Valeria Kuvatova
Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia
This study attempts to examine the distinguishing iconographic features of the painting ensemble of the so-called Exodus Chapel in the Early Christian necropolis Al-Bagawat (Egypt). Some of the extant Early Christian funerary painting ensembles to be found in the late Roman Empire represent a basis for the comparative analysis.
The Exodus Chapel painting is dated to the second half of the 4th century AD. Its iconographic program represents an unusual phenomenon in the history of the Early Christian art. The Al-Bagawat necropolis is located in Kharga Oasis in South-West Egypt, far from the main routes of the Christian cultural expansion. The Exodus Chapel forms part of a very short list of the earliest extant Christian monuments in Egypt. Despite the poor quality of painting, the iconographic program of the Chapel is amazingly sophisticated and unconventional. It comprises generic visual symbols of the late antique vita felix; some Early Christian scenes ubiquitous in the Roman Empire; some regionally specific subjects and the rare scenes found in a few other Early Christian monuments culturally and geographically remote from Al-Bagawat.
The Exodus Chapel does not enjoy extensive scientific attention, the results of scanty studies being rather contradictory in terms of the interpretation of the symbolic scenes. Moreover, the painting ensemble is hardly regarded as such, and the analysis is usually focused on the comparison of the isolated scenes to their iconographic matches. No attempt has been made to compare the painting ensemble of the Exodus Chapel to other extant Early Christian painting ensembles. The present study attempts to address this particular gap in the previous researches and to compare the painting program of the former to the programs of such monuments as the synagogue and the baptistery of Dura Europos domus ecclesiae, the cubicula O and C in the Via Latina catacombs, the Chapel of Peace in Al-Bagawat.