If you are traveling I-95 through Connecticut, it is worth a short detour in New Haven to visit the Knights of Columbus Museum located just off the highway.
Now throught April 16, 2005, the museum presents an exhibition featuring 105 pieces of African Red Slip Ware ceramics from the Third through the Sixth Centuries. The items are on loan from the Harvard University Art Museums and from private collectors, including Fragments of Time and objects sold over the years to several clients.
These red clay ceramics -- bowls, plates, jugs and lamps -- were produced in provinces located in what is now modern Tunisia in North Africa and exported throughout the Roman Empire. Rome had occupied North Africa after defeating the city-state of Carthage, positioned on the Tunisian coast 90 miles from Sicily.
Images on the ceramics capture religious and popular themes of the period, including scenes from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, non-biblical Christian images, pagan and imperial imagery, amphitheater scenes, nature and daily life.
A number of the ceramics reflect the transition of the Empire to Christianity. The most highly regarded holy man of the region was the Bishop of Hippo Regius, St. Augustine (354-430). Many of his sermons' themes were replicated on the ceramics. Augustine traveled extensively between the Roman provinces in North Africa and Italy.
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