Iakobos, Metropolitan of Gothia, and His Seal (Fourteenth Century)
This article publishes the seal-matrix for wax seals discovered at the footstep of Mangup mountain, on top of which was the center of the medieval principality of Gotthia on the Crimea. The Greek legend in the outer circle is easily readable: + μητροπολίτης Γοτθίας Ἰάκωβος. In the central circle of the seal there is a bust of bearded man, wearing omophorion decorated with crosses, with his hands raised in the gesture of praying. The identifying of this bust is a problem; perhaps the hermit Iakobos (Asceta) from Palestine would be first choice. The seal stems from the first or second third of the fourteenth century. It belonged to previously unknown metropolitan of Gothia in the Crimea.