Half-Human Half-Vegetal Hybrids in Eastern Mosaics

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the evolution of the use of half-human half-vegetal figures, the so-called Rankenfrau and Rankengott, in the pavements of the Eastern Mediterranean, from their appearance in the Classical period to their appropriation in the Roman and Christian times. The contextualised analysis of this corpus, combined with a comparison to other media such as architectural sculpture, provide a good opportunity to better understand to what extent the motif varied at different times and how the worldview of the commissioners of the decors can, or not, affect their meaning. In the Classical and Hellenistic contexts, vegetalisation of the human body seems to plastically translate the prerogatives of different divinities of wild nature, growth, and life. Through the mastery of their primitive savagery, these deities allow the coexistence of two different natures and bring divine prosperity into everyday life. In Roman times these figures inherited from the Greek world went through an unprecedented formal and syntactic diversification. A new variant is even created: the foliate head, which concentrates the force of a vital principle and appears as the metonymic representation of its primordial and spontaneous fecundity. In Eastern pavements, bearded and beardless foliate heads are associated with young foliate boys in the peopled scroll borders of the public rooms of rich houses. They evoked the mastery of a vital impulse that is made beneficial for wealthy owners. During the 6th century AD, whilst the foliate heads survive in the pavements of Christian monuments, the Rankenfrau and the Rankengott seem to disappear from the Eastern repertoire.