Wiggle Matching Analysis of the Doors of Santa Sabina in Rome

Abstract

The doors of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill are the most complete Late Antique doors surviving today. Widely studied in the last 150 years, the question of their dating has never been completely resolved. With the results of the initial Wiggle Matching Analysis on two selected panels, this article confirms the prevalent hypothesis of recent years: in spite of different "styles", the two panels analyzed are from the same time period. In addition, we argue that the tree that the panels were carved from was cut down probably at the beginning of the 5th century AD. Therefore, the generally accepted dating of the doors to the years of Celestine I (421–431) or maybe Sixtus III (431–440) also seems to be confirmed.

Keywords

• Rome
• Santa Sabina
• Wooden doors
• dating
• 5th century
• Wiggle Matching Analysis