Images: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Clavis number: ECMA 103
Other descriptors: Seal for Eucharistic Wafer
Location: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, G220B – Byzantine Gallery
Object number: 66.29.2
Category: bread stamps
Related literature: Acts of Philip
Featured characters and locations: Hierapolis, Philip (apostle).
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: bronze. Handle on back.
Size: 10.48 cm. diameter
Image: The image is carved in reverse in order to make an impression on eulogia bread, distributed at the saint’s shrine. Philip stands in the center with a role in his hand and dressed in a long tunic and pallium. The structures on either side of the saint have been identified as the domed martyrium (on the right) and the new Byzantine basilical church containing the tomb of the apostle Philip (on the left), both of which were recovered in excavations of the site by Franceso D’Andria.
Inscription: Ο ΑΓΙΟC ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟC (Saint Philip), and another Greek inscription around the edge quotes from Isaiah 6:3: ΑΓΙΟC ΑΓΙΟC ΑΓΙΟC ΚΥΡΙΟC CΑΒΑΩΘ Ω ΟΥΡΑΝΟC ΚΕ ΓΙ ΤΗC ΑΓΙΑC CΟΝ ΔΩΞΙC (“Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Hosts: heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.”)
Date: late 6th–7th cent.
Provenance: believed to come from Hierapolis, Phrygia (modern Pamukkale, Turkey). There is no record of its ownership history.
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The Acts of Philip documents the travels of Philip, his sister Mariamne, and Bartholomew in Greece, Phrygia, and Syria. In the fifteenth act, they reach Hierapolis, where Philip is martyred and buried.
After three days a grapevine sprouted where the blood of the apostle Philip had dripped. And they did all the things that had been commanded them by him, bringing offerings for forty days and praying constantly. They built a church in that place, having also appointed Stachys as bishop. (Acts of Philip 15:41)
Polycrates of Ephesus (end of the second century CE) also locates the tomb of Philip in Hierapolis (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.31.3 and 5.24.2). And around the same time, the Montanist Proclus mentions the graves of Philip and his four daughters in Hierapolis (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.31.4).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
D’Andria, Franceso. “The Sanctuary of St. Philip in Hierapolis and the Tombs of Saints in Anatolian Cities.” Pages 4–18 in Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Times. Edited by J. Rasmus Brandt, Erika Hagelberg, Gro Bjornstad, and Sven Ahrens. Studies in Funerary Archaeology 10. Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow, 2017 (p. 14).
Foskolou, Vicky A. “‘Reading’ the Images on Pilgrim Mementoes (Eulogies): Their Iconography as a Source for the Cult of Saints in the Early Byzantine Period.” Pages 315–25 in Für Seelenheil und Lebensglück. Das byzantinische Pilgerwesen und seine Wurzeln. Edited by Despoina Ariantzi and Ina Eichner. Mainz: Schnell & Steiner, 2015 (pp. 317–18 and fig. 1).
Galavaris, George. Bread and the Liturgy: The Symbolism of Early Christian and Byzantine Bread Stamps. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970 (pp. 149–51, fig. 80).
Gonosová, Anna, and Christine Kondoleon. Art of Late Rome and Byzantium in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Baltimore: The Museum, 1994 (pp. 270–73, no. 94).
Ross, M. C. “Byzantine Bronzes.” Arts in Virginia 10 (1970): 32–43 (no. 14).
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979 (no. 530, pp. 590–91).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Tomb of the Apostle St. Philip in Hierapolis.” Hierapolis-info.
“The Tomb of Philip the Apostle at Hierapolis (Turkey).” Holy Land Photos. Posted 13 December 2018.
Allegri, Renzo. “How I Discovered the Tomb of the Apostle Philip: Interview with Archaeologist Francesco D’Andria.” EWTN Global Catholic Network. Posted 2 May 2012. Online: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/how-i-discovered-the-tomb-of-the-apostle-philip-1949.
Entry created by Hortense Anglin, under the supervision of Tony Burke, York University, 28 March 2021.