A Late Antique Silver Reliquary in Toronto

A previously unpublished casket now in Toronto shares some formal and compositional features with the small corpus of known silver reliquaries produced in the eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity; at the same time, it differs from these in iconographic (and orthographic) particulars and in style. Investigation of a wide range of comparanda in diverse media reveals that the principal message of the reliquary’s decoration is the adoration of the cross on Golgotha, conflated with the baptism of Christ to symbolize the source of life. It was likely made in Palestine during the reign of Heraclius and perhaps can be associated with that emperor’s restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem. As the first attested silver reliquary with figural decoration from that region, it significantly expands our knowledge of artistic production in Palestine in the early seventh century.