(“Draw the water with gladness, for the voice of the Lord is upon the waters”); together with a monogram which reads ΝΙΚΟΜΕΔΟΥ. Beneath the monogram appears a stopping where evidently a tap was fixed, in exactly the position of those to the urns in S. Sophia. The first half of the latter inscription is on a small vessel of lead found at Tunis, which, from the character of the decoration, cannot be later than the fourth or fifth century. The first mention of the vessels in S. Sophia which we have been able to find is by an English traveller, Fynes Moryson (1595), who says, “I did see two nuts of marble of huge bigness and great beauty.”
We give in [Fig. 11] the vessel in the south exedra at S. Sophia, together with that of Murano, and for further comparison some beautiful vessels from a relief of Justinian’s time on the ivory throne at Ravenna. We have omitted the Turkish top of the former. Canon Curtis, who has specially examined them, writes to us that between the top and body of each vessel is a copper band which conceals the joint, if there is a joint.
Images and Tombs.—Very few fragments of Christian sculpture remain in Constantinople. The Silentiary does not mention any sculpture at S. Sophia. Probably the feeling which was mature in Leo the Isaurian was always latent; Oriental Christians sharing in the dislike with which Jew and Moslem regarded statues. Canon Curtis writes: “On the northern side of the sweating column I used to see parts of a bas-relief representing, as I thought, a procession, but it was almost concealed by the metal plates, and now it is entirely hidden.” The wealth of the church in icons at a late period may be gathered from incidental references. Not until a late time do we hear of any tombs in the church. S. Chrysostom and most of the other patriarchs were buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Pachymeres mentions “the stele of the three Germani (Patriarchs of Constantinople) near the porphyry columns on the west.” Nicephorus Gregoras[147] also writes that the remains of the patriarch Arsenius were buried in the great Church of S. Sophia.
Fig. 11.—Water Vessels from S. Sophia and Murano.
Hangings.—The descriptions on several occasions mention veils and hangings by the names of vela and velothyra. With mosaics and miniatures to help us it is possible to judge of the lavish way in which these hangings were used.
The mosaics at Ravenna show veils hanging at the door of the church through which Theodora is about to enter, and the large elevation of the Palace of Theodoric, likewise in mosaic, shows hangings in all the arches of the portico. Such textiles suspended at entrance doorways are often mentioned by contemporary authors.[148] At S. Sophia the doors entering the narthex, and those between it and the church, all have bronze hooks, to which such “door veils” were suspended; and embroidered Turkish hangings, which roll up from the bottom by means of cords and pulleys, are still hung to them. In the Byzantine mosaics the hangings are often shown raised by being gathered into a loose knot, or by being drawn to the sides and passed once round the pillars between which they hang.
Fig. 12.—Vessels of Sixth Century: from Ivory Throne, Ravenna.