Hanging with Christian Images (500s): Art, History and Details

Hanging with Christian Images (500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This rare surviving hanging with Christian symbols likely served as a wall decoration in a church or a home. The three men who stand beneath an arch may represent the three Hebrews who refused to worship a golden idol, and when cast into the fiery furnace, remained unharmed due to God’s deliverance (Daniel 3:19–30). Above them is a Christogram formed by the first two letters of Christ’s name in Greek, X (chi) and P (rho), flanked by the letters for alpha and omega. Beneath the arch, an ankh, an ancient Egyptian symbol of life, is framed by two birds. Another Christogram appears above the arch between two peacocks. The significance of the combined use of these images and symbols lies in their invocation of Christ’s redemptive and life-giving power.

Object facts

• Title: Hanging with Christian Images
• Date: 500s
• Culture: Egypt, Byzantine period
• Type: Textile
• Technique: dyed wool, undyed linen: plain weave (tabby) with inwoven tapestry weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 110.5 x 76.8 cm (43 1/2 x 30 1/4 in.); Mounted: 120.9 x 87 x 3.9 cm (47 5/8 x 34 1/4 x 1 9/16 in.)
• Collection: T - Coptic
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1982.73

A detail from the museum

The two peacocks in the upper half of this composition represent immortality. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the body of the peacock did not decay after death and when this imagery was adopted by Christianity, the bird came to be associated with resurrection.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review for 1982.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 1 (January 1983): 3–55.
• Klein, Holger A. Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007.
• Williams, Elizabeth Dospěl. "Sacred Imagery." In Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt, 63–68. Washington: The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, 2019.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.