The Origin of Icons

Abstract The origin of icons, and by extension of Christian painting, can now be traced to the panel painting tradition of pagan divinities in wide use in Late Antiquity throughout the Mediterranean. Both pagan and Christian panel paintings were employed as votive or thank offerings. According to an ancient phenomenon known as “syncretism,” emperors were identified with gods and Greek gods with Egyptian ones. Triptych paintings were a new way of exploring the implications of syncretism. In the sixth century, icons went from being single offerings to an assembly on the templon barrier. The earliest surviving evidence of church iconography, decoration and ritual cult, or liturgy, comes from Constantinople, at the churches of St. Polyeuktos and Hagia Sophia.