi e su le Scoperte nelle Catacombe Romane. Vol. 3, Rom 1897; p. 147-149. https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/nbacr1897
[6] Marucchi, loc. cit. p. 148, Translation: “Finally between the two inscriptions, and always in the floor of the ship itself, a panted vase is also represented in mosaic in the form of a chalice painted blue imitating glass, whose interior is colored red, to indicate that it contained del wine.”
[7] Marucchi, loc. cit. p. 149, Translation: “The chalice represented as a mosaic on the floor of the basilica of Madaba would undoubtedly be a ministerial chalice, that is, intended for the communion of the faithful; ...”
[8] August Heisenberg: Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche. Leipzig 1908.
https://archive.org/details/grabeskircheund00heisgoog/page/n153/mode/2up
[9] Glen W. Bowersock: Religion in Early Fourth Century Roman Palestine: The Kfar ʿOthnay Mosaics. P. 65-72; Fig. 4. https://doi.org/10.4000/syria.6289
https://journals.openedition.org/syria/6289?lang=en; photograph by: https://journals.openedition.org/syria/docannexe/image/6289/img-4.jpg
[10] Jana Vogt: Architekturmosaiken am Beispiel der drei jordanischen Städte Madaba, Umm al-Rasas und Gerasa. Hausarbeit (Hauptseminar) [Homework (advanced seminar)] Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald, Greifswald 2004. https://www.grin.com/document/59736
[11] Héron de Villefosse Antoine. Un mosaïque géographique découverte à Madeba par le R. P. Cléophas. In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 41ᵉ année, N. 2, 1897. pp. 140-143; doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/crai.1897.70936
https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1897_num_41_2_70936 Also includes a map on millimeter paper, drawn by P. Kleophas Koikylides; text in French.
[12] Yiannis Meimaris: The Discovery of the Madaba Mosaic Map. Mythology and Reality. https://web.archive.org/web/20131106065242/http://www.christusrex.org/www1/ofm/mad/articles/MeimarisMap.html
.
No comments:
Post a Comment