The Murals on Entrance Porch of the Faras Cathedral

• Authors: Stefan Jakobielski
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The aim of the article is to discuss a dating of two murals painted in a tempera technique on the walls of the southern entrance porch of Faras cathedral, namely the representations of an archangel and St Mercurius on horseback. Both were originally dated to the late tenth or the early eleventh century, but some scholars suggested that these works of arts could have been painted as late as in the late twelfth century or even later. That is at the time when area of the porch together with adjoining staircase had certainly been covered with a roof. Such a dating however, seems largely inadequate in view of the stylistic evidence and the artist’s workshop characteristics, so an effort to restore the original dating has been undertaken in the present article, in the belief that the porch must have been covered earlier in a something way. There follows a suggestion concerning construction of the original roofing. The latter part of the article concerns a possible identification of the archangel’s figure as Gabriel (and not Michael).

Keywords

EN

Nubia; Cathedral of Faras; mural paintings; Christian iconography; archangels; St Mercurius

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych PAN
• Journal: Études et Travaux (Institut des Cultures Méditerranéennes et Orientales de l’Académie Polonaise des Sciences)
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 29
• Pages: 75–94

Contributors

author

Stefan Jakobielski

• Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Warszawa