The Externsteine relief is a monumental rock relief depiction of the Descent from the Cross scene, carved into the side of the Externsteine sandstone formation in the Teutoburg Forest. The Externsteine are located near Detmold, now in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia but in the Middle Ages in the Duchy of Saxony.
It is the oldest relief of this type known north of the Alps, dated to the high medieval period (likely the 12th century). [1]
The relief measures 4.8 m high by 3.7 m wide. [2] : 4
It is divided into three parts, or registers. The largest, central register shows the Descent from the Cross scene itself. At the center is the cross, to the right is a figure identified as Nicodemus. The legs of this figure have been lost since at least the 17th century, but it is shown at an elevated position, aiding in the recovery of Jesus' body from the cross. The figure was standing on a supporting structure, believed to be the symbol for the germanic Irminsul (better known as the germanic Ygdrassil), which is believed to have been honoured in externsteine before Charlemagne destroyed and converted Externsteine to Christianity. It is often mistakenly identified is either an unnoteworthy plant bent by Nicodemus' weight, or as a chair. Nicodemus lowers the body of Jesus towards Joseph of Arimathea, who is standing to the left of the cross. To the left of Joseph is the figure of Mary, Mother of Jesus (the head of this figure has been lost), with her hand supporting the head of her son's corpse. Opposite Mary, on the right side of the scene, is John the Apostle, holding a book. [2] : 4
The upper register shows the torso of the ascended Christ wearing a cross halo and a victory flag. Alongside the flag, the figure is holding a small representation of a human figure with raised hands. To the left and right, anthropomorphic representations of Sun and Moon are shown, holding drapes. [2] : 4
The lower register shows two kneeling figures, a naked bearded man and a clothed figure of undetermined sex, both of them caught in the coils of the neck and tail of a two-legged, winged dragon. These figures were variously identified as Adam and Eve (representing the fallen state of man in general), [2] : 4 or as a Saxon warrior and priest.
Goethe writing in 1824 identified the relief as a work of the Carolingian period. In the same year Karl Theodor Menke dated it to the 12th century. [3] Art historians of the later 19th and early 20th century tended to support Goethe's view of an early date of origin, but a re-examination of the evidence by a team of art historians in 1950 resulted in a shift of communis opinio towards a high medieval date. [1] The view of the relief as of Carolingian date remains a minority position, especially popular by authors who would like to identify the "plant-like" structure as a representation of Irminsul, e.g. in a 1997 anthroposophical publication. [4]
Today, the consensus remains that the relief probably dates to 1160/70. [2] : 4
Joseph of Arimathea is a Biblical figure who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after his crucifixion. Three of the four canonical Gospels identify him as a member of the Sanhedrin, while the Gospel of Matthew identifies him as a rich disciple of Jesus. The historical location of Arimathea is uncertain, although it has been identified with several towns. A number of stories about him developed during the Middle Ages.
Aachen Cathedral is a Catholic church in Aachen, Germany and the cathedral of the Diocese of Aachen.
Nicodemus is a New Testament figure venerated as a saint in a number of Christian traditions. He is depicted as a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin who is drawn to hear Jesus's teachings. As is the case with Lazarus, Nicodemus is not mentioned in the synoptic Gospels, and is mentioned only by John, who devotes more than half of Chapter 3 of his gospel and a few verses of Chapter 7 to Nicodemus, and lastly mentions him in Chapter 19.
The Externsteine is a distinctive sandstone rock formation located in the Teutoburg Forest, near the town of Horn-Bad Meinberg in the Lippe district of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The formation is a tor consisting of several tall, narrow columns of rock which rise abruptly from the surrounding wooded hills.
An Irminsul was a sacred, pillar-like object attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxons. Medieval sources describe how an Irminsul was destroyed by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. A church was erected on its place in 783 and blessed by Pope Leo III. Sacred trees and sacred groves were widely venerated by the Germanic peoples, and the oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air.
The triquetra is a triangular figure composed of three interlaced arcs, or (equivalently) three overlapping vesicae piscis lens shapes. It is used as an ornamental design in architecture, and in medieval manuscript illumination. Its depiction as interlaced is common in Insular ornaments from about the 7th century. In this interpretation, the triquetra represents the topologically simplest possible knot.
Donar's Oak was a sacred tree of the Germanic pagans located in an unclear location around what is now the region of Hesse, Germany. According to the 8th century Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldo, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Saint Boniface and his retinue cut down the tree earlier in the same century. Wood from the oak was then reportedly used to build a church at the site dedicated to Saint Peter. Sacred trees and sacred groves were widely venerated by the Germanic peoples.
Armanism and Ariosophy are esoteric ideological systems that were largely developed by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, respectively, in Austria between 1890 and 1930. The term 'Ariosophy', which translates to wisdom of the Aryans, was invented by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915, and during the 1920s, it became the name of his doctrine. For research on the topic, such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's book The Occult Roots of Nazism, the term 'Ariosophy' is generically used to describe the Aryan/esoteric theories which constituted a subset of the 'Völkische Bewegung'. This broader use of the word is retrospective and it was not generally current among the esotericists themselves. List actually called his doctrine 'Armanism', while Lanz used the terms 'Theozoology' and 'Ario-Christianity' before the First World War.
Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norman Conquest of England, whose sophisticated art was influential in much of northern Europe. The two periods of outstanding achievement were the 7th and 8th centuries, with the metalwork and jewellery from Sutton Hoo and a series of magnificent illuminated manuscripts, and the final period after about 950, when there was a revival of English culture after the end of the Viking invasions. By the time of the Conquest the move to the Romanesque style is nearly complete. The important artistic centres, in so far as these can be established, were concentrated in the extremities of England, in Northumbria, especially in the early period, and Wessex and Kent near the south coast.
Pre-Romanesque art and architecture is the period in European art from either, the emergence of the Merovingian kingdom in about 500 AD or from the Carolingian Renaissance in the late 8th century, to the beginning of the 11th century Romanesque period. The term is generally used in English only for architecture and monumental sculpture, but here all the arts of the period are briefly described.
Ottonian art is a style in pre-romanesque German art, covering also some works from the Low Countries, northern Italy and eastern France. It was named by the art historian Hubert Janitschek after the Ottonian dynasty which ruled Germany and Northern Italy between 919 and 1024 under the kings Henry I, Otto I, Otto II, Otto III and Henry II. With Ottonian architecture, it is a key component of the Ottonian Renaissance. However, the style neither began nor ended to neatly coincide with the rule of the dynasty. It emerged some decades into their rule and persisted past the Ottonian emperors into the reigns of the early Salian dynasty, which lacks an artistic "style label" of its own. In the traditional scheme of art history, Ottonian art follows Carolingian art and precedes Romanesque art, though the transitions at both ends of the period are gradual rather than sudden. Like the former and unlike the latter, it was very largely a style restricted to a few of the small cities of the period, and important monasteries, as well as the court circles of the emperor and his leading vassals.
The Abbey of Saint John is an early medieval Benedictine monastery in the Swiss municipality of Val Müstair, in the Canton of Graubünden. By reason of its exceptionally well-preserved heritage of Carolingian art, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.
Nazi archaeology was a field of pseudoarcheology led and encouraged by various Nazi leaders and Ahnenerbe figures, such as Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, which directed archaeologists and other scholars to search Germany's archeological past in order to find material evidence supporting an advanced, Aryan ancestry as alleged and espoused by the ultranationalist Nazi Party.
The baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège is a Romanesque brass or bronze baptismal font made between 1107 and 1118 now in St Bartholomew's Church, Liège in Liège, Belgium. The font is a major masterpiece of Mosan art, remarkable for the classicism of its style, whose origin has been the subject of great debate among art historians. The Meuse river valley in modern Belgium and France, roughly coterminous with the Diocese of Liège, was the leading 12th-century centre of Romanesque metalwork, which was still the most prestigious medium in art.
The Cross of Lothair or Lothair Cross is a crux gemmata processional cross dating from about 1000 AD, though its base dates from the 14th century. It was made in Germany, probably at Cologne. It is an outstanding example of medieval goldsmith's work, and "an important monument of imperial ideology", forming part of the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, which includes several other masterpieces of sacral Ottonian art. The measurements of the original portion are 50 cm height, 38.5 cm width, 2.3 cm depth.
A hoop crown, arched crown, or closed crown, is a crown consisting of a "band around the temples and one or two bands over the head". First used by the Carolingian dynasty, hoop crowns became increasingly popular among royal dynasties in the Late Middle Ages, and the dominant type of crown in the Modern Era.
Anthropomorphic wooden cult figurines, sometimes called pole gods, have been found at many archaeological sites in Central and Northern Europe. They are generally interpreted as cult images, in some cases presumably depicting deities, sometimes with either a votive or an apotropaic (protective) function. Many have been preserved in peat bogs. The majority are more or less crudely worked poles or forked sticks; some take the form of carved planks. They have been dated to periods from the Mesolithic to the Early Middle Ages, including the Roman Era and the Migration Age. The majority have been found in areas of Germanic settlement, but some are from areas of Celtic settlement and from the later part of the date range, Slavic settlement. A typology has been developed based on the large number found at Oberdorla, Thuringia, at a sacrificial bog which is now the Opfermoor Vogtei open-air museum.
The Aachen Gospels are a Carolingian illuminated manuscript which was created at the beginning of the ninth century by a member of the Ada School. The Evangeliary belongs to a manuscript group which is referred to as the Ada Group or Group of the Vienna Coronation Gospels. It is part of the church treasury of Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel, now Aachen Cathedral, and is today kept in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury. The Treasury Gospels and the more recent Ottonian Liuthar Gospels are the two most significant medieval manuscripts on display there.
The Bernward Column also known as the Christ Column is a bronze column, made c. 1020 for St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim, Germany, and regarded as a masterpiece of Ottonian art. It was commissioned by Bernward, the thirteenth bishop of Hildesheim in 1020, and made at the same time. It depicts images from the life of Jesus, arranged in a helix similar to Trajan's Column: it was originally topped with a cross or crucifix. During the 19th century, it was moved to a courtyard and later to Hildesheim Cathedral. During the restoration of the cathedral from 2010 to 2014, it was moved back to its original location in St. Michael's, but was returned to the Cathedral in August 2014.
The Carolingian Cross is but one variation in the vast historical imagery of Christian symbolic representations of the Crucifixion of Jesus, going back to at least the ninth century. All crosses and Christian symbols have an inherent meaning arising from a multitude of sources and distinct features that set them apart from other religions. From both a design aspect and a theological perspective, the Carolingian Cross consists of a mixture of Christian and pre-Christian concepts built over a long history of cultural adaptation, religious iconography, liturgical practices and theological premises. German graphic designer Rudolf Koch in 1932 published a collection of 158 plates of drawings of Christian symbols. Under the heading of "Cross", this includes twelve drawings of Christian cross variants. One of these, the "Carolingian Cross" shows a cross of four triquetras.
