Restoring an 8th Century Painting in one of the World's Oldest Monasteries

by fulltimestudent 13 Replies latest social current

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent

    Here's a video of the restoration (as part of an appeal for funds, which I do not neccessarily support - except from a historical perspective).

    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/255690355/an-8th-century-painting-needs-restoration

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent

    And, a more detailed review of the discovery can be found at:

    http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/06/2013/deir-al-surian-a-treasure-chest-in-the-desert

    As the vision of Christ's return faded away in the early church to a blank screen, it was replaced with a search for a way to live in Christian holiness, particularly as bored Christians in their congregations found ways to titillate their lives. Cyprian is on record as writing: " Frequently, the church mourns over her virgins as a result; she groans at their scandalous and hateful stories."

    And, John Chrysostom addressed the church (males, apparently) in Antioch (somewhere around 390 CE), "There ought to be wall inside this church to keep you apart from the women, but you refused to have one ... The women have learned the manners of the brothel, and the men are no better than maddened stallions."

    Those in search of Christian perfection chose various eccentric locations where they thought they could escape the temptations of the flesh. Some took to living as hermits on the top of poles, in trees, on mountain tops and deserts. And, so were born the first monasteries, places where, these men hoped, they would be able to live like the holy angels.

  • Truth seeker 674
    Truth seeker 674

    Hello full time student I am a relative newbie here. I was just wondering what you are a full time student of and why?

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    Interesting, thanks for sharing.

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent

    St Antony (see the Coptic churches web-site on Antony -http://www.stantony.com.au/TheMonastery/SaintsoftheMonastery/StAntony.aspx ) is often credited with being the first to live in a desert community.

    And, about 20 years before Constantine began to patronise Christianity, a boy was born to pagan parents in a Syrian village just south of Gaza, a city of noted pagan cult. They named him Hilarion. They also must have been people of some standing, as they later sent him to school (at their own expense) in Alexandria. His teachers are said to have admired his talent for rhetoric, but at age 15 he abandoned his studies, having apparently made some contact with Christianity, and headed out into the desert to find Antony. Hilarion spent two months with Antony, then returned to Gaza, gave away his property in compliance with the teaching of Jesus, and found a location by the sea about 11 kilometres from Gaza, where he built a hut of reeds and began to live the life of a hermit

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent

    Truth seeker 674: I live in Australia, and I'm enrolled at Macquarie University in Sydney, which has a good Ancient History department and also a Society for the Study of Early Christianity.

    I wasted near a life-time (just like the very first Christians), in a futile wait for Christ's return, before a slowly awakening realisation that Jesus was dead and buried and would never be seen again - just like the rest of us will finish up. (smile) That realisation was accompanied by a personal aspiration crisis, which led to my being kicked out of Yahweh's glorious organisation by our ever-loving brothers. (Which is probably what I wanted anyway)

    After retirement, I wondered what to do with my life? So I resolved to attempt to understand the world around me. I commenced with the goal of understanding China, and the spread of ideas over the badly named Silk Road. Finding that there were not enough study units on those subjects at that university, I realised that it was really neccessary to study west Asia also. Additionally, I was able to use a feature of the Australian education system, which enabled me to take study units at another University (Sydney) which has a good Chinese and Asian studies department.

    I study four study units a year, which allows me to explore a little more than the course outline permits, and means that I do not stress too much with exams and essays (grin). And, I have realised my goals to a great extent.

  • Truth seeker 674
    Truth seeker 674

    I was kicked out too and in retrospect its what I wanted. I have spent my life trying to understand the world around me and the universe as well.

    Trying to understand China? I don't think is any different than trying to understand yourself. They are human just like you and I are and are capable of the same things, good and bad, they just see things from a different perspectice but then everyone does.

    Glad to have read your story.

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent

    We know a lot about Hilarion as Jerome wrote about his life. He could've called it, "Strange facts about St. Hilarion," as for some reason or the other Jerome thought it important to tell us what Hilarion ate. In his twenties, Jerome writes, Hilarion ate lentils soaked in cold water, bread and salt. In his thirties, he switched to dry vegetables, until his skin began to flake and his eyesight degenerate, so he started to use an oil dressing on his vegetables. At age sixty four he gave up bread and ate only crushed vegetable for the next 64 years. (Sounds like some eccentric pioneer).

    Hilarion's fame spread. Sozomen, another Christian, wrote about Hilarian around 420CE. He became famous for his advice and ability to heal. A wealthy man, subject to lunacy was brought to him (restrained by chains) all the way from a Red sea city. Hilarion calmed him. A wealthy Christian asked him to help his horses win chariot races against a pagan who was winning all the races, because it was said, he used a sorcerer to assist his horses. Of course, Hilarion could help promote the Christian cause, duly issuing a blessing, and in the next race the 'Christian' horses won! This, Jerome noted, made many people become Christians.

    Jerome's stories tell us what early Christians seem to have liked about their 'holy' men. They admired their willingness to live in poverty and their abstinence from fleshly desires. They believed firmly that a holy man's blessing could work miracles and that they could defeat demons by their prayers.

    Of course, he attracted other men in search of this version of purity and gradually a monastery grew around Hilarion's original single cell.

    The ruins of Hilarion's monastery still exist.

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent

    Here's a report of the likely deterioration of the ruins.

    Saving the Holy Land's oldest monastery in Gaza

    TEL UMM AL-AMR - Agence France-Presse

    A picture taken on March 19, 2013 shows workers at the archaeological site of the Saint Hilarion Monastery, one of the largest Christian monasteries in the Middle East, in Tel Umm al-Amr close to Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. AFP photo

    A haven of peace in the sea of concrete that is the Gaza Strip, the crumbling remains of the Holy Land's oldest monastery are in danger of disappearing for lack of funds to preserve them. Saint Hilarion, also known as Tel Umm al-Amr, draws its name from the fourth century hermit who came from southern Gaza and is considered to be the father of Palestinian monasticism. Its life close to the Mediterranean shore spanned more than four centuries -- from the late Roman Empire to the Umayyad period. Abandoned after an earthquake in the seventh century, it was uncovered by local archaeologists in 1999.

    But today, "it's a complete mess -- archaeologically, scientifically and on a human level," laments Rene Elter, a researcher at the Ecole Biblique, a French academic institution in Jerusalem, who is responsible for trying preserve the site.

    "We have to save Saint Hilarion," Elter told AFP. "The situation is critical and we risk losing the site. It is imperative that something is done quickly; otherwise it will be lost, lost forever." Just over a year ago, the Palestinians submitted Saint Hilarion to be included on the World Heritage List of UNESCO, the UN cultural organisation.

    The World Monuments Fund, a New York-based group dedicated to preserving the world's architectural heritage, last year put it on its Watch list. This is includes sites around the globe at risk from the forces of nature as well as social, political, and economic change.

    But there isn't enough money to do the job.

    Elter believes the cost of saving the site, located near the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, would be a mere $2 million (1.5 million euros) over three years, with an immediate investment of $200,000 needed before next winter's rains arrive.

    So far, France has been the largest donor to the preservation efforts, giving 110,000 euros ($146,000) since 2010. UNESCO has contributed another $35,000.

    "All the emergency safeguards that we've put in place -- corrugated iron fences, supports, sandbags -- are working but they are only temporary. And within a year, if we don't do anything, the worst is yet to come," Elter said.

    The decaying remains cover 15,000 square metres (161,000 square feet), and the surrounding site stretches across 10 hectares (25 acres).

    Situated among undulating sand dunes, the southern part of the complex includes a church and large crypt, a chapel, several baptismal fonts, living quarters and a refectory for the monks. In the northern sector, there is an inn and bathing pools for the pilgrims who once visited.

    'Our ancestors left us a site to preserve'Today, many of the sandbags that support the monastery's crumbling foundations are disintegrating because of the humidity. A blisteringly hot summer last year was followed by a very wet winter, which has left deep furrows in the soil. Although there is a French stonemason who could do the necessary work to shore up walls in danger of collapsing, there are no funds to fly him over. "The grass is beginning to destroy the mosaic floor," said Fadel al-Utol, a young Gazan archaeologist who looks after the site for the French-Palestinian preservation project. "I need workers and weed killer to get rid of all this grass, I need to change 2,000 sandbags and I need wood to reinforce the platforms for visitors," he complains.

    The team of workers who maintain the site have been underpaid for months.

    And with no night watchmen, there are fears the site could be looted or damaged. Meanwhile, it is used for training Palestinian experts who will be responsible for managing the archaeological sites and restoration of Gaza in 10 or 15 years time. "We have a team there who are ready to work, who are able to manage this heritage," he says.

    Every day, Utol takes groups of school children and students around the site, which had a record 1,880 visitors in March. He explains to them about the baptistry, the Romans, the pre-Byzantine Christians and the Ummayads in what is a unique educational experience in Gaza. "The main aim of these visits is to get them out of the school routine. The second is to identify historical sites in order to better understand the history of Gaza and not forget that our ancestors left us a site to preserve," he says. Saint Hilarion is not the only endangered archaeological site in the impoverished Gaza Strip. In recent months, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement, took over Blakhiyeh in Gaza City, the site of the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, witnesses say. And farther north, the area surrounding an ancient Byzantine church in Jabaliya, which is known for its mosaics of animals, was damaged during an Israeli bombing campaign in November.

    Web- reference: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/saving-the-holy-lands-oldest-monastery-in-gaza.aspx?pageID=238&nid=49285

  • VM44
    VM44

    Here is someone who won't be asked to do the restoration!

    Octogenarian Restorer Says the Priest Knew What She Was Doing

    http://hyperallergic.com/55960/octogenarian-restorer-says-the-priest-knew-what-she-was-doing/

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