География земная и сакральная в декоративной программе раннехристианской церкви пророка Моисея на горе Нево

The decorative program of the pilgrimage basilica of the prophet Moses on Mount Nebo included numerous floor mosaics and marble carvings of the pulpit and the chancel screens. It developed throughout the 6th century and finally took shape in the early 7th century. One of its distinctive features was the importance of biblical geography, which was treated differently in various mosaic panels. The Pilgrimage texts show the primary attention that the believers paid to the views of Palestine. Local monks actualized them for pilgrims by recalling the biblical narrative and reciting the corresponding psalms. Through mosaics, these views served as tangible confirmation of the words of the Scriptures even when the pilgrims were inside the church and did not see the real landscape. The theme of sacred geography is revealed in the decoration of the basilica on several levels. Firstly, the mosaic scene illustrating the Psalm 50 presents the image of the city, both Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem. Secondly, the symbolic images of local fruits appearing both in the mosaic and in the carving allude to the image of the Promised Land, directly linked to the prophet Moses, who is believed to have first seen it from Mount Nebo. And, thirdly, in the mosaic with hunting and pastoral scenes a collective image of the world emerges, gathering different countries and lands as representing the divine creation. Chronologically, the broadest of these images (universum) was the earliest among these three to appear in the basilica in the first third of the 6th century. Then, at the turn of the 6th-7th centuries it ceded place to more specific geographical associations, extremely important for the pilgrims who visited the basilica of Moses and who sought to confirm the words of the Scriptures with the views of the surrounding landscape.