The Sacred Scripture and the Symbolic Representations in the Early Christian Figurative Mosaics from the Balkans

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that the figurative images in the Early Christian art are generally in conformity with the basic Sacraments, specific texts in the Old and the New Testament and the liturgy and rituals, which were performed in the churches. In the recent 40 years many new publications have been devoted to the pavement mosaics from the Balkans but they deal mainly with limited number of monuments from a separate contemporary state. As in Late Antiquity the borders between the provinces and both empires (Western and Eastern) were quite different from the contemporary ones, therefore the picture shown when tracing this aspect of research is not adequate and not complete if the we do not concern the ancient boundaries of the provinces, and do not consider the Balkans as one artistic area, but with many different traditions and influences. For this purpose, the mosaics not only from the well-known artistic centres of Greece have been gathered together, but also from Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and the European parts of Turkey. This provides new opportunities for a multifaceted study of the topic of the Early Byzantine liturgical practice from a formal, symbolic and theological point of view and emphasizes the importance of the figurative mosaic images and the inscriptions associated with them, which directly or symbolically reflects the Holy Scripture as well as it reveals the mysterious nature and the specific features of the rituals of the Early Christianity.