MEDIEVAL RELIQUARY DISCOVERED IN TRANSYLVANIA. CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT SOME ASPECTS OF MATERIAL CULTURE)

Abstract

In terms of religious culture, reliquaries are remarkable assets; this sort of artifacts combine spiritual value, as containers for sacred relics, thought to be imbued with their holiness, and intrinsic, material worth, inasmuch as they are built from the most precious materials, in order to mirror the immensurable wealth they enshrine. This study aims to analyze the presence of reliquaries within the historical context of medieval Transylvania. In pursuit of our purpose, we will examine the archeological evidence, as well as the political, social or religious frameworks in which this objects were disseminated. Thus we shall draw some hypotheses regarding the meaning of the respective objects, but also the features of Transylvanian medieval history.

Keywords

• eliquaries
• material culture
• engolpion
• reliquary crosses
• liturgical objects
• history of medieval Transylvania