On view
Ampulla with Saint John the Evangelist,
6th–7th century
Pilgrimage and Portable Objects
These small, portable objects speak to the movement of people across expansive geographies over many centuries. Reliquaries and ampullae, or small flasks, contained physical reminders of pilgrimages to holy sites. Medallions, tokens, and amulets warded off perils on these arduous journeys and served as mementos of them.
Objects of personal adornment traveled with their wearers, but their materials also could connote distant places. Garnet, for example, came to Europe primarily via long-distance trade routes with South Asia, and glass imitating garnet was often made in Egypt and imported to Europe.
Information
6th–7th century
Turkey, Antioch-on-the-Orontes
- Gary Vikan, Early Byzantine pilgrimage art, (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2010)., p. 36; fig. 22.
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Martin Werner, "The binding of the Stonyhurst Gospel of St. John and St. John", in ed. Colum Hourihane, Insular & Anglo-Saxon art and thought in the early medieval period, (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011).
, p. 300; 301 (illus.); fig. 11,
