On a number of pilgrimage objects from Late Antiquity, St Thecla, a highly revered saint, also known as Thecla the Protomartyr, is shown accompanied by St Menas, whose tomb in Egypt was the pilgrimage centre associated with healing miracles. The...
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On a number of pilgrimage objects from Late Antiquity, St Thecla, a highly revered saint, also known as Thecla the Protomartyr, is shown accompanied by St Menas, whose tomb in Egypt was the pilgrimage centre associated with healing miracles. The saintly couple appear in ad bestias compositions or in a simplified variant as two saints with a cross. Although the popularity of Sts Menas and Thecla, as well as their shrines, is well known in Late Antiquity, the connection between the two cults seems to be insufficiently analysed. By means of comparing and analysing hagiographic texts, epigraphic material and objects of visual culture that depict Menas and Thecla, the paper debates the nature and origin of this cult community, aspects of pilgrimage related to the saints, as well as the iconographic patterns on which the common image of the saintly couple is based.
