Theodosios bishop of Athens (seventh/eighth century)
Obverse
The Mother of God standing, holding the Christ child in her left arm. On either side, a cruciform monogram: Θεοτόκε βοήθει. Wreath border.
Θεοτόκε βοήθει
Reverse
Inscription of four lines. Wreath border.
...Δ.
ΙΕΠ
ΚΟΠΑ
ΘΝ
[Θεο]δ[οσ]ίῳ ἐπ[ισ]κόπῳ Ἀθηνῶν
Obverse
The Mother of God standing, holding the Christ child in her left arm. On either side, a cruciform monogram: Θεοτόκε βοήθει. Wreath border.
Θεοτόκε βοήθει
Reverse
Inscription of four lines. Wreath border.
...Δ.
ΙΕΠ
ΚΟΠΑ
ΘΝ
[Θεο]δ[οσ]ίῳ ἐπ[ισ]κόπῳ Ἀθηνῶν
| Accession number | BZS.1951.31.5.1529 |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 30.0 mm |
| Previous Editions | DO Seals 2, no. 9.4. See also Laurent, Corpus V/1, no. 587, presenting a seal originally published by Lihačev (IZIGI, 118, note 1 and fig. 261) but illustrating the Fogg specimen (pl. 80). The Lihačev specimen has a poorly struck obverse, the Fogg specimen a poorly struck reverse. The two correspond very closely in the style of the iconography on the obv. and the lettering on the rev. They seem to come from the same boulloterion; the apparent slight differences are likely due to defective strikes. But even if from different boulloteria, it is obvious that they were modeled on each other. |
| Credit Line | Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Thomas Whittemore. |
Translation
Θεοτόκε βοήθει Θεοδοσίῳ ἐπισκόπῳ Ἀθηνῶν.
Mother of God, help Theodosios bishop of Athens.
Bibliography
- Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 2: South of the Balkans, the Islands, South of Asia Minor (Open in Zotero)
- Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
- Istoriceskoe znacenie italo-greceskoj ikonopisi: Izobra zenija Bogomatera v prozvedenijah italo-greceskih ikonopiscev i ih vlijanie na kompozicii nekotoryh proslavlennyh russkih ikon (Open in Zotero)
- Byzantine Lead Seals, Vol. 1 (Open in Zotero)
- A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Seals (Open in Zotero)
- Documents de sigillographie byzantine: La collection C. Orghidan (Open in Zotero)
- Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
- Die Tarchaneiotai: Eine prosopographisch-sigillographische Studie (Open in Zotero)
- Hellas und Thessalia (Open in Zotero)
- Realities of Byzantine Provincial Government: Hellas and Peloponnesos, 1180-1205 (Open in Zotero)
- La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, vol. 2, Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins (Open in Zotero)
- Hierarchia Ecclesiastica Orientalis: Series episcoporum ecclesiarum christianarum orientalium (Open in Zotero)
- Athen in Byzanz: Traum und Realität (Open in Zotero)
Commentary
We follow Laurent (contra Lihačev) in dating this specimen between the first and second Iconoclasm (787-815), when the Virgin's face and cloak tended to be more naturalistically rendered than in later periods, when the monograms flanking her were not yet elongated (e.g., Zacos-Veglery, nos. 1331A, 1333), and when such archaic characters as the epsilon with a long horizontal bar () and the shallow omega were still in use (Dated Seals, nos. 15-27; 8, 11-14, 16, 20, 23-25). A Theodosios of Athens is mentioned (at an unspecified date) in the Life of St. Leontios (REB 43 [1985] 239).