Last year, I have posted here in OTWOMD about the oldest image of St. Peter and St. Paul discovered inside the catacombs of Tecla under Italy. Now new developments arose after a year. Archaeologists discovered and restored another frescoe on the walls of the catacombs dated at the end of 4th century AD or at the start of 5th century AD. The frescoes show what might have been the oldest images of the first apostles. The full-face icons include visages of St Peter, St Andrew, and St John, who were among Jesus’ original 12 Apostles, and St Paul, who became an Apostle after Christ’s death. The Catacombs of St. Tecla is situated outside the Vatican and under the Basilica of St. Paul. The paintings have the same characteristics as later images, such as St Paul’s rugged, wrinkled and elongated forehead and balding head and pointy beard, indicating they may have been the ones which set the standard. The four circles, about 50 cm in diameter, are on the ceiling of the underground burial place of a noblewoman who is believed to have converted to Christianity at the end of the same century when the emperor Constantine made it legal. According to Reuters:

The frescoes inside the tomb measuring about 2 meters by 2 meters were covered with a thick patina of powdery calcium carbonate caused by extreme humidity and no air circulation.

“We took our time to do extensive analysis before deciding what technique to use,” said Barbara Mazzei, who headed the project. She explained how she used a laser as an “optical scalpel” to make the calcium carbonate fall off without damaging the paint.

“The laser created a sort of a mini explosion of steam when it interacted with the calcium carbonate to make it detach from the surface,” she said.

The result was stunning clarity in the images that were before blurry and opaque.

The wrinkles on St Paul’s forehead, for example, are clear and the whiteness of St Peter’s beard has re-emerged.

“It was very, very emotional to discover this,” said Mazzei.

Other scenes from the Bible, such as Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead or Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac, are now also much clearer and brighter.

“As far as paintings inside catacombs go, we are used to very faint paintings, usually white, with few colors. In the case of the St Tecla catacombs, the great surprise was the extraordinary colors. The more we went forward, the more surprises we found,” Mazzei said.

The tomb, in a web of catacombs under a modern building, is not yet open to the public because of continued work, difficult access and limited space. Bisconti said the new discoveries will be made available for viewing by specialists for the time being.

With this, we might hope to discover in the near future other images and paintings depicting the images of the first apostles, or probably Jesus himself, telling stories on how the first generation of Catholics started and spread the word…

Below are the pictures of the said frescoes.