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The Donkey and the King

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

George M. A. Hanfmann
Affiliation:
Harvard University

Abstract

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Type
Notes & Observations
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

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References

1 P 67.90:7492. Top broken off. Height, 6.1 cm. Hanfmann, George M. A., “The Tenth Campaign at Sardis (1967),” BASOR 191 (1968) 11, fig. 1, fig. 8.Google Scholar Robert, Louis, “Ampoules chrétiennes,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique 108 (1984) 461.Google Scholar Metzger, Catherine, Les ampoules à eulogie au Musée du Louvre (Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1981) 22.Google Scholar Metzger erroneously states that the two sides of the Sardis ampulla are identical.

2 Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq, “Ampoules,” Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne (Paris: Letouzey et Ané) 1.2, 1722–47; Carl. M. Kaufmann, Zur Ikonographie der Menas-Ampullen (1910); Griffing, R. P. Jr, “An Early Christian Ivory from Cyprus and the Asiatic Ampullae,” Art Bulletin 20 (1938) 266–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frazer, Margaret E., “Holy Sites Representations,” in Weitzmann, Kurt, ed., Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979) 564–88Google Scholar, nos. 526–27 and figs. 78–79.

3 Hanfmann, “Tenth Campaign,” figs. 7, 9, plan and view of the area.

4 P 62.49; P 58.428; P. 68.164. For the last piece, Crawford, John S. apud Hanfmann, George M. A., Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983) 167, fig. 224.Google Scholar This piece is larger than the common run of ampullae. It shows a Latin cross with green shoots springing diagonally from the cross; they are being eaten by two animals.

5 Crawford, apud Hanfmann, Sardis, 161–67; Foss, Clive, “Byzantine and Turkish Sardis,” Archaeological Exploration of Sardis Monograph 4 (1976) 16Google Scholar; idem, “The Fall of Sardis in 616 and the Value of Evidence,” JOB 24 (1975) 1122.Google Scholar

6 BASOR 154 (1959) 22–27, figs. 2–12; 157; (159) 22–28 figs. 2–13. Hansen, D. P., “L'antica Sardi Cristiana,” Bibbia e Oriente 4 (1962) 169–74, pl. 11–12.Google Scholar Foss, “Sardis,” 43–44, pl. 11–12.

7 P 62.3; P 62.49; P 65.1; Hanfmann, George M. A., “The Eighth Campaign at Sardis (1965),” BASOR 182 (1966) 1617, figs. 12–13.Google Scholar

8 Not mentioned in the report of the renewed excavation of the “House of Bronzes,” BASOR 249 (1983) 1520, fig. 20 (new plan).Google Scholar

9 See n. 2, above; also Morey, Charles R. (Early Christian Art [1942] 5960, 123–25)Google Scholar on the lead ampullae of Monza and Bobbio thought to be from Palestine.

10 Frazer (“Holy Sites,” 564–68) describes the objects made as mementoes of pilgrimages to Holy Sites: they ranged from humble clay ampullae, through more valuable lead ampullae, painted boxes, and icons, to ivory, silver, and gold. Menas City is paradigmatic in illustrating the production (kilns), storage, and the spread of ampullae associated with the cult of St. Menas.

11 Menas City: Kaufmann, Zur Ikonographie, 68–106, figs. 8–110; Weitzmann, ed., 662–64, and no. 515 dating to the time of Heraclitus (610–641). Antioch: Griffing, “Christian Ivory,” 278, figs. 16–17. Sardis: a total of 7 flasks prior to 1980, see nn. 1 and 4, above.

12 Among the reported findspots are Ephesus, Neapolis in Caria, and Mylasa: Robert has pointed out (“Ampoules,” 462–67) that the ampullae given by P. Gaudin to the Louvre are likely to have come from the Hermus valley, where Gaudin supervised the building of the railway. Ephesus is represented once in the Louvre and once in the British Museum, Catalogue of Early Christian Antiquities (1901) 912. On the other hand Smyrna, as a center of antiques trafficking, is simply a catch-all term.

13 P 58.428; Hansen, “L'antica Sardi Cristiana,” 173, pl. 11 b, found in Byzantine Shop W 1; P 62.3 outside the Byzantine Shop E 17.

14 P 68.165. Height 14 cms. Crawford, in Sardis, 166, fig. 244, from Byzantine Shop W 1 (tentatively identified as a restaurant). Called “rabbits” in caption, called “hares” in Hanfmann, George M. A., Letters from Sardis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972) 250, fig. 185Google Scholar; might they not be lambs?

15 P 62.49, from Byzantine Shops, unpublished.

16 Robert, “Ampoules,” fig. 5, from Neapolis in Caria; Metzger, La collection, 22, 45, fig. 85, no. 113, said to come from Ephesus. Antioch: Griffing, “Christian Ivory,” 278, fig. 16, 17.

17 Metzger, La collection, 20. The same figure with a key (ibid., no. 116) is, of course, St. Peter. Griffing calls the standing figure Peter crucifer.

18 Griffing, “Christian Ivory,” 278–79.

19 BASOR 191 (1968) 11, fig. 8. Only the side with cross on orb is shown. The iconographic type is parallel to the representations of the lamb carrying the cross.

20 “The Crucified Donkey Man,” in Kopcke, Günther and Moore, Mary B., eds., Studies in Classical Art and Archaeology: A Tribute to Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen (1979) 206–8Google Scholar, pl. 55:1–2.

21 Sasson, Jack M., “The Thoughts of Zimrilim,” BA 47 (1984) 118–19Google Scholar, citing Archives Royales de Mari VI.76. The date of Zimrilim depends on the choice among the three possible dates of Hammurabi of Babylon (1848, 1792, or 1736 BCE; Glass, J. T., “The Problem of Chronology in Ancient Mesopotamia,” BA 47 (1984) 92.Google Scholar

22 Ilona Opelt, “Esel,“ RAC 6 (1966) 567.Google Scholar Opelt considers virtually all possible attitudes toward the donkey discernible in Near Eastern and biblical sources (564–96). Already Waldemar Deonna had emphasized that the donkey (ass) is “le porteur des rois” (Laus asini,” RBPh 34 [1956] 546, 337–64, 623–53Google Scholar). Early Christian representations of the entry into Jerusalem begin in the time of Constantine, ca. 330 CE. They reflect the influence of Roman imperial entrances. None replaces Christ in human form by a cross. See Dinkier, Erich, Der Einzug in Jerusalem (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen 167; Oplanden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Herdner, Andrée, Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabetiques (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1963) 4.4.4–12Google Scholar (= Gordon, , Ugaritic Textbook [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965] 51.4.4–12).Google Scholar

24 Albright, William Foxwell, From the Stone Age to Christianity (Garden City: Anchor, 1957) 229–30.Google Scholar

25 Foss, Clive, Ephesus after Antiquity: A Late Antique Byzantine and Turkish City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 3043.Google Scholar Note, however, that for the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers (ca. 450) Franz Miltner speaks of “a few ampullae perhaps forgotten by the pilgrims,” and reproduces two, one Anatolian, the other Egyptian, as against 2000 lamps; Forschungen in Ephesos IV (1937) 9596, pl. 10Google Scholar (busts of bearded man, according to M. Christ; reverse beardless man, holding a book).

26 The editors of the Harvard Theological Review note with sadness the sudden death of Professor George M. A. Hanfmann on Thursday, 13 March 1986, just before this issue went to press. His student and colleague, Professor David Mitten, kindly read and corrected the proofs.