De-gild, re-gild, erase: the decorations of Paleo-Christian churches (4th-6th c.). The morals of religion and the political discourse of erasure and obliteration - the role of materials

This paper focuses on the erasure and obliteration of wall decoration in the Late Antique and Early Byzantine period. Combining textual, archaeological, archaeometrical data, the different typologies of this practice and its meanings are studied through the following three examples: firstly, the complete obliteration of a decoration within a process of destruction-replacement, through the investigation of the substitution of a gilded coffered wooden ceiling with gold mosaics in some early Christian churches of Rome. Secondly, the obliteration strategy of the decoration of a nymphaeum which was turned into a church in the gymnasium of Butrint in Albania, reflecting the possible ritual context of this intervention. Thirdly, the materials and techniques of the decoration in St.Apollinare the New in Ravenna are investigated. Here Theodoric’s mosaics were removed at the time of Justinian, as a result of the intervention of bishop Agnellus. The supply route of these two interventions are different. The choice of the materials employed in the wall decoration contributes to an understanding of the erasure. The theological speculation, the ritual context and the underlying political reasons, allow one to begin to interpret this phenomenon.