Almost Heaven
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An early depiction of Jesus was recently discovered in a circa 6th century Byzantine church deep in Israel’s Negev Desert. Dr. Emma Maayan-Fanar identified the Christian Messiah’s portrait from a few faint outlines with the help of a combination of conditions that was almost miraculous.
Alongside Haifa University archaeologists and conservationists Prof. Guy Bar-Oz, Yotam Tepper, and Ravit Linn, art historian Maayan-Fanar is participating in a multi-year interdisciplinary research project called the Negev Byzantine Bio-Archaeology Research Program at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Shivta. Its self-stated goal is to look into “the reasons for the collapse of a complex society in an environmentally marginal region 1,500 years ago.”
Maayan-Fanar told The Times of Israel this week that during a recent visit to the North Church, one of three at the site, she glanced at the baptistery apse above her and immediately saw the face of Jesus staring down at her.
“I was under the apse at the right place at the right time. It’s just so hidden — it’s impossible to see — but the conditions of the light were just right,” said Maayan-Fanar.
In an article in the August edition of the journal Antiquity, the research team writes that the face, set in a larger depiction of Jesus’ baptism, is “the first pre-iconoclastic baptism-of-Christ scene to be found in the Holy Land.”
In the Antiquity report, the researchers write, “Despite its fragmentary condition, it reveals a youth’s face depicted on the apse’s upper section. The figure has short curly hair, a prolonged face, large eyes and an elongated nose.”
“Christ’s face in this painting is an important discovery in itself. It belongs to the iconographic scheme of a short-haired Christ, which was especially widespread in Egypt and Syro-Palestine, but gone from later Byzantine art. Early sixth-century texts include polemics concerning the authenticity of Christ’s visual appearance, including his hairstyle. Based on iconography, we estimate that this scene was also painted in the sixth century AD,” write the authors.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jesus...at-negev-church-is-one-of-earliest-in-israel/
Alongside Haifa University archaeologists and conservationists Prof. Guy Bar-Oz, Yotam Tepper, and Ravit Linn, art historian Maayan-Fanar is participating in a multi-year interdisciplinary research project called the Negev Byzantine Bio-Archaeology Research Program at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Shivta. Its self-stated goal is to look into “the reasons for the collapse of a complex society in an environmentally marginal region 1,500 years ago.”
Maayan-Fanar told The Times of Israel this week that during a recent visit to the North Church, one of three at the site, she glanced at the baptistery apse above her and immediately saw the face of Jesus staring down at her.
“I was under the apse at the right place at the right time. It’s just so hidden — it’s impossible to see — but the conditions of the light were just right,” said Maayan-Fanar.
In an article in the August edition of the journal Antiquity, the research team writes that the face, set in a larger depiction of Jesus’ baptism, is “the first pre-iconoclastic baptism-of-Christ scene to be found in the Holy Land.”
In the Antiquity report, the researchers write, “Despite its fragmentary condition, it reveals a youth’s face depicted on the apse’s upper section. The figure has short curly hair, a prolonged face, large eyes and an elongated nose.”
“Christ’s face in this painting is an important discovery in itself. It belongs to the iconographic scheme of a short-haired Christ, which was especially widespread in Egypt and Syro-Palestine, but gone from later Byzantine art. Early sixth-century texts include polemics concerning the authenticity of Christ’s visual appearance, including his hairstyle. Based on iconography, we estimate that this scene was also painted in the sixth century AD,” write the authors.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jesus...at-negev-church-is-one-of-earliest-in-israel/
