Gema de la Tomis
The Tomis Gem

Summary/Abstract: One of the pieces with Christian character, also valuable artistically, generating debates among researchers and still keeping the specialists’ interest alert, is the Tomis gem, now in the British Museum’s collection. Most of the experts have identified on this gem a representation of the Savior’s crucifixion. There is also another variant of interpretation, based on the fact that Christian iconography knows no example of Jesus’ crucifixion amidst the twelve apostles and therefore the image would only represent Jesus orant, speaking to the apostles, like on the rush light also discovered at Tomis. On the Tomis gem, Christ is represented between two groups of characters, in the centre of the composition, having six of them at his right and three at his left. It seems that here have also existed six of them, but the gem is nicked in this particular area. The figure of Jesus is oversized as compared to those of the other characters. He has an athletic appearance, whereas those assisting Him only reach as high as His basin and are represented in perfect isocephaly. The Tomis gem belongs to a larger series which has circulated widely during the 4th and the 5th centuries among pilgrims, merchants, soldiers, magistrates, and it represents an „athlete“, a champion of sacrifice in the name of the „salva perpetua“ and of uncreated light, a preamble, a premise for the canonic image of the crucifixion, as it first appears in the „Rabula Codex“.

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