Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (42.2001)

occurred.8 In the newly formed recess or apse, a painting of the enthroned
Virgin was executed in the form of a enthroned Hodegetria with the Child on
her left knee (ill. 3).9 Some time after the blocking of the entrance the walls of
the narthex were replastered and the murals showing archangels disappeared
under the new layer of plaster.10 On the Southern part of the western wali, to
the left of the niche, an inscription in old Nubian has been written in black ink
over the figurę of the archangel standing in this place.11 In the last ąuarter of
the 10th century a new composition was painted to the left of the inscription,
showing the Three Holy Youths in the Fiery Furnace.12 The mural with the
Virgin and Child in the niche has also been repainted. This time the Virgin was
painted standing.13

There was also a fourth mural dated to the same early period, painted on the
western wali. It is preserved only partially and originally it was situated above
the figurę of the archangel standing to the right, 3 metres above floor-level, and
shows the lower part of an unidentified person standing on a jewelled
footstool.14 The person was dressed in a long purple tunic and chlamys in the
same colour, decorated with large white circles or half-circles and with the
campagia on his foot. Michałowski identified this mural as a representation of
Christ enthroned.15 It seems that the mural had no connection with the
representations of the archangels.

8 Michałowski, Faras..., op. cit., p. 152, suggested, that it was probabły bishop Kyros (about 866
- 902) who was responsible for the changes in the narthex and bema of the church. Kyros not only
had the main entrance closed but he introduced also a new wider synthronon for clergy in the apse.
Changes of the interior could be connected with some unknown to us changes in the liturgical
practise or with the change of role of the church discovered by Michałowski, which, according
to van der Vliet, took over the functions of the earlier cathedral, sanctuary of the Twelve Apostles
mentioned in the dedicatory inscription of Paulos, only during Kyros' episcopacy, cf.: van der Vliet,
op. cit., pp. 96ff.

9 Michałowski, Faras..., op.cit., p. 15Off. The mural of the Virgin, Inv. no. 234746 is preserved
only in negative on a second layer of plaster. It is kept in the Stores of the Faras Gallery.
Michałowski States that both the archangels and the enthroned Virgin were visible together for
some time forming a composition of “a unified colour effect”. During the restoration works of
the murals taken from the niche the two monograms appeared which could be deciphered as
hagia Maria. Cf. H. Jędrzejewska, “Konserwacja malowideł z niszy z Katedry w Faras”, Rocznik
Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie, XIV, 1970, pp. 431-454. The definition hagia Maria appears
often in Egyptian representations of the Theotokos and probabły it was original title of her
underlying the sanctity of the mortal woman who became Mother of God.

10 Michałowski, Faras..., op. cit., p. 101.

11 Ibidem, p. 208. The text of this inscription in old Nubian is still unpublished.

12 K. Michałowski, Die Kathedrale aus dem Wiistensand, Zurich-Cologne 1967, pp. 138ff, ill. 60,
61. The mural is in the National Museum in Khartoum. The author dates this painting to the last
ąuarter of the 10rh century but the way of modelling the faces and necks of the figures induces
us to datę it rather to the 12th century.

13 There were in fact the two superimposed murals in this place: the elder (inv. no. 234047) was
painted on the second layer of plaster in the 10th-lTh century. It shows only faint traces of the
standing figurę of the Virgin. The second, well preserved, dated to the 12th century (inv. no
234048) shows the standing Virgin Eleousa with Christ-Child on her left arm.

14 Inv. no. 234050.

15 Michałowski, Faras..., op.cit., p. 120ff.

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