A Perfume Flask or a Fish?
By James Tabor
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
February 2012
To read this article in its entirety, we have presented it here in PDF format.
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Now we have the “unguentarium” theory. Let me say from the outset that I’m not for using words that most people don’t understand. It creates the veneer of specialization, puts people off and makes them doubt their own eyes. Let’s face it, at the end of the day, “unguentarium” are what we get our wives for Valentine’s Day i.e., we’re talking perfume bottles. So the question is; is Prof. Taylor right? Is our fish a perfume bottle? I think not. Let’s look at the evidence.
Prof. Taylor supplies three photographs. The first is a “spindle-bottle” from somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean that pre-dates our tomb by at least three centuries. So it’s not from Israel and it’s not from a 1st century Jerusalem tomb. What exactly does it have going for it? The top is thin whereas the image in our tomb has a top that looks exactly like what it is i.e., a giant fish tail.
The second image is an Alabastron. It’s also Eastern Mediterranean, but it’s getting closer to our date. It only pre-dates our tomb by a couple of hundred years. However, I must admit that it does look more like a fish. The relevant question is; so what? I can point to hippopotamus images on ancient Egyptian tombs. I can also find Egyptian make-up kits from within 500 years of those images that are made to look like hippos. Does that mean that the hippo images on Egyptian tomb walls are not hippos? Should I now be looking at Nilotic scenes on Egyptian tombs and instead of hippos be imagining make-up kits? I don’t understand the point. You can find on Google images clouds that look like fish. Does that mean that there’s a cloud on our ossuary? Furthermore, at the end of the day, the Alabastron, which looks to be made of glass, proves the opposite of what Prof. Taylor wants to prove. The devil is in the details. Namely, the little protrusions at the top of the bottle are little for a reason – if they were longer they would break. On our image, the fins are wide at the extremities and thin at the point where they connect with the body of the fish. If it was a perfume bottle, the protrusions would snap. No one would make – or could make – a perfume bottle like that.
As for the “bubble shape” perfume bottle, Prof. Taylor has now reached for an Italian bottle from 1st century CE. Right time, wrong country. Also, our image ends with a giant bubble. This ends in a point. So what’s the point?
Prof. Taylor is aware that none of her perfume bottles are balancing themselves on a giant ball, as in our image. The way she deals with this is by saying that “the mysterious blob” is actually “nard” that poured out of the perfume bottle and congealed below it. Wow! Talk about a connection with Mary Magdalene; suddenly – instead of a fish – Prof. Taylor sees an alabaster jar with nard pouring out of it on our ossuary. This would be unprecedented and, next to the Jesus tomb, quite sensational. I wish it were true, but it’s not. And why would someone want to carve one on an ossuary? Prof. Taylor simply states “seeping perfume expresses an appropriate wish for a tomb.” Appropriate in what way? Is she suggesting that someone’s carving a perfume bottle on an ossuary as a way of symbolically dealing with the decay of their loved one? A bit macabre and unsubstantiated. There is no “unguentarium” image on any ossuary that I know of.
- continued -
At the end of the day, I think there is a principle in British common law that serves us well i.e., if it quacks like a fish, and flaps like a fish, and waddles like a fish – it’s a fish!
Simcha Jacobovici, Filmmaker
Professor, Huntington University
The best thing you say is this: "I’m not for using words that most people don’t understand."
Most scholars are jealous because they aren't smart enough to convey complex ideas in language that anybody can understand.
Keep up the good fight.
http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/some-considerations-about-the-iconography-on-the-ossuary/
Also see Bob Cargill's analysis of the digital manipulation of the photos here:
http://robertcargill.com/2012/03/05/if-the-evidence-doesnt-fit-photoshop-it/
Cordially,
Thomas Verenna
1. The image is shown and described in proper orientation in our book (pp. 84-86).
2. All the experts involved were given unlimited access to untouched photos.
3. My article at bibleinterp.com covers the orientation of the image on the ossuary and although the photo that should have been portrait was put landscape by the guy who did the PDF--he thought he was saving space--the article itself even makes a point about the orientation--i.e., Jonah being spat onto land (p. 21 bottom and following) and the photo was corrected when someone pointed it out.
4. At the Tuesday 11am press conference, which was the first public view of things, the replica ossuaries were on display with dozens of reporters snapping photos, showing clearly the orientation of the image on our blowups as well as on the replica ossuaries and they had a press package that had the CGI image printed in portrait mode.
So, any implication that we somehow put out the image turned the wrong way in order to make it look more like a fish is simply wrong. Anyone who did even a minimum of reading before advancing theories as to what the image might be after less than 24 hours would know how the image was oriented and take that into consideration.
So far other than Robin Jensen, who had taken it as a fish and even a Jonah image when we first interviewed her, I think Steven Fine, who thinks it is a tower is the only art historian who has commented. We consulted with several more, all of whom agreed it was a fish--even a Jonah image. I think they are both preparing something formal but neither of them are fond of the biblioblogging world as a medium.
I think we need to take a serious look at the obvious features of fish anatomy in the image, such as the mouth, gills and fins, especially the back fins. You will notice that they are asymmetrical. Many fish have this feature of asymmetrical fins, they are called heterocercal, if the largest part of the fin is on top and reverse heterocercal if the largest part points downward. I haven’t seen anyone propose that a tower or perfume bottle would have such a asymetrical visual appearance. So, it is clear to me that this is the image of a fish, drawn by someone who knows what a fish looks like. Perhaps the artist did a bit of fishing too.
The image on the side of the ossuary is incomplete, so we can not be as sure it is a fish, but what we see sure looks like a fish too. It sure does not look like (part of) a tower or perfume flask. We also see more small fish like images in the scene above the "Jonah" fish. So what are the chances that all of these images that look like fish are in fact something else. It just doesn't pass the smell test.
An excellent idea. I tried it out with my own seven-year old daughter. I showed her the image posted at
http://jamestabor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/CGI-Jonah-Image-Feb-2012-copy.jpg
on my computer screen. (This version shows the object in its
"vertical position" as it appears on the ossuary.)
I was careful to have not spoken to her, or in front of her, about the image so as to avoid biasing her judgement.
She looked at it carefully for a few moments, and then responded, "A fish?"
I would recommend others try this informal experiment as well.
Better yet, perhaps someone could arrange to perform this experiment on a number of young children in a controlled setting, while the entire process is recorded.
Andrew Sills, Ph.D. (Mathematics)
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Georgia Southern University