Images: the Met
Clavis number: ECMA 135
Other descriptors: el-Salam sanctuary
Location: chapel no. 80 in El-Bagawat in the Kharga Oasis
Category: frescoes
Related literature: Acts of Paul and Thecla
Featured characters and locations: Abraham (patriarch), Adam (patriarch), Daniel (prophet), Eve (matriarch), Isaac (patriarch), Job, Jacob (patriarch), Mary (Virgin), Noah (patriarch), Paul (apostle), Sarah (matriarch), Thecla.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: water colors on stone
Size: not specified
Images: the chapel’s dome features allegorical personifications of Prayer, Justice, and Peace, and the biblical figures of Adam and Eve, Abraham sacrificing Isaac with Sarah looking on, Daniel, Jacob, and Noah. Pictured also are Paul and Thecla (both labeled) sitting on gold-colored stools, with their legs crossed. Eve stands to Thecla’s left, and the Virgin Mary on Paul’s right. Thecla holds a book and pen and Paul gestures to it with a pointing stick (Davis 157). There is a hint of the same scene in the damaged frescoes of chapel 25.
Date: ca. 400–600 CE
Provenance: the Peace Chapel, named for one of the three allegorical figures depicted 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.
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The Acts of Paul and Thecla describes Thecla listening to Paul’s teachings (“Day and night Thecla heard what Paul said about chastity, and she did not budge from the window, but was drawn to faith with great joy,” 7) and visiting Paul in prison, where “sitting at his feet, she heard about the majestic character of God” (18). Trans. Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
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. 156–57, and fig. 20).
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 pp. 52–54 and fig. 3).
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 p. 71–72, and fig. 3).
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 (pp. 234–35 and fig. 17).
Nauerth, Claudia, and Rüdiger Warns. Thekla: Ihre Bilder in der Frühchristlichen Kunst. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1981.
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.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 18 June 2022.