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Christophoros monk and higoumenos (of the monastery) tou Agrou (tenth century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of a monastic saint with short beard, his head covered by a high, peaked cowl. Details of the hands obscure. No inscription or border visible.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. No border visible.

+χρισ.
οφορμ
νχοSηγ
υμεντ
γρου

Χρισ[τ]οφόρῳ μ[ο]ναχο (καὶ) ἡγ[ο]υμένῳ τοῦ Ἀγροῦ

Obverse

Bust of a monastic saint with short beard, his head covered by a high, peaked cowl. Details of the hands obscure. No inscription or border visible.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. No border visible.

+χρισ.
οφορμ
νχοSηγ
υμεντ
γρου

Χρισ[τ]οφόρῳ μ[ο]ναχο (καὶ) ἡγ[ο]υμένῳ τοῦ Ἀγροῦ

Accession number BZS.1955.1.4941
Diameter 18.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 42.1.

Laurent, Corpus V/3, no. 1938.

Translation

Χριστοφόρῳ μοναχο καὶ ἡγουμένῳ τοῦ Ἀγροῦ.

Christophoros, monk and higoumenos tou Agrou.

Commentary

The monastic saint depicted on the obverse of this seal may be the founder of the monastery, St. Theophanes the Chronographer. See BZS.1958.106.459, BZS.1958.106.460, and BZS.1947.2.1383.

The monastery τοῦ Ἀγροῦ or τοῦ Μεγάλου Ἀγροῦ was founded ca. 786 by St. Theophanes the Confessor at the foot of Mt. Sigriane (near the modern Turkish village of Kursunlu) between Kyzikos and the mouth of the Ryndakos River (Laurent, Corpus V/3, 242; Janin, Grands centres, 195-99). The monastery probably suffered decline in the later eleventh century, but revived in the thirteenth century, and was still functioning in the early fourteenth century. It is porbably that it was also called the monastery of St. Theophanes.

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)
  • La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, vol. 2, Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins (Open in Zotero)