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Rediscovering an Anzac souvenir from the Holy Land: the St James' church mosaic fragment.

Article Excerpt
This article focuses on the acquisition of a small but noteworthy religious, cultural and military 'relic' souvenired from the Holy Land by the Anzac Light Horse Brigade during World War I and exhibited in the Australian Anglican Church of St James in Sydney. It concerns a fragment of mosaic pavement supposedly recovered from an 'early Christian church in Palestine'. (1) However, research of this piece has revealed that its provenance, and thus its symbolic status as a Christian icon, has been significantly mistaken. As such, fundamentally incorrect assumptions have been made about the history and cultural importance of the St James' Church mosaic fragment. In considering the implications for its misappropriation and (symbolic) repatriation, the archaeology and art history of the mosaic are discussed, together with issues of shared Judaeo-Christian iconographic practice and the nature of Byzantine synagogal architecture, all of which have posed some complications for the interpretation of the St James' Church piece.

A Christian icon and Anzac trophy of war

As one of the oldest ecclesiastical buildings in metropolitan Sydney, the Anglican Church of St James is located on King Street in Queens Square opposite the Hyde Park Barracks. It was designed by architect Francis Greenway under the patronage of Governor Lachlan Macquarie and consecrated in 1824. (2) Among the numerous marble memorial tablets mounted in the church's interior is a fragment of mosaic pavement encased in a black, semi-circular marble medallion and exhibited on the north wall of the church's nave. The fragment itself is small, its decoration featuring a horizontal grapevine flanked by two sets of grape bunches and leaves. An inscription engraved on a copper plaque alongside and beneath the fragment states:

Portion of mosaic tiled floor of ancient church near Jericho. Discovered in August, 1918 during the operations in that Locality of the Desert Mounted Corps. Presented by W. Maitland Woods C.F.

According to the Monthly Church Messenger, this piece was presented to the Church in 1919 by the Reverend William Maitland Woods (1864-1927), Senior Chaplain to the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria during World War I, to mark the 100th anniversary of the laying of the church's foundation stone. (3) On the basis of Maitland Wood's research into 'the historical records of the localities from ancient Jericho to the Mount of Temptation', the mosaic fragment had allegedly formed part of the floor of 'an early Christian church ... [situated] under the Mount of Temptation close to Old Jericho in Palestine'. (4) In his account of the discovery of the mosaic, Woods suggests that the locality of the 'church' corresponds to a twelfth-century Russian pilgrim's description of a church erected to consecrate the place where Joshua and the Archangel Michael conferred together prior to the attack on Ai. (5) Together with what were thought to be the church foundations, the mosaic floor was exposed following the detonation of a high-explosive shell, and some of its remains were recovered by the Anzac Desert Mounted Corps in August 1918. (6)

As a symbol of early Christian faith, this mosaic also stands as a small but significant record of Anzac military victory and heroism, a legacy inextricably tied to Australia's sense of national selfhood. Yet despite this mosaic's apparent symbolic value, the church's parish documents offer relatively little information about its history, both in terms of its original architectural setting and date of manufacture, or how, precisely, it was discovered, interpreted and brought to Australia as one of a number of war relics and trophies souvenired from the Holy Land by the Anzacs during World War I. This absence of information provided the impetus for researching this particular piece. It soon became clear, however, that from the time of its discovery during World War I, its provenance and, thus, its symbolic status as a Christian icon has been fundamentally mistaken and misunderstood.

The St James' Church mosaic fragment: a brief description

The mosaic fragment is semi-circular in shape and measures 73 cm in width and 42 cm in height. Its decoration features a horizontal reddish-brown grapevine (30 cm x 3 cm) with thin, tendril-like branches flanked by two sets of black, olive and yellowish-brown grape bunches and leaves (17 cm x 10 cm in size). This is a motif commonly found in the late third to eighth-century mosaic pavements of both religious and secular buildings in Palestine: a design inherited from the standard motifs of Hellenistic and Roman art. (7) The grapevine is set against a cream background and bordered by at least two semi-circular and vertical...

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