LOT 0784

Byzantine Marble Fragment from the Golden Gate in Jerusalem

CIRCA 520 A.D.

2 5/8 in. (165 grams, 66 mm).

Sub-rectangular in form with three polished faces; old handwritten label to one side reading 'Stone from Golden Gate Jerusalem July 1861'. [No Reserve]

Found Jerusalem in July 1861.
UK private collection.
Property of a Nottinghamshire gentleman.

With a late 19th century handwritten identification label attached.

Cf. Doron, C., 'On the Golden Gate in Jerusalem and the Baptistery at Emmaus-Nicopolis' in: Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 97, 2/1981, pp.171–177.

The Golden Gate, so called in Christian literature, or She'ar Harahamim ('Gate of Mercy') is the oldest of the city gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located on the eastern side of the ancient city walls and it is believed that the meeting at the Golden Gate of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne took place there, an episode depicted in various pictorial cycles dedicated to the life of Saint Anne (including the one by Giotto in the Scrovegni chapel in Padua). The current gate was probably built on the ruins of the older one, in the 6th century A.D., as part of Justinian's building program. According to another theory, the construction took place at the end of the 7th century, by Roman craftsmen hired by the Umayyad caliphs.