Our journey to Erzurum and Kars has come to an end and given way to new routes. Among the most striking of the new impressions: flying directly over the active volcano of Etna in Sicily. While the new knowledge is being digested and the impressions accumulate, let us turn to the visual symbols in which October is so rich.
In Türkiye, the traditional Hallowe’en question Trick or treat? is rendered as Şeker mi şaka mı?—“Sweet or prank?” As a prank, an ancient mascaron of the 6th century BC will do admirably. Take a look at him: does he strike you as comical, or rather as alarming?
The History of Hallowe’en and All Saints’ Day
The word Hallowe’en itself goes back to All Hallows’ Even—‘the eve of All Saints’ (hallow, the older word for ‘saint,’ cognate with holy + even, ‘eve’).
The history of the date is notable: in the middle of the 8th century, Pope Gregory III consecrated one of the chapels of St Peter’s in honour of all the saints on the first of November. By shifting the feast from the 13th of May to that date, he ensured that the Christian celebration coincided with the pagan Samhain.
Biblical Scenes in Clay
Hallowe’en is followed in the Western world by All Saints’ Day. For the occasion I have prepared a selection of quite astonishing terracotta tiles of the 6th–7th centuries. To the same period belong the earliest Eastern icons, which survived the iconoclasm of the 8th century by something close to a miracle.
In Tunisia, archaeologists have excavated some eighty sites at which artefacts of this kind come to light. It is worth grasping that these are not unique pieces of handwork but genuine mass production of their day—the tiles were stamped out. Traces of their coating survive on the surface: in some regions it was polychrome, in others a severe two-colour scheme in the spirit of Greek pottery (ochre combined with black).
Among the surviving subjects one meets the foundational biblical scenes:
These tiles are a rare chance to see how the inhabitants of North Africa pictured the sacred texts to themselves a millennium and a half ago.
