Historical Artifacts

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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!

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Byzantine chalices and religious objects, Syria, 6th-7th century AD (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The bowls with the chains attached are thuribles ... smoke throwers for incense. The cups are for the wine at Communion. Don't know about the little bird, though there is a Bible story about a sparrow that lives in the temple.

EDIT: not sure what the tea strainer is for.

EDIT 2: The write up linked by PugJesus says the bird is a representation of the Holy Spirit (a dove), and it says the strainer is ... a strainer. They got chunky wine in the middle east or what?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I did a quick google

Hardly anyone knows that a wine strainer was considered a liturgical utensil in the 4th century, too. It was made of silver or other valuable stuff and used to pour wine into the Chalice.

Treasure found in the Zion Monastery: chalices, censers, a tabernacle, and a wine strainer in the front row

Christians used to bring their own wine and their own baked bread for the Liturgy. The wine wasn’t always high-quality and clean enough. That is why they needed a strainer to filter out possible admixtures.

https://catalog.obitel-minsk.com/blog/2019/03/when-and-why-did-the-tradition-of-giving-communion-on-a-spoon-arise

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Hmm ... Makes some sense. I'd wondered about flies. That's what I was taught the pall (placard that goes over the chalice in the western rites) was for, to keep bird shit and flies out of the chalice while the prayers were being said.