July 15, 1149 was a special day for Jerusalem. Exactly 50 years earlier, European Crusaders had conquered the Holy City and established the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem after centuries of Muslim rule. This jubilee was to further consolidate the still young kingdom. The highlight of the day was the re-consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - one of the holiest of Christian shrines. In the middle of the church building, which had been magnificently extended in the Romanesque style in the preceding years, a special work of art saw the light of day: a newly created high altar.
Among the Ruins of History
Visitors to the church were impressed by both the size, and the beautiful and unusual decorations of the precious stonemason's work - and not just at the time of its unveiling: "We know of pilgrim accounts from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries about a magnificent marble altar in Jerusalem," says Ilya Berkovich, historian at the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) and co-author of a recently published article on this historical work of art. Although the altar made a great impression on many visitors over the centuries, it abruptly disappeared from public view. "In 1808, there was a major fire in the Romanesque part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," says Berkovich. "Since then, the Crusader’s altar was lost - at least that's what people thought for a long time," says the historian.
A Sensational Discovery
Recently, District Archaeologist Amit Re'em from the Israel Antiquities Authority, and OeAW historian Ilya Berkovich, made a sensational discovery in the middle of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In a rear corridor of the publicly accessible church, a stone slab weighing several tons had been leaning against the wall for an unknown period of time. Tourists had even left graffiti on the front side of the slab. When it was turned around due to construction work, it revealed its true, much older artistic heritage. It was decorated with beautiful ribbon ornaments which enabled its identification as the once magnificent front panel of the medieval Crusader altar, consecrated in 1149 and which seemed to have been lost after the fire of 1808.
For historians, this find is a sensation in several respects. Firstly, the fact that the slab could have remained hidden for so long in such an intensively researched building as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - especially as it was in view of thousands of pilgrims and tourists every day. "The fact that something so important could stand unrecognised in this of all places was completely unexpected for all concerned," said Berkovich.
No less significant is the new information which the discovery provides about the medieval high altar. The unusual decorations led the researchers to the so-called ‘Cosmatesque’. This special production technique for marble decoration was practised exclusively by guild masters in papal Rome, who passed the skill down from generation to generation. A characteristic feature of this technique was its masters’ ability to decorate large surfaces with small quantities of precious marble. In medieval Rome marble was mainly scraped from ancient buildings, forcing the Cosmatesque masters to optimise whatever marble they could find. Their solution was to put small marble pieces together with the utmost precision, attaching it in such a way as to create complex geometric patterns and dazzling ornaments.
Altar Backed the Secular Claim of Christianity
For the Pope, the Cosmatesque art was a cherished status symbol. Only a few Cosmatesque works of art are known outside of Rome, and so far only one outside of Italy: in Westminster Abbey, where the Pope had sent one of his masters. The Cosmatesque altar now rediscovered in Jerusalem must also have been created with the Pope's blessing. By sending one of the Cosmatesque masters to the Kingdom of Jerusalem to make the new high altar in Christianity’s holiest church, the Pontif supported Christianity's claim to the city: "The Pope thus paid tribute to the holiest church in Christianity," Berkovich says.
The rediscovered high altar is proof of a previously unknown direct connection between Rome and Jerusalem, which is also important for European art history. "With an original breadth of more than 3.5 meters, we have discovered the largest medieval altar currently known," according to Berkovich. He hopes that further research in the papal archives will reveal more details about the history of the altar - possibly even the identity of the Cosmatesque master who created the artwork.
