medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Hi, John,

>Thanks, Rochelle.  Is _Absent Voices_ out yet?
Yes, finally. I was told shipment of pre-orders will start Monday.

[snip]
>In the interim, here's a question for you.
I tried to answer all of them, but the architectural side did a Topsy on
me. I've condensed it all down to the main points only.

>>The shape of the "statuary niche" is specifically from the Eastern side of
>>the ANE.

>I take it from this that there is but one basic shape of statuary niche
>and that all its manifestations (or, at least, all its European and Near
>Eastern manifestations) are somehow "from" (conceptually descended from?)
>those evidenced on the Eastern side of the ANE.  Please correct me if I
>have misunderstood you.

Yes, there is a misunderstanding; we are talking about _Christian_ statuary
niches, not niches in general. No, there is not one basic shape for niches
in general. Then, we have three separate concepts involved here. One is the
niche, which is probably pre-historic, most likely an interpretation of the
natural grotto/cave entry, and varies according to cultural interpretations.
The second is the high place, which seems to appear anywhere sun-as-god is
part of the theology; the high place shows up as ziggurats if there is no
convenient high place on a mountain around. The third concept is the shape
signifying the god(s) stands behind/protects the contents as manifested in
different cultures.

>Assuming my understanding to be correct, what permits the adoption of
>this cultural diffusion model to the complete exclusion of independent
>invention?

The concept of niche/cave is independent, so is the high place. Both of
these concepts are found throughout the world and owe nothing to diffusion.
The third concept, though, was disseminated...

Understandably, the shape of god-given authority/protection was derived
from the architecture of religious structures. The high place had different
intepretations depending upon culture and so did the arch.

Eastern Med roofs were flat and rested on post and lintel construction.
Egyptian temple architecture is flat-roofed. The Egyptian arch was concave,
carved on a piece of stone on a lintel piece, and imitated the mud-weighted,
reed mat roofs of the area. Columns were massive and closely spaced. The
pylons at the entries represented the "hand" of the god(s) for whom the
temple was constructed and upon which the god(s) were inscribed.

Cretan architecture was flat-roofed, post and lintel; did not employ the
arch and external columns were very widely spaced. Cretan religious areas
were within the "live-in" building and not a separate structure.

The functional arch is Sumerian and dates back to the 4th millennium BCE.
The house of God at Ur had very heavy and closely spaced columns (columnar
"hall"); the roof (what pieces were left of it) was a high rounded arch. The
combination of the arch of the house of god architecture with the ziggurat
of the high place as the symbol of a god's protection/authority is North
Semitic and dates back to the 24th BCE at Akkad. The finest extant example
of the combined high place and high round arch is Hammurabi's stele (18th
BCE). Topped by the high rounded arch, the stele is a narrow column; a high
place (it's 8 feet); and still widens at the base -- just like the ziggurat.

The North-West Phoenician interpretations of the arch are variations on
a slightly-rounded at the apex triangle on top of a narrow column and can
be seen, for example, on grave stelae from Sardinia (8th and 7th BCE).

The pediment was incorporated into Greek temple construction ca. 6th century
BCE. As the Doric model was for timber construction, narrow rectangles with
high, thatched and eaved roofs, conversion into stone leaves a triangular
opening at the ends where the roofline comes to a peak. Whether the end result
was a borrowing or not we'll never know; whatever the case, the pediment is
the Greek symbol for being under a god's authority/protection -- the pediment
is used on funerary and votive stelae, too. Greek temple construction was
borrowed by the Romans. Yes, arch-construction was used by the Romans -- a
different shape of arch, broader and flatter and not used on religious
buildings.

As we can see, the high rounded arch atop a narrow column is not Egyptian,
Greek, Cretan, or Roman in concept; it is Sumerian and North Semitic.
Interpretations of the arch were used throughout the North, North-central,
and North-West Semitic areas. The precise shape of a narrow, straight-sided
column topped by high round arch does not appear elsewhere in the Imperial
domains until until after the advent of Christianity. Like the scriptures,
on which the shape was so frequently drawn, the shape was spread to the West
by the early Christians.

[snip]
>Lararia contained statuettes of one's Lares and other divinities and
>typically took the form of small temples (edicules); these were often
>pedimented rectangular structures "in the round".  In modest homes,
>though, the edicular lararium was often a rectangular pedimented niche.
>That to me is a statuary niche.  The form of the edicule is Hellenistic
>and surely has ANE antecedents.  But were its earliest Roman predecessors
>necessarily also ANE-derived?  If so, how do we know this?

Well, isn't that the "pagan" Roman statuary niche? Then, most Hellenistic
concepts derive from the Eastern side of the ANE -- Greek lit scholars now
take it for granted. Even the maths are from Old Babylon...

[snip]
>But I'm not so sure about the ancestry of smaller domestic instances
>such as the arched lararium just indicated.  How do we know that this
>is not also an endemic early Italian form?

We can tell by the shape of the arch and the shape of the high place, that
is, the column itself -- for the tall narrow column that represented the
high place and started out wider at the base in the North and retained the
wider base among some North-Central areas, finally ended up being depicted
as straight-sided narrow columns among peoples in the North-West. When it
came to writing down religious laws on papyrus and skin, the narrow columns
were retained in the Judean tradition. Authoritative texts of the MT found
among the DSS are in the narrow column format; it's not a post-destruction
practice. This narrow column format was also followed by early Christians.

The shape is the third of the three concepts involved. The high arch,
straight-side, narrow column is North-West Semitic; it is also the shape
of _Christian_ statuary niches, Christian grave markers, drawn on Christian
codices, the shape of church doorways and windows, arcades and cloisters, the
shape of the tablets held by Moses in the MSS... It's the shape of "The" Law.

So, half-buried bathtubs are correctly shaped, pre-fab _Christian_ statuary
niches.

Hope this helps clarify things,

Rochelle

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