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J. Michael Walker wrote: >St. George appears to be among the most popular of saints in Ethiopian icon imagery? >His relative prevalence leads me to suspect he has special appeal/meaning for Ethiopia. What is it? who knows? reasons might be even more complex than strictly medieval iconographers would know. here's something to factor into your equation: there is, somewhere in the Louvre, a smallish "coptic" (3-5th c.?) relief of an equestrian, armed "saint" (i don't remember whether he has a nimbus or not) piercing a "dragon" (crocodile) below his horse's hooves with his lance. a classic "St. George", one might think. alors and alas, he has the head of a falcon, i.e., he is Horus, presumably engaged in his epic battle with --who was it?, Set[h]?, Lord of the Underworld. in the ancient Egyptian iconography of this not-uncommon scene, Horus usually spears Seth from the front of a boat, which were the circumstances in which the "original" battle was reasonably thought (by the Egyptians) to have taken place. i've seen it published a few times in the last 35 years (can't recall where, of course), but i've never seen anything serious written about this very curious --and quite well-executed-- pastiche (if that's what it is). old ideas die hard and, if they're good ones, persist in essence right through whatever transitory new skins they might be poured into. best from here, christopher ____________________________________________________________________ Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%