The Iconography of the Painted Cross Motif on Jerash Bowls

Abstract

The Roman/early Byzantine imperial city of Gerasa (modern Jerash) in Jordan produced a unique group of decorated ceramic bowls in the 6th-mid7th centuries AD ('Jerash Bowls'), which included a series of rare painted images of the Christian cross. This was the time of initial expansion of Christian ideology within a pagan world, in an area about to be overcome by the forces of a new religion, Islam. Analysis of the various depictions of this motif with its range of symbolic features contributes to our understanding of the development of Christian iconography in the formative years of Christian art. Combined with archaeological evidence for the function and use of the Jerash Bowls, the study illuminates artistic and cultural aspects of Early Byzantine society undergoing significant religious and political evolution.