Crux gemmata

In the Late Antique and Early Medieval periods, many objects of great significance, such as reliquaries, were studded with jewels in a style that in recent centuries has been restricted to crowns and other coronation regalia and small pieces of jewellery.

For much of the period, a large jewelled cross is recorded as decorating the presumed site of the Crucifixion, around which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had been built.

The paradox whereby the instrument of execution is rendered the vehicle of Christ's triumph in the Resurrection remains to the present day a central theme in Christian devotion, and the jewelled cross was one of its first visual manifestations.

[9] One of the earliest representations of a Crucifixion scene rather oddly shows the three crosses of the gospel accounts, with the two thieves hanging in place on theirs, but with Christ standing at the foot of his.

[10] In so-called "mystical" images, such as the apse mosaic at the Basilica of Sant' Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna (549), the jewelled cross stands specifically as a symbol for Christ.

[14] Another common Byzantine coin type shows a cross with a stepped base, which should be understood as a crux gemmata even though scale does not normally allow any indication of gems.

Contrary to the assertion of Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code,[15] it is not especially typical for a cross to have thirteen gems, though when one does, it probably does symbolize Jesus Christ and his Twelve Apostles.