Thousand-year-old ivory relic decorated with Christian motifs discovered in Austria

An ivory reliquary depicting Christian motifs dating back around 1,500 years was discovered in Irschen, Austria, the country’s University of Innsbruck announced.

The reliquary — a small box in which sacred relics are kept — was found in a marble shrine that was part of an early Christian church in what is now Irschen, Austria, the university said.

The shrine was first uncovered in 2022, and researchers were surprised to find the fragments of the ivory relic box, also called a pyx, which would usually be among the most important items to take when abandoning a church.

“We know of around 40 ivory boxes of this kind worldwide and, as far as I know, the last time one of these was found during excavations was around 100 years ago – the few pyxes that exist are either preserved in cathedral treasures or exhibited in museums,” Gerald Grabherr, the archaeologist who found the box, said.

In this case, researchers believe that the box was broken in the late Roman period and buried within the shrine as a sacred object itself.

“The pyx was presumably also seen as sacred and was treated as such because it was in contact with a relic,” Mr. Grabherr said.

Decorations on the box fragments show a man at the foot of a mountain as a hand reaches down the sky to place something in his arms. Typically, such a motif shows the prophet Moses receiving the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai.

After that image, other biblical figures are shown ending with a man on a chariot harnessed by two horses and another hand coming from the heavens to pull the man and chariot towards it. The researchers believe that the image is meant to represent the ascension of Christ and the fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant, using atypical imagery.

“The depiction of the Ascension of Christ with a so-called biga, a two-horse chariot, is very special and previously unknown,” Mr. Grabherr said.

The settlement that contained the church, marble shrine and ivory reliquary was abandoned around the year 610, following a victory in the area at the Battle of Aguntum by invading pagan Slavic tribes over the Germanic, Christian rulers of Bavaria.