The fifth-century was a time when Christian art tended toward pagan Greco-Roman images rather than images of Christ and the cross. Fordham has acquired nine mosaics discovered in an early Christian church in what is today’s Syria, adding them to its Museum of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Art and expanding the scope of the collection.
Depicted here and on page 1, two of the mosaics show the names of church officials and the benefactor who paid for the building’s construction. The remaining mosaics show animals, geometric shapes, and decorative borders typical of early visual imagery relating to Christian themes of new creation.
— Chris Gosier
Photos by Bruce Gilbert
