What icon is this?

[Credo_ergo_sum]

“ὁ Bαcιλεύς της Δόξας”

One question: how is it decided which letters of a word would be written in iconography?

Tradition. Try for example to look up icons of the Resurrection, always you see Adam and Eve being pulled out alive out of coffins, David and Saul watching on the left and Christ wearing white clothes. 99.99% of the Resurrection icons have this extra-biblical detail, why do all icons have the same then? That, my friend, is the wonder of iconographical tradition.

 

[hazcompat]

BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD

peace

 

[Crica]

ὁ Bαcιλεύς της Δόξας – The King of Glory

What a relief!!! I am soooo happy to finally know what is written there!
Thank you soo much for the clarification and now I am really in peace.

I am falling more and more in love with the icons!

Pray for me during this lent,
God bless!

 

[Crica]

Sorry, last question (I hope):

Iς Χς = Ιησούς Χριστός = Jesus Christ
MΡ ΘΥ = Μητέρα του Θεού = Mother of God

My question:
What is the purpose of the funny lines on top of these letters in this icon? Is it pure decoration? I thought it could be the acute accent ( ´ ) but again, sometimes it is a long line and a round bump… it does not look like it.

Any ideas?

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

Sorry, last question (I hope):

Iς Χς = Ιησούς Χριστός = Jesus Christ
MΡ ΘΥ = Μητέρα του Θεού = Mother of God

My question:
What is the purpose of the funny lines on top of these letters in this icon? Is it pure decoration? I thought it could be the acute accent ( ´ ) but again, sometimes it is a long line and a round bump… it does not look like it.

Any ideas?

This is used used to signify letters have been left out.
ΜητέP του ΘεοY

 

[Crica]

WONDERFUL!
Thank you so much for the clarification!
God bless!

 

[Vico]

On more for you. Exodus 3:14:

And God said unto Moses, I am HE WHO IS (ho on): and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, HE WHO IS (ho on) hath sent me unto you.

The Hebrew phrase Ehyeh asher ehyeh is rendered in Greek ego eimi ho on or “I am the Being”.

This is represented in the icons of Christ with the three letters in his nimbus, in Greek: Ο ωΝ or Ho On. The Greek style icon with have the Ο on the left and proceed clockwise. The Russian style icon will have the Ο on at the top.

 

[Crica]

What a wonderful clarification,
thank you so much for taking the time in bringing more light into my understading of icons!

God bless!

 

[Crica]

The Russian style icon will have the Ο on at the top.

One more question: Will the Russian-style icon also use greek characters or “ὁ ὢΝ” will appear in Russian at the top of the cross? Are different characters used for that?

 

[Vico]

One more question: Will the Russian-style icon also use greek characters or “ὁ ὢΝ” will appear in Russian at the top of the cross? Are different characters used for that?

Normally Old Church Slavonic is used. In this one you can see the nimbus at the top:

…ὁ…
ὢ…Ν

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[patrick457]

Sorry, last question (I hope):

I口 Χ口 = Ιησο口口 Χριστ口口 = Jesus Christ
MΡ ΘΥ = Μητ口ρα του Θεο口 = Mother of God

My question:
What is the purpose of the funny lines on top of these letters in this icon? Is it pure decoration? I thought it could be the acute accent ( ´ ) but again, sometimes it is a long line and a round bump… it does not look like it.

Any ideas?

It signifies an abbreviation. You can also notice this in several early manuscripts of the New Testament, where scribes would abbreviate certain divine names, titles and words (like ΘEOC ‘God’ and IHCOYC ‘Jesus’) and draw a line over them. The squiggly lines found in icons is a more fancy version.

 

[patrick457]

Panagia means Holy Bread. It is a title ascribed to the Mother of God, as it is from her that the Bread of Life sprang forth.

Actually it stands for “All-Holy” (pan- ‘all’, hagios ‘holy’; ‘bread’ in Greek is artos). Isn’t Mary called such in the East?

 

[patrick457]

That the sigma in Byzantine iconography is frequently written as a ‘c’ is for me a big discovery! That helps a lot!

Yes, the lunate sigma (as it is called). It originally developed as ahandwritten variant of the ‘standard’ epigraphic sigma (Σ) during the 4th-3rd century BC. Eventually by late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the lunate sigma became the accepted standard shape of the letter.

One question: how is it decided which letters of a word would be written in iconography? I thought only the initials and sometimes also the last ones, but not the middle ones… Am I right?

It also has a basis in scribal practice. Scribes would take the first letter of a word (sometimes adding the second letter for easier clarification) and join them with the last letter. Since Greek is a language where word endings determine tenses, you have a lot of possible combinations for a single word. ΘEOC (theos “god”) would be abbreviated as ΘC, ΘEOY (theou, genitive singular) would become ΘY, and so on.

At first, it seems that writing on icons were found on the frame which was attached to the panel: iconographers would write the name of the particular saint represented, or the names of donors (i.e. the people who commissioned the icon), or even a prayer or some such dedicated to the saint all over it. This is why many of the earliest icons surviving today (such as the ones in St. Catherine’s at Mount Sinai) do not have inscriptions: these, if they originally had one, were written on their respective frames, which are long since damaged or gone. As time passed however, writing on the icon’s frame went out of fashion and the names came to be written within the panel.

 

[Crica]

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful explanations, thank you all very much for sharing such knowledge with us!

Thank you Shoshana for having started this all in March 7th, 2006!!! tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of this thread!!!

 

[Crica]

Today: 6th anniversary of this thread

At first, it seems that writing on icons were found on the frame which was attached to the panel: iconographers would write the name of the particular saint represented, or the names of donors (i.e. the people who commissioned the icon), or even a prayer or some such dedicated to the saint all over it. This is why many of the earliest icons surviving today (such as the ones in St. Catherine’s at Mount Sinai) do not have inscriptions: these, if they originally had one, were written on their respective frames, which are long since damaged or gone. As time passed however, writing on the icon’s frame went out of fashion and the names came to be written within the panel.

I found an example of the icon “Weep Not for Me, O Mother” with and without frame as patrick457 explains above. It is dated from 1878 and was sold for £30,000 (or $59,010) at Christie’s!

Link:
christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5086677

 

[rowlands]

Today: 6th anniversary of this thread

I found an example of the icon “Weep Not for Me, O Mother” with and without frame as patrick457 explains above. It is dated from 1878 and was sold for £30,000 (or $59,010) at Christie’s!

Link:
christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5086677

Technically the metal object is not the frame, it is an oklad or cover and is not an essential part of the icon. The ‘frame’ is the wider border part of the icon which surrounds the central area (which appears to be partially hollowed in this case) on which the figures are painted.

 

[Crica]

Thank you so much for the clarification! I had no idea of that.

I investigated around and also found out the **oklad **(Russian for “covered”) can be also called **riza **(Russian for “robe”) and had the purpose to protect the icon from candles and incense used during the services, as well as to honour the icon.

What a richness it is to learn about these things…

 

[patrick457]

Thank you so much for the clarification! I had no idea of that.

I investigated around and also found out the **oklad **(Russian for “covered”) can be also called **riza **(Russian for “robe”) and had the purpose to protect the icon from candles and incense used during the services, as well as to honour the icon.

What a richness it is to learn about these things…

Here’s a 7th century icon of Christ enthroned as the Ancient of Days:

img163.imageshack.us/img163/6536/7thsinaixtenthroned.jpg

In this icon, you would notice writing (now faded) on the frame which surrounds the panel: this is what I was referring to. Compare this with another icon from roughly the same time period depicting Saints Peter, Paul, Nicholas, and John Chrysostom: the inscriptions are painted within the panel itself just as in modern icons.

 

[Crica]

Thank you for the pictures of the icons,
now I understand much better what you were trying to explain!

 

[rdorseyhsd]

Our Church has a large Icon of Extreme Humility with Mary, written on the wall near the Icon Screen