Endnote 23 – 7 vs 8

Carl Kraeling’s generally excellent final report on the Christian building and other publications have made major contributions to our understanding of this painting. Nonetheless, his overall interpretation of this scene is not persuasive. He argued that this painting included “before and after” scenes, even though it is difficult to imagine why. He proposed that two additional figures formerly appeared inside the tomb. However, after a complicated and tenuous argument, in which he looks to the Arabic translation of Diatessaron, searching for additional women, or “Marys,” at the tomb, Kraeling admits that five “Marys” inside the tomb would appear to be “crowded…into too narrow a space.” (Kraeling, The Christian Building, p. 85). In the three surviving ends of the groups of figures in the tomb, the artist left ample space before and after the group of women; it is most reasonable to assume the same generous space was left on the broken portion of the wall. The reconstruction of Henry Pearson, the excavation’s architect, shows a total of eight figures. (See Baur et al., The Excavations at Dura-Europos: Preliminary Reports 5 [New Haven, CT: Yale Univ., 1934], pl. 41.) According to yet another participant, the excavation director, Clark Hopkins, “First on the north wall is shown the tomb with the three Marys behind, followed by five other women, around the corner of the north wall.” (Clark Hopkins, Discovery of Dura Europos [New Haven, CT: Yale Univ., 1979], p. 114.)