The Cross of Cehegín

The Cehegín cross nearly ended up in a scrapyard

The Cross of Cehegín is represented in a sculptural piece on the eastern roundabout as visitors approach the site of the modern town, and curious visitors who have perhaps seen the double cross of nearby Caravaca de la Cruz may glance at the unfamiliar rendition of the cross, wondering at the significance of this particular design.

This sculpture represents the Cross of Cehegín, a piece which can be seen in the town´s archaeological museum and which was found on the site of the City of Begastri, a Visigoth City built over the ruins of both Iberian and Roman settlements, the City which existed in this location before the first stone of modern Cehegín had even been laid.

( Historical dating, Iberians 525BC to 50BC, became romanised and disappeared as a definable civilisation by 50BC, merged with the Romans, who had invaded in 209BC and remained in power  until around the end of the 5th century. This was followed by invasions of Vandals and then Visigoths, who arrived early 6th century.)

Close to this roundabout the Vía Verde cuts the road, the former railway track which is today a cycling and walking route, the construction of which resulted in the discovery of this symbolic cross and the discovery of Begastri, buried beneath centuries of accumulated earth.
The Cross of Cehegín was found at the Cabezo de Roenas de Cehegín, ( the hill on which the City of Begastri sits) which was one of the few Roman communities of any size in the Region of Murcia and later went on to become the Episcopal seat of Begastri, a Visigoth City.
This Cabezo rises up near to the banks of the Río Quipar, just over 2 kilometres from the urban nucleus of modern Cehegín, close to the roundabout sculpture, just a little way down the Vía Verde.

The story of the cross.
The survival of this cross today is, in itself,  little short of miraculous, as it nearly ended up in a scrapyard.

The cross survived thanks to Cristóbal Sánchez de Amoraga, a former mayor of Cehegín, who bought it from the wife of Juan José Guirao Martínez (“El Piños”) at the end of the 1940s. “El Piños” had found the artefact in around 1932 when he was digging a trench for the construction of the railway in the Cabezo de Roenas. He took it home to Matamujeres, near Las Tenzas in the district of Cañada Canara. The story tells how his wife was going to sell the cross to a scrap metal collector for 8 or 10 pesetas, but the mayor, seeing that it was a cross, offered her 50. He had no idea of its origins or true value, let alone its historical significance.

The cross is 39.5 cm high and 31.8 cm across, and the monogrammed disc has a diameter of 3.7 cm. Both faces of the disc are decorated with small dots cut into the circle. Similar crosses have been found at Burguillos, Santa Elena de Jaén and the Cortijo de Íscar in Baena, all of them probably belonging to the 6th and 7th centuries.

The Christian religion first arrived in the Region of Murcia in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, as is borne out by the discoveries made by archaeologists, especially at Begastri, which was the seat of the late Roman and Visigoth bishopric. During the period of Visigoth dominance, from the 5th to the 7th century, there were various times of crisis due to the fact that the Visigoths were Arianists. This means that they did not accept the divinity of Christ, although they later converted to Catholicism under King Recaredo I (559-601).

The cross is in the Latin style although its inspiration lies in Greek tradition, and it may be of Hispanic origin, even possibly from the Region of Murcia. Its a distinct possibility that this could be a Hispano-Roman piece from approximately the 6th century, when Christianity was consolidating its foothold in the area, as certainly the technology existed to make it here and the craftsmen of the time were more than capable of making it. There is a reproduction of the cross hanging above the altar of the Iglesia de Santa María Magdalena, just a few metres from the archaeological museum, which was made by a blacksmith in Moratalla, the technique initially used being smelting, with the product later being worked on with files and chisels.

Crosses of this type used to hang from the ceiling above the altar, and were an essential element in the consecration of churches and altars as well as the blessing of cemeteries.

Symbolism of the Cross of Cehegín.
The Christian religious practices of this time are reflected in the Visigoth or “mozárabe” liturgy, which had its own distinctive features. The main characteristic which marked these early Christians out was their devotion to symbols.

Dolphins or fish in early Christianity.
One of the most instantly recognisable symbols used by early Christian communities as a badge by which they could identify each other among the hostile pagans was that of a fish. It was first used in the Christian societies of the late 4th century.
This ancient symbol derives from the Greek word for “fish”, “ichthys”, and is an acrostic, which, put simply is a code, achieved by taking the first letters of each word of a phrase or rhyme to spell out a meaning.

In this case, Greek for JESUS CHRIST, GODS SON, SAVIOUR is ( Ιησούς Χριστός, Θεού Υιός, Σωτήρ; Iesous CHristos, THeou Yios, Soter — ch and th being each one letter in Greek). The initials spell ichthys (ΙΧΘΥΣ), Greek for fish – hence the frequent use of the fish as a symbol from the early days of Christianity to the present time.

In this cross we have two fish, two dolphins, the holiest symbol of primitive Christian faith. The two fish represent duality: the waters above and the waters below, the masculine soul and the feminine soul, the holy couple, the eternal divine marriage.

The representation of the dolphins includes the eyes, from which tears are being shed. This represents the key of life, and symbolizes the triumph of life over death; it is thus a symbol of reincarnation and immortality, the mysteries of nature and eternal life.

Although in this particular case there were no chains linking the dolphins to the cross, it is likely that they would have been hanging from it ( see reproduction in church), symbolizing the Christian believers surrounding their Saviour and symbolizing the line of the Earth as a way out towards the search for God.

The chrismon or circle.
The “chrismon”, or monogram, is in the form of a "Constantinian labarum," and features a circle which acts as a symbol of the Sun, containing the first two letters of the name of Christ in Greek. For those who have no idea what a "Constantinium labarum" is, here´s the story:

On the evening of October 27th, 312 AD the emperor Constantine I was preparing for battle against Maxentius at Milvian Bridge . Afraid of the alleged supernatural powers of his opponent, he prayed to the Roman Gods for help. He had a dream, in which he saw the sun high in the sky with a symbol in front of it,  accompanied by the words "In hoc signo eris" , meaning "By this sign, you will be the victor". Following his vision, he fused the two letters within the circle and placed the symbol on the shields of his soldiers and won great victory, and although he continued to worship Roman Gods for some years more, he later converted to Christianity.

The symbol he saw was an entwining of two letters from the Greek alphabet, X (chi) and P (rho), the initial letters of the word Christ (Xristos) , incorporated within a circle, this symbol becoming known as the "Constantinium labarum, " a symbol synonymous with early christianity., and which the Emperor us on his labarum, his standard.
This symbol implies that Christ is a “sol invictus”, ( sol invictus meaning Invincible sun, which was the official sun god of the latter part of the Roman Empire) and also represents Zeus (God), reinforcing its celebratory meaning.

Other symbols on the cross.
The cross also features the Greek letter “rho” seen as an R at the top and the alpha and omega symbols on the two arms of the cross, ( first two letters of the name of Christ) representing God, the beginning and the end of the Universe .
The rho also reinforces the symbol of the sun at the top of the world. In the gospel references to the sun it is “the eye of the needle” or “the narrow gate”, in other words the exit from the cosmos, the fruit of the redemption of Christ.

The whole was designed to reinforce the symbolism of Christianity, re-inforcing symbols which had immense familiarity to worshippers and re-enforcing the message that God was all around them in everything they saw in their daily lives.

The original cross is in the Municipal Archaeological Museum in Cehegin, in the Plaza de la Constitucion, high up in the old quarter, and the reproduction in the Church of Santa María, just a few metres away.


(Article based on research carried out by Jose María Alcázar Pastor, a member of the Real Academia Alfonso X El Sabio and the municipal surveyor of Cehegín.)