Catalog number: FPL08NB

Philatelic Commemorative Sheet - Findings from Bojná

Philatelic Commemorative Sheet Slovakia 2008 - Discoveries from Bojná - Nitrafila

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Philatelic Commemorative Sheet Slovakia 2008 - Discoveries from Bojná - Nitrafila
Author: Doc. akad. mal. Igor Benca
Issue number: 029 PaL 426/08
Date of issue: 02.07.2008

Specification:
Copper, gilded plaques with a diameter of 13 to 15 cm discovered at the Bojná I. - Valy hillfort are among the most significant discoveries of Great Moravian art of the 9th century. All 6 plaques are decorated with figurative ornamentation, and two of them feature unique inscriptions in Greek or Latin majuscule. The stamp depicts plaque no. 1 with the winged Christ "Angel of Great Counsel," which is a rare iconographic type. Its oldest known depiction comes from an illuminated manuscript of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Bibliothèque nationale Paris, Gr. 510), commissioned by the Constantinopolitan Patriarch Photius for the Byzantine Emperor Basil I in the years 880 - 886. The coupons present the other plaques from the treasure: plaque no. 2 depicts an archangel with a labarum in hand, analogous to the orant figure on the Great Moravian fitting from grave no. 240 discovered near the three-nave basilica no. 3 in Mikulčice; plaques no. 3 and 4 depict angels; plaque no. 5 features the "burning angel" Seraphim, and plaque no. 6 the tetramorphic angel Cherubim. The angels on the plaques represent various angelic orders arranged by the Byzantine theologian Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite at the turn of the 5th - 6th century in the work on the Celestial Hierarchy (De caelesti Hierarchia, chap. 4). This treatise was known by St. Constantine-Cyril by heart, and since Gregory of Nazianzus was his literary model, it is evident that the plaques are related to the theological culture cultivated at the Byzantine imperial court, which this scholar brought to Great Moravia. The set of plaques with angel iconography likely formed part of a reliquary, which in Byzantium was decorated precisely with the symbolism of angels, such as the Limburg Staurotheke for the relic of the Holy Cross from the 10th century. The FDC engraving uses the reverse of a Byzantine solidus with the portrait of Emperor Michael III holding a labarum. The coin was found in grave no. 480 near the three-nave basilica in Mikulčice, and on its obverse, used on the FDC stamp, Christ with a cross nimbus is depicted.

source: pofis.sk