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Unique Good Shepherd fresco found in Anatolia
An elaborately frescoed tomb featuring the only depiction of Christ as the Good Shepherd in Early Christian Anatolia has been discovered in ancient Nicea, present-day İznik, Turkey. While no artifacts were found inside to narrow down its date, its architectural style comparable to other tombs suggest it dates to the 3rd century A.D.
The tomb was found in the Hisardere Necropolis, a burial ground just outside the ancient city’s fortifications that was in use from the 2nd through the 5th centuries A.D. It is one of the largest necropolises in the region, and was used by people of all classes, as evinced by the wide range of grave types from cist graves to stone sarcophagi and the terracotta-roofed chamber tombs that are uniquely to İznik.
The frescoed tomb was a hypogeum, a subterranean chamber dug out from the soil. The south wall of the tomb was destroyed, but the east, west and north walls are intact, as is the barrel-vaulted ceiling. They are all covered in vividly colored frescoes of flowers, birds, swirl patterns, thick red borders and human figures. This is the first example of Christian figural art found in the Hisardere Necropolis.
The central fresco adorns the north wall behind the kline, the funerary bed composed of square terracotta tiles where the deceased were laid to rest. The vaulted ceiling creates a semicircular panel arching over the kline that is decorated with a figure of a youthful, beardless Jesus standing with a ram draped over his shoulders. Pairs of goats stand in the greenery on each side of him.
This iconography of Jesus as shepherd to his flock was widespread in Roman funerary art in the Early Christian period and would grow into one of the most important motifs in Christian imagery, but this is the earliest known example from the Early Christian period outside of Italy.
The west wall of the tomb depicts a married couple, believed to be its occupants, portrayed as aristocrats through their attire and adornments.
The symposium scene illustrated here at the tomb, despite being in a Christian-era tomb, reflects continuing pagan funerary traditions that symbolise the afterlife as an eternal banquet.
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