Untitled

152
chapter seven
Figure VII-1. The porter of grapes: a. Beth She"an, Monastery Room L; b. el Hammam; c. Caesarea; d. Chapel of
Elias, Mary, and Soreg, Gerasa.
The same scenes occur on several inhabited
scroll mosaics in the Jordanian churches on Mt.
Nebo (pl. VII.3d-g): Sts. Lot and Procopius, the
lower chapel of the Priest John, the church of the
Deacon Thomas, the upper church of Kaianus
(Saller & Bagatti 1949: 59-60, pl. 17,2; Piccirillo
1993: figs. 153,240, 242); the chapel of Suwayfiyah
at Philadelphia, and the 8th-century St. Stephen
at Umm al-Rasas (Piccirillo 1993: figs. 253, 264,
275, 345). A vintager driving a donkey shown
in two medallions and walking towards a wine
press in the next medallion, is rendered in the
inhabited vine scroll mosaic border of the 6thcentury
Bishop Sergius church at Umm al-Rasas
(Piccirillo 1993: 234, fig. 365, 369). A figure pulling
an animal, probably a donkey, is portrayed
in a medallion of an inhabited vine scroll mosaic
at the church of al-Khadir at Madaba (Piccirillo
1993: 131, fig. 147). A similar episode of grapes
transported on a donkey led by a youth with a
stick in his right hand appears in an acanthus
medallion on the mosaic of the Church of St.
George on Mt. Nebo (Saller and Bagatti 1949:
70, pl. 24, 2). At the Church of John and Elias at
Khattabiyah in Umm el Rasas a surviving fragment
of an inhabited vine scroll mosaic shows a
donkey laden with a basket of grapes (Piccirillo
1993: 244, fig. 404). One of the medallions of the
third panel of the church of St. Paul at Umm al-
Rasas displays a damaged figure leading a donkey
carrying grapes (Piccirillo 1997: 386-7, plan I,
foto 25; 2002: 545).
Only at the Beth She"an Monastery and at
the Lower Church of Kaianus are the youth and
the donkey depicted in the same medallion. The
youth and the donkey at Be"er Shem#a and el-
Hammam have parts of their bodies (head and
legs) rendered outside the medallions while in
all other depictions they are confined inside the
medallion frame.
Figures leading a donkey also appear on Syrian-Phoenician
mosaics: on the inhabited vine
scroll mosaic at Qabr Hiram (575), a figure carries
a loaded donkey rendered in two separate
scrolls (fig. VI-18) (Donceel Voûte 1988: 411-412,
fig. 403; pl. h.-t. 17). On the north aisle mosaic of
the North church (The ‘Michaelion’) of Haouarte
(Donceel Voûte 1988: 109, 487, pl. h.-t.5), a figure
with the name Georgis (in a posture similar to the
camel driver at Kissufim) leads a cart drawn by
a horse and a donkey.