The paper aims to identify and discuss, based on a specific case study, some of the ways in which the new official religion of the Roman Empire and its “trademark”, the sign of the cross, pervade the everyday life and become embedded in the material culture of the period. The archaeological excavations conducted in Histria/Istros by a team from the University of Bucharest bring a better insight into the life of this ancient city from the Western Coast of the Black Sea (the province of Scythia Minor) during its last phase of existence. The Late Roman/Early Byzantine insula (second half of the 6th – beginning of the 7th centuries AD), currently under research in the Acropolis Centre-South Sector (henceforth ACS), offered so far rich and varied archaeological materials, among which of special interest for this article are objects bearing the sign of the cross or shaped as a cross. These items, such as pots incised with the sign of the cross, lids decorated with relief crosses, fine tableware decorated with stamped crosses, lamps with cross-shaped handles, bricks marked with the cross, bronze weights decorated with the cross, metal cross-shaped elements belonging to hanging devices, seem to be used on a daily basis by the inhabitants and as such represent a constant element in their life. Based on these observations and placing this case study in the larger context of the Roman world, the authors intend to shortly discuss the role and significance of the sign of the cross in household, everyday life, contexts, as a constant reminder, a protection, and a statement of belief, but also as a reflection of the place of this community in the larger socio-economical, ideological, and political network of the Roman Empire.

This paper asks how and why the cross lost out to the icon. The cross used to be the most important symbol of all Christendom, until Byzantium replaced it with the icon as primary attribute of Orthodox Christianity . This happened as a result of Byzantine Iconoclasm, when in the eighth and ninth centuries icons were substituted for crosses and vice versa. Afterwards, the winning party, which favoured the icon, put all the blame on the cross and its adherents who allegedly started the dispute by destroying icons and replacing them with crosses. However, this paper finds that at Constantinople and in Asia Minor – i.e. in the capital and the heartland of the Byzantine Empire – early Christian church decoration had always been focused on the symbol of the cross and excluded the kind of figural image that was at issue during Iconoclasm. This poses the problem how Iconoclasm should have been possible without icons and how the cross could have become associated with the destruction of icons, if there were no such images to destroy and replace. The solution is found through a closer look at the sequence of the Iconoclast controversy, which may be blamed on the icon as much as and more so than on the cross. Thus, Iconoclasm appears to have been less about the destruction of icons and more about the import of image veneration to Constantinople and Asia Minor, where such had not been customary in early Christian times. Ultimately, Iconoclasm and the demise of the cross seem to have been due to the seventh-century collapse of the Eastern Roman empire, when most formerly icon-venerating provinces were lost to Byzantine rule. The remaining Byzantine rump state was apparently too small to accommodate the various early Christian traditions – iconic in some provinces and essentially aniconic in others, notably at Constantinople and in Asia Minor. The ensuing, so-called Iconoclast controversy as to which tradition should prevail was eventually lost by the cross, and this can explain how and why Orthodoxy came to be focused on icon veneration instead.

This paper was first written for the ARHA 318 class, taught by Ivana Jevtic, in the Spring of 2017. Discussions stemming from class as well as the research inspired the topic.