An enigmatic ancient artwork on Twitter
People think of Twitter as the Devil’s toybox, full of fury and cries. But I’ve learnt a lot from it – about lichen and birds and manuscript illuminations. And no object on Twitter is more beautiful and enigmatic than the so-called Trier Adventus Ivory.
It is kept in the cathedral treasury at Trier (though it has been there only since 1844). On a single piece of ivory about 10in x 5in, the carving is so deep and continuous that it gives the impression in reproduction of being bigger than it is.
The technical term adventus just means the introduction of holy relics to a place. These may be seen in the casket carefully held by two figures dressed as bishops, seated on a sausageshaped cushion (itself an indicator of imperial and sacred status) in a carriage pulled by two rotund mules.
The photo here comes from Dr Jordan Pickett, assistant professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of
Georgia in Athens, who tweeted the thread introducing the mysterious Trier ivory.
In the rest of the ivory (as may be seen online), before a range of buildings, three dignitaries walk in procession led by a man dressed as a Byzantine emperor, with the correct togs (tunic marked with pellets; a long chlamys or cloak fastened with a fibula, and on his head a diadem with double pendilia or dangling ornaments). He carries a candle and is met by an empress (in pearlbordered chlamys and dalmatic, with on her head a pearl-bordered crown). She holds a cross-staff.
The description is taken from Suzanne Spain, who in 1977 wrote a paper concluding that the ivory shows the Emperor Heraclius met by the Empress Martina (as a sort of new St Helena) in Jerusalem, into which the relics of the True Cross are being translated in 630, on their recapture from the Persians. Its unparalleled stylistic conventions she saw as Syro-palestinian work of the 7th century.
It sounds convincing but, like Bunbury, Spain is quite exploded. The consensus established over the next two decades was that the scene shows the translation of a relic of St Stephen to Constantinople in the 420s. This event, involving the Emperor Theodosius and his sister, Pulcheria, is described by an early 9th-century chronicle by Theophanes the Confessor.
In the ivory, a telling detail is that, above the bishops in their carriage (not visible in the detail below) a sculpture of Christ is shown under an arch. This is taken to be the emblematic Chalke Gate (chalke being the Greek for “bronze”) into the palace complex in Constantinople.
As for dating the ivory, we are no further forward. It must postdate the event depicted, but a strenuous argument by Leslie Brubaker is that there is no evidence before 800 of the Chalke Gate having an image or icon of Christ of this kind. A date suiting the artefact would be after the initial defeat of iconoclasm at the (second) Council of Nicaea in 787.
It says something about the conservative nature of Byzantine art, as well as the unique character of this ivory, that it can be dated from anywhere between the 5th and the 9th century.
Suzanne Spain wisely devoted some attention to the success of the ivory as a work of art. If it is the remaining side of a reliquary casket, how wonderful it would be if the other sides turned up. I hope they haven’t been confiscated and burnt by customs men on the lookout for ivory smuggling.
For now, it cheers me that fascinating and well-founded scholarship is being smuggled on to Twitter by people like Dr Pickett.