Lekapenos

Dedicatory inscriptions on Middle Byzantine reliquaries have been analyzed for their documentary information, including prosopography, provenance, and date. Relying solely on this data limits our understanding of these objects. The methodology in this paper recontextualizes Byzantine reliquaries and their dedicatory inscriptions by reassessing the meaning and function of the Greek text through its relationship with the form of the object and its relics. The focus of this essay is on one case study—the Limburg Staurotheke, a reliquary of the True Cross now in the cathedral treasury of Limburg an der Lahn, Germany. Three levels of analysis will be applied to the staurotheke and its inscription. First, the dedication functions as a record of patronage—the identification of names, titles, and gifts. Second, it is a typological comparison of the patrons and Christ as expressed in the precise terminology chosen for the dedication. Third, the placement of specific words is significant when viewed in relation to the form of the object and the precious stones and pearls that embellish it. These approaches together reveal the multivalent messages conveyed through the reliquary’s complex interrelationship of text, form, and relic.

This chapter analyses the letter that King Gagik Acruni, the builder of the palatine church on the island of Ałt‘amar in Lake Van, addressed to the Patriarch of Constantinople. Gagik’s letter reflects a new phase of rapprochement – religious, political and military – between the Armenians and the Byzantines, inaugurated during the reign of Romanos Lakapenos. It reveals Gagik’s remarkable theological perspicacity; the king was, certainly, directly involved in the elaboration of the complex iconographic programme of the church of Ałt‘amar, which makes recourse to various artistic and religious traditions. Gagik’s ideas and his patristic references help us to contextualise this iconographic programme and, in particular, to elucidate the enigmatic representation of Adam at the centre of the eastern façade of the church. Adam is represented as a bearded elder, i.e. a witness to the beginnings of the universe, reigning over the animals to whom he has given names. Built in proximity to the Syriac world, this monument bears traces of early Syro-Palestinian art. The bond between the history of the first human being and the advent of the eschatological Saviour, as expressed in the programme of this church, can be interpreted, in particular,  with recourse to the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch and the Cave of Treasures. The image of Adam was addressed to different categories of external observers. The ideas about Adam and his association with an eschatological Prophet also played an important role in Islam. Adam is depicted with the features recognisable by Muslims in the light of the Koran and numerous ahadıth, which trace parallels between Adam and Jesus, characterising Adam as the first monotheist. The authors of this relief intended to arouse empathy in the Muslims, now subjects of an Armenian king. Whilst the Koran reproaches the Christians for the distortion of pure monotheism, which had been taught by God to humanity since Adam, the image of Adam had to present the church to external observers as a sanctuary of unique God.