Julianna P. Szűcs
Deus ex machina
The Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs
The people living at the foot of the Mecsek Hills in the south-west of Hungary
in the 4th century A.D.—Romans intermingled with Celts and Illyrians—
were already familiar with the Te Deum. This beautiful hymn of praise says
"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the
Kingdom of Heaven to all believers." (Tu devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti
credentibus regna caelorum.)
Immortality after death: that was the promise of the new religion.
Preserving the corpse and preparing it for resurrection became immensely
important for early Christians and drove them to bury their dead and worship
within a single complex of buildings, unusual for religions at the time. The new
joint priority is clear in the group of archaeological finds at Pécs: the remains
of sacral buildings and tombs from late-Roman Sopianae, unique in Europe
and perhaps anywhere. UNESCO inscribed the Early Christian Necropolis of
Pécs as a World Heritage Site in 2000.
The southern slope of the site must have been filled with such mementos
meant for the hereafter—the wealthy built semicircular memorial chapels
above lavishly decorated burial chambers, but archaeologists have also found
many simple brick graves. Some have been excavated, many more are
presumed to be there. Clearly, those who lived there at the time obeyed the rule
of the Traditio Apostolica: "Do not devise severe conditions for burial in
cemeteries, for they must be accessible to the poor."
Chance led to the finding in 1782 of what to date still seems to be the most
splendidly decorated chamber, the Peter and Paul Burial Chamber. Builders were demolishing a Renaissance chapel attached to the Romanesque
cathedral. It was judged to be superfluous, although it had survived the Turks,
the Rákóczi wars and the Habsburgs. Fortunately the decision to demolish was
rewarded as a richly painted vault (Christogram, peacocks, portraits) and
generously decorated walls came to light (Saints Peter and Paul, Adam and Eve,
Daniel, Jonah, Noah, the Virgin Mary, a martyr and three mysterious men,
possibly the three Magi, hurrying along).
The next chapter of this story was written a century and a half later, in 1939.
That was when the Wine Jug Burial Chamber was found. Archaeologists had
worse luck this time. The ceiling—painted or not—had not survived; it had
already been destroyed in the age of the great migrations. Squatters looking
for safe hideouts had damaged the place: traces of fire and broken graves show
that not only Vandals were responsible. Gepides, Longobards, Visigoths, Huns
and Avars must have passed this way. And still: in a niche below ground the
picture of a slender wine jug survived. This symbol of the Eucharist is known
from 3rd-century Roman catacomb paintings, for instance in the secret
chamber below the Santi Giovanni e Paolo basilica in Rome. A vine curls around it, a symbol carrying a message. The selfsame message can be decoded
by its iconographical parallel, on the ambulatory mosaics of Santa Constanza
in Rome, from the same period. To speak of parallels is, of course, an
exaggeration. We know that the images in Pécs cannot be compared to those
in the catacombs in the Eternal City or church ornamentation worthy of an
empress. For example, though underground, they belonged to a legal
Christianity, not a hidden, persecuted sect. In the same way the painted
decorations imitating marble on the walls in Sopianae are a long way from the elegant furnishings and multicoloured marble panelling of patrician luxury.
The province of Valeria, to which Sopianae belonged may have been a long way
from Rome but quite close however to the north-eastern limits of the empire;
even imitations were highly valued out here.
More historic material kept appearing. Between 1913 and 2004, when
archaeologists became aware that there was much waiting to be unearthed
below the houses, four further sites with marks that bore evidence of sarcophagi
were explored. Near the cathedral a decorated twin grave, next to it a strange,
octagonal burial chapel that had been reconstructed while still functional, below
the Chapter Archives of the Cathedral a chamber decorated with a Christogram
that was totally sacked, and a few years ago an edifice where a father, a mother
and their child who died in infancy seem to have been laid to rest together. That,
at least, is suggested by the dimensions and placing of the coffins.
However, neither of them can vie in quality, workmanship or beauty with two
other sites, one because of the quality of the art found there, the other because of
its architecture, which was gradually revealed in the course of the excavation.
The Ancient Christian Mausoleum in the southern part of the necropolis was
named because of its size and not its function. The memorial chapel, which was
visible above ground level (at that time), and an underground chamber—with a
huge sarcophagus and two other destroyed coffins—were a sensation in
themselves. However, what Ferenc Fülep excavated in 1975 (it was restored in
1986, and following the death of this great archaeologist opened to the public in
2007) revealed richly painted decorations with Roman and Balkan motifs, another
Adam and Eve, and a splendid Daniel amidst the lions. All this significantly raised
the importance of the whole archaeological site. Three burial chambers with
decorations is more than one burial chamber three times over: the first two lots
of murals that appeared by chance were shown to be more than merely isolated,
high-quality works of art. The murals in the mausoleum, unequalled documents
of Christianity north of the Alps, start to present a systematic picture. Their sheer
number suggests that it only takes hard work, money and a little luck to find
more. Their location can be surmised the way the place of undiscovered elements
were deduced by Mendeleev with his periodic table.
East of the richly decorated burial chambers is an edifice of unusual shape
that still mystifies archaeologists. It is only the lower parts of the walls of the
Cella Septichora that survived, with its characteristic openings in the wall
suggesting the fitting of some kind of lifting device. Next to the openings is a
solid structure of bricks and mortar alternating in regular rows. The structure
was not painted (although coloured plaster was found among the rubble). No
coffins, no sacral objects; besides three iron hoes and some silver treasure
hidden in the vicinity, no real clues have remained. The archaeologists can only
guess the height of the original windows and of the eaves. This huge building might possibly have been quite low-set (as suggested by Zsolt Visy, the
archaeologist in charge of the excavation). The thickness of the walls, however,
would have permitted a tapering building (similar to those erected on the
Caelius hill in Rome in the time of Constantine). But what we already know is
fascinating enough. Seven apses were attached to the seven sides of the
elongated octagonal ground plan by the anonymous builder. The ground plan
is like a beautiful earring, or, staying with religious symbolism, a ripe bunch of
grapes. Very likely it was not completed, and although it was built for the dead,
it never saw any corpses. Its builders may have beaten a hasty retreat when the
Huns, the "liberators" of Pannonia, arrived.
The Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs
The installation as the interpretation of a score
According to the philosopher Schelling, architecture is frozen music. Goethe
disputed this, suggesting a better metaphor: "architecture is music gone
dumb". And what could we call an architecture that wishes to mediate the past
for posterity, an architecture that, while preserving the remains as they are,
does not deprive viewers of illusions? Background music? A musical
accompaniment? Music that honours the past with silence?
Unfortunately, Goethe's metaphor does not really work even once we know
that it was he who reinterpreted the relation between Antiquity and his own
time. To us, relics are like a faded old score filled with puzzles. They can
provide us with joy and excitement only if there is someone who deciphers
this ancient score, then wants to make it public knowledge for moral and
educational reasons, and is able to mobilize, for social and political reasons,
financial resources to implement his plan. Returning to the opening image:
only if the visitors get nearer to the customs of these ancient folk who sang the
Te Deum and also hear the soft music does the metaphor work.
It is due to the architect Zoltán Bachman and his team, the members of the
'Pécs School', that the faded music of Early Christian structures can be sensed
again, with modern know-how and materials.
There are those who prefer to ignore the passage of time and do not rest until
they reconstruct a historic monument, all for the sake of creating an illusion.
Sometimes what they do is backed by credible documents, the Royal Palace in
Warsaw and the Frauenkirche in Dresden are good examples. When the ambition
gets political backing, they can bring a dream to life, as was done by Saddam
Hussein with the Gate of Nineveh, or when the team of archaeologists and
architects doing the bidding of Mussolini rebuilt the knights' castle on Rhodes.
The other group of historians does not deny the passage of time. They do
not feel obliged to present the past as it was. Painstaking attention is paid to
the truth, details are highlighted that only specialists can appreciate. One such
example is the Temple of Jupiter in Agrigento, with scattered rocks around it.
[...]
Julianna P. Szűcs
is professor of art history at Janus Pannonius University, Pécs,
and editor of the monthly Mozgó Világ. She has published widely on interwar and
contemporary painting.
