3 Early Christian Stone Cross Pendants | Openwork Cross, Incised Circle Motifs

Eastern Mediterranean, Byzantine Empire. Three small carved-stone amulets. The largest is a Latin cross of pale cream stone, its arms widening to squared ends and its surfaces worn smooth by handling. The second is a dark plaque, probably steatite, with an arched and stepped upper edge, incised on both faces with six ring-and-dot motifs. The third, in pale green-blue stone, is an openwork cross with pierced quarters and flaring arms, set with the same concentric circles. The ring-and-dot motif appears across Byzantine and neighboring workshops as a protective device, and objects this small were likely worn at the throat as personal amulets. The ringed dot (a drilled center encircled by one or two compass-scribed rings) is among the most persistent ornaments in the eastern Mediterranean, appearing on bone, stone, and metal from antiquity through the medieval centuries. Its longevity owes something to technology, since a simple center-bit drill produces it quickly and evenly, and something to belief: the motif reads as an eye, and eyes deflect the evil eye. On a Christian amulet the device therefore doubles the protection, pairing the cross with an older prophylactic vocabulary that the Church absorbed rather than erased. Steatite was a favored medium for Byzantine personal devotional carving from roughly the eleventh century onward, soft enough to cut with a knife yet taking a fine dark polish, and surviving examples range from icons of saints to plain pectoral crosses like these. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 204843

Estimate:$250

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