Images: Wikimedia Commons
Other descriptors: none
Clavis number: ECMA 118
Location: chapel no. 30 in El-Bagawat in the Kharga Oasis
Category: tomb decorations
Related literature: Acts of Paul and Thecla, Ascension of Isaiah, Protevangelium of James
Featured characters and locations: Abraham (patriarch), Adam (patriarch), Daniel (prophet), Eve (matriarch), Isaac (patriarch), Isaiah (prophet), Jeremiah (prophet), temple (Jerusalem), Job, Jonah, Moses (patriarch), Noah (patriarch), Sarah (matriarch), Thecla.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: water colors on stone
Size: not specified
Images: Along with a cycle of images from Exodus, other figures from the Hebrew Bible are depicted: Noah, Isaac, Jonah, the three Hebrews in the furnace, Daniel in the lions’ den, and Adam and Eve fleeing the garden of Eden. Of particular interest are the depiction of the martyrdom of Isaiah, an image of seven virgins (labeled “parthenoi”) carrying torches and walking toward a building (perhaps the Jerusalem temple), and a woman in flames beneath a thunder cloud labeled as “Thekla.”
Date: ca. 350–450 CE
Provenance: the Exodus chapel, named for the principle cycle of images in its dome, is one of 263 mud-brick funerary chapels in the El-Bagawat necropolis in the Khareh Oasis, located 600 km south of Cairo. The cemetery was in use by Christians from the late third/early fourth century to the eighth century. Martin (p. 257) says of the painter: “The arguments adduced above suggest that a non-urban native Egyptian of monastic background—a background that brought them into contact with the traditions of Syrian monastics—was involved in the production of the Exodus Chapel paintings. This person—monk or nun—was possibly caught up in one of the clashes between the patriarch and the imperial governor in Alexandria and was exiled to the Great Oasis. The selection of iconography was likely guided by images familiar from his or her former ecclesiastical milieu.”
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
2.1 Thecla in Flames
The Acts of Paul and Thecla include a depiction of the attempted martyrdom of Thecla:
The children and virgins brought wood and hay for Thecla’s burning. When she was brought into the arena naked, the governor wept, marveling at the power he saw in her. They spread out the wood, and the leaders of the people ordered her to mount the pyre. Making the shape of the cross she went up onto the wood. And they lit it. But when it roared into a great fire, the flames did not touch her. For God out of his compassion caused a great roar underground, and overhead a cloud full of water and hailstones overshadowed the place; and there was an immense cloudburst so that many people were in danger of dying. The fire was extinguished and Thecla was saved (22; trans. Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003]).
Some have thought the second orans figure is another depiction of Thecla dwelling in a cave (Martin p. 247). Other theories include the matriarch Sarah and the female occupant of the tomb (Davis, pp. 160–61).
2.2 The Seven Virgins
The procession of the seven virgins has been thought by some scholars to be a depiction of the virgins of the temple from the Protevangelium of James (see Martin pp. 249–50):
Now there was a council of the priests, saying, “We should make a curtain for the temple of the Lord.” Then the high priest said, “Call to me the undefiled virgins from the tribe of David.” And the (temple) officers departed and searched and found seven virgins. And the high priest remembered the child Mary; that she was also from the tribe of David and was undefiled in God’s sight. And the (temple) officers departed and brought her back (10:1–5; trans. Lily Vuong, The Protevangelium of James [Early Christian Apocrypha 7; Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019]).
Other commentators have identified the women as the Wise Virgins of Matthew 25:1–13. Davis thinks they are devotees to the saint (pp. 158–59).
2.3 The Martyrdom of Isaiah
The tradition that Isaiah was sawed in two is known by Justin (Dial. 120:5) and Tertullian (De patientia 14 and Scorpicae 8) and is alluded to in Hebrews 11:37. The only narrative of the prophet’s death is found in the Ascension of Isaiah:
On account of this vision, therefore, Beliar grew angry with Isaiah and he dwelt in the heart of Manasseh, and Isaiah was sawn asunder with a tree-saw (5:1; trans. C. Detlef G. Müller,“The Ascension of Isaiah,” New Testament Apocrypha [ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher; trans. R. McL. Wilson; 2 vols. rev. ed.; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991–1992], 2:603–20).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davis, Stephen J. The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008 (pp. 157–72, figs. 16–23, 25–26).
El-Motagally, Hala Kamal Abd. “Saint Thecla on Coptic Wall Paintings.” International Journal of Advanced Studies in World Archeology 3.1 (2020): 46–60 (see p. 51–52 and figs. 1and 2).
Fakhry, Ahmed. The Necropolis of El-Bagawat. Service des antiquités de l’Égypte: The Egyptian Deserts. Cairo: Government Press, 1951.
Hauser, Walter. “The Christian necropolis in Khargeh Oasis.” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 27 (March 1932): 38–50.
Higgins, Sabrina C. “St. Thecla and the Art of Her Pilgrims: Toward and Autonomous Feminine Aesthetic Praxis.” Journal of the Canadian Society for Coptic Studies 11 (2019): 65–80 (see pp. 71–72, and fig. 4).
Martin, Matthew. “Observations on the Paintings of the Exodus Chapel, Bagawat Necropolis, Kharga Oasis, Egypt.” Pages 233–57, 539–44 in Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott. Edited by John Burke, et al. Byzantina Australiensia 16. Melbourne: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2006.
Nauerth, Claudia, and Rüdiger Warns. Thekla: Ihre Bilder in der Frühchristlichen Kunst. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1981 (pp. 12–21).
Stern, Henri. “Les peintures du mausolée ‘de l’Exode’ à El-Bagaouat.” Cahiers achéologiques 11 (1960): 93–119.
Thérel, M. L. “Le composition et le symbolisme de l’iconographie du mausolée de l’Exode à El-Bagawat.” Rivista di archeologia cristiana 45 (1969): 223–70.
Wilkinson, Charles K. “Early Christian Paintings in the Oasis of Khargeh.” Bulletin Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 23/2 (1928): 29–36.
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“El Bagawat.” Wikipedia.
“Kharga Oasis.” Wikipedia.
Wilkinson, Charles K. “Facsimile of the Dome Painting of the Chapel of Exodus, Bagawat Necropolis, Kharga Oasis.” The Met.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 18 June 2022.