Pancration Musings. Sea Lily, Pancratium maritimum, and Pupput, Hammament, Tunisia
My feet skipped happily in the warm mediterranean waters just to the south of Hammamet, Tunisia, and then I plodded across a stretch of sand to look at the ruins of Pupput (inset, top right), relatively recently excavated when the site was found during hotel development. On my way I saw a gray-green patch of Sea Lilies, Pancratium maritimum. The name 'pancratium' derives from the strength of these lilies in surviving in the harsh seaside climate of Tunisia. Those ruins of Pupput are not busily visited and I had the area entirely to myself.
Pupput's origins are obscure, but in Late Antiquity the town became a colonia of the Roman Empire. In its pre-christian times there may have been pancratium competitions here featuring a kind of 'all-strengths' wrestling and boxing combo. Those games were outlawed by the christian Emperor Theodosius in 393 CE. It may well have been around this time that Pupputians were christianised. I noticed a Chi-Rho mosaic (inset bottom right). That so-called 'chrismon', featuring superimposed on each other a capital Greek Chi and Rho - the first letters of 'Christ' in Greek - is said by Lactantius (c.250-c.325) to have been Constantine the Great's battle sign. But this one here in Pupput is slightly different: it also features an alpha and an omega. This version of the Chi-Rho was used by Ambrose of Milan (c.340-397) as a didactic help for catechumens on their way to full christendom. That means that probably Pupput became a Christian city at the end of the fourth century and not earlier.
This Chi-Rho is part of the tombstone inscription of father Honorius (aged 80), his wife Maura (aged 90[!]) and their son Honorius (aged 60). It was discovered in the ruins of a Pupput church from Antiquity hastily excavated after 1965 to make way for the construction of a high-end hotel, ironically called: Paradis.
No, Theodosius didn't also outlaw our Sea Lily. Perhaps the denizens of Pupput put them in pots like the one in the mosaic (inset left)...
Pancration Musings. Sea Lily, Pancratium maritimum, and Pupput, Hammament, Tunisia
My feet skipped happily in the warm mediterranean waters just to the south of Hammamet, Tunisia, and then I plodded across a stretch of sand to look at the ruins of Pupput (inset, top right), relatively recently excavated when the site was found during hotel development. On my way I saw a gray-green patch of Sea Lilies, Pancratium maritimum. The name 'pancratium' derives from the strength of these lilies in surviving in the harsh seaside climate of Tunisia. Those ruins of Pupput are not busily visited and I had the area entirely to myself.
Pupput's origins are obscure, but in Late Antiquity the town became a colonia of the Roman Empire. In its pre-christian times there may have been pancratium competitions here featuring a kind of 'all-strengths' wrestling and boxing combo. Those games were outlawed by the christian Emperor Theodosius in 393 CE. It may well have been around this time that Pupputians were christianised. I noticed a Chi-Rho mosaic (inset bottom right). That so-called 'chrismon', featuring superimposed on each other a capital Greek Chi and Rho - the first letters of 'Christ' in Greek - is said by Lactantius (c.250-c.325) to have been Constantine the Great's battle sign. But this one here in Pupput is slightly different: it also features an alpha and an omega. This version of the Chi-Rho was used by Ambrose of Milan (c.340-397) as a didactic help for catechumens on their way to full christendom. That means that probably Pupput became a Christian city at the end of the fourth century and not earlier.
This Chi-Rho is part of the tombstone inscription of father Honorius (aged 80), his wife Maura (aged 90[!]) and their son Honorius (aged 60). It was discovered in the ruins of a Pupput church from Antiquity hastily excavated after 1965 to make way for the construction of a high-end hotel, ironically called: Paradis.
No, Theodosius didn't also outlaw our Sea Lily. Perhaps the denizens of Pupput put them in pots like the one in the mosaic (inset left)...