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Heart with a Cross
This heart with a cross was stamped on piece of what on is known in technical archeological terminology as African red slip ware. The ware in question is mostly 3rd to 5th century pottery from North Africa. This stamp, and ones similar, is found on rim of a dish from Carthage dated to ca. 450. Whether the iconography, in fact, represents a heart enclosing a cross, which would signify a Christian association, is open to question. At the time, Carthage had just come under Vandal rule, but North Africa had been since 146 B.C. part of the Roman Empire and would be reconquered in 533 by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (ca. 482–565). A popular Roman decorative motif was an ivy leaf which this stamp may represent. Since Constantine I’s Edict of Milan in 313 legalizing Christianity within the Empire, Christian presence in North Africa had been growing. Saint Augustine was bishop of Hippo, a city 140 miles west of Carthage, and died during the Vandal siege. The Vandals themselves had been converted ca. 350 by Ulfilas (ca. 310–383) to the Arian form of Christianity, which the Nicene Creed of 381 declared a heresy. There is probably no way to determine whether this stamp represents a heart and cross or an ivy leaf. If the former, it is evidence that the popularity of the Sacred Heart and devotion to it had already spread among Christians to the far reaches of the Roman Empire. |
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