Christian Graffiti on a Reused Lintel from Mamluk-Period Ramla: A Glimpse from the East into Western Medieval Society

The subject of this paper is an inconspicuous stone lintel kept in the Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem, heavily marked with graffiti and writing. The stone exhibits various kinds of markings: drawings of coats of arms, pilgrim names and ad hoc inscriptions, clearly carved by Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land during the Mamluk period. The scribbles allude to the inner way of thinking of the pilgrims, offering unique information as to the personal motives for undertaking the arduous travel and insights into the making of Western Christian societies in the European late medieval period. Most of the markings on the stone lintel are ascribed to a group of German pilgrims, who stayed at a pilgrim hospice in Ramla in 1486. The stone lintel bears witness to the experience, identities and nature of social interactions of the pilgrims in a way that no plain building stone could.