Interior of the Synagogue of Dura Europa

D: ca. 245-256

P/S: End of Roman Empire Period

A: Unknown

Pa: Unknown

L: Dura-Europos, Syria

M/T: Tempera on plaster

F: For Judaism. It was a Jewish house of worship ("Christian Community House"

C: The center niche may have held the Torah. The figures were stylized and tended to stand in frontal rows. There were stories from the Torah on the wall. In this synagogue, it held about 70 people in it's meeting hall, and was a remodeled private residence/secondhand house. Many middle class people attended.

DT: Synagogue, Jewish Culture, Tempera

pg. 303  Fig. 11-1

The Good Shepherd, The story of Jonah and Orants. (Ceiling of a Cubiculum)

D:  Early Fourth Century

P/S: End of Roman Empire/Early Christianity

A: None

Pa: None

L: Ceiling of a Cubiculum on the catacomb of St. Peters and Marcellinus. Rome, Italy

M/T: Fresco/Paint

F:  Ceiling decoration.

C: The entire painting had a polygonal figure shape (the Ostian spoked-wheel design) which became a large circle with a cross in the center. The four lunettes (semicircular frames) were also found in Ostian composition. STORY OF THE PIECE: The lunettes contain Old Testament stories of Jonah. The sailors throw him from his ship on the left, emerges from the right from the ketos (sea dragon/whale) that had swallowed Jonah. At the bottom, he is safe on land and he contemplates his salvation and the "mercy of God." Jonah was honored as a prefiguration or prophetic forerunner of Christ.  This entire piece represents the prefiguration of Christs ressurrection.

DT:  Ostian spoked-wheel design, prefiguration, ketos, lunettes.

pg. 304 Fig. 11.3

Sarcophagus of Junnius Bassius

D: ca. 359(Has date of baptism, which was in the same year as his death.)

P/S: Early Christianity

A: Unknown

Pa: May have been Junius Bassius (Loosely associated as patron.)

L: Rome, Italy

M/T: Marble

F: Sarcophagus

C: Decorated on only three sides, Uses an Asiatic sarcophagi technique of dividing it into two registers of five compartments, each framed by columns. Covered in stories from the Old Testament rather than depictions of Junnius Bassius. Christ is depicted as a teacher enthroned between his chief apostles; Peter and Paul. Triumphantly entering Jerusalem on a donkey. He is also depicted as the personification of the sky god holding a billowing mantle above his head. (Indicates Christ as ruler of universe)

DT: None

pg. 306 Fig. 11.5

Old Saint Peters

D: Began ca. 320

P/S: Early Christianity

A: Unknown

Pa: Constantine

L: Rome, Italy

M/T: timber roof/marble decorated with low relief on ceiling.

F: Chapel-Basilica plan with a smaller circular plan. Church connected to it. clerestory windows-only light source in old Christian churches. Lots of high story windows in the nave. 

C: None

DT: None

pg. 310 Fig. 11-7