Jerusalem antiquities in Athos: gifts from archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin)

The paper relates a story linked to an early stage of collecting antiquities in Jerusalem by the representatives of the Russian diplomatic services and the Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission in the second half of the 19th century. A case in point is a series of large epigraphic ceramic tiles of the 16th century that decorated the facade of the Dome of the Rock and which got into collections after having been replaced during restoration works. Such tiles came to be in possession of the Russian consul V. F. Kozhevnikov and after his death were bought at auction by Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) who then sent one of the tiles to the library of the Saint Panteleimon Monastery in Athos. The documents give a vivid account of this ‘flow' of the ancient artifacts describing the attitude and interest to these items during the prescientific stage.