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John archbishop of Kios (ninth century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of the Virgin holding the medallion. Within a border of dots, circular inscription:

θεοτοκ-εβοηθει

Θεοτόκε βοήθει

Reverse

Inscription of four lines, a cross above and below. Border of dots.

+
κ̅εRοηθ,
ιννηρ
χηεπισκοπ/
τισκηου
+

Κ(ύρι)ε βοήθ(ει) Ἰωάννῃ ἀρχιεπισκόπ(ῳ) τῖς Κήου

Obverse

Bust of the Virgin holding the medallion. Within a border of dots, circular inscription:

θεοτοκ-εβοηθει

Θεοτόκε βοήθει

Reverse

Inscription of four lines, a cross above and below. Border of dots.

+
κ̅εRοηθ,
ιννηρ
χηεπισκοπ/
τισκηου
+

Κ(ύρι)ε βοήθ(ει) Ἰωάννῃ ἀρχιεπισκόπ(ῳ) τῖς Κήου

Accession number BZS.1955.1.4702
Diameter 22.0 mm; field: 19.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 50.3.

Laurent, Corpus V/3, no. 1815.

Translation

Κύριε βοήθει Ἰωάννῃ ἀρχιεπισκόπῳ τῖς Κήου.

Lord, help John, archbishop of Kios.

Commentary

Laurent may well have been right to date this specimen to the second half of the ninth century. The Virgin and Christ on this specimen are stylistically close to the representation on a seal of Patriarch Photios (see Dated Seals, no. 53); they also share one detail: a cross behind the head of Christ. Our seal might have belonged to the Archbishop John who was in attendance at the Eighth Oecumenical Council in 869 (DHGE, vol. 12, col. 1025). Note the double invocation on obverse and reverse.

Kios (modern Gemlik) is located in a gulf on the sea of Marmara; it was a place of concentration of agricultural produce. It is attested as a see as early as the Council of Nicaea (325) and is listed as an archbishopric in all notitiae until the fourteenth century. See Laurent, Corpus V/1, 648; Zgusta, 266-67.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 3: West, Northwest, and Central Asia Minor and the Orient (Open in Zotero)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
  • Kleinasiatische Ortsnamen (Open in Zotero)
  • A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Seals (Open in Zotero)
  • Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Open in Zotero)