Approaching Africa with Orosius on the Northumbrian Franks Casket: Conceptual Models for the Casket’s Construction

Abstract Three of the Franks Casket’s five carved panels contain scenes from stories in Latin – from the Gospel of Matthew on the front, Virgil’s Aeneid on the left side, and Josephus’s Jewish Wars (via Pseudo-Hegesippus) on the back. Approaching Africa argues that, in addition to these pictures referring to written texts, a fourth Latin text lies behind the casket’s plan, Orosius’s Historiarum Adversus Paganos Libri Septem (‘Seven Books of History Against the Pagans’). This is a new discovery about this ever-fascinating box. The subjects on the casket’s two sides and back suggest a plan based on the three-continents concept of the ecumene described by Orosius in Book I, while a clockwise ‘journey’ around the back aligns references to place with a later passage by Orosius as modified by a passage from Bede. An Orosian arc of dates then emerges, with all three devices pointing toward ‘Africa’ on the casket’s right side. Unlike the places named on the left side and back, however, that on the casket’s right side is left unnamed as a riddle to be solved. Reading that right-side panel as thematically paired with the Virgilian left-side panel may help to solve it.