Camuliana,Camulia,Kamoulianai, orKamoulia (Greek:Καμουλιαναί, Καμούλιανα) was an ancient town or perhaps a village inancient Cappadocia, located northwest of Caesarea, todayKayseri inTurkey. It is mostly mentioned in connection with theImage of Camuliana, anacheiropoieton or "icon not made by hands" of the face ofChrist, which was one of the earliest of this class of miraculously created icons to be recorded; this is also sometimes referred to simply as the "Camouliana".^[1] DuringByzantine times, the town was also calledIustinianoupolis Nova.^[2][3]

Its site is tentatively located near Emmiler,Asiatic Turkey.^[2][3] It lay on the old Byzantine road fromKaisareia toTabia, near the point where it crossed theHalys river by the Çokgöz Köprüsü bridge.^[4] The name of the place is ofCeltic origin.^[4]

Camuliana was made into apolis under Justinian with the name Iustinianopolis, but after theacheiropoieton was transferred toConstantinople in 574, the city lost much of its significance and the name "Iustinianopolis" fell out of use.^[4] It is probably identical with thetourma ofKymbalaios in the later Byzantinetheme ofCharsianon.^[4] From 971-5 Kymbalaios was the seat of astrategos whose task was probably to secure the road near the Çokgöz Köprüsü.^[4]

Theepiscopal see of Camuliana is of relatively late origin, since it did not yet exist in the time ofBasil the Great 329–379. However, five of its bishops are named in the acts of various councils: a Basilius at theSecond Council of Constantinople (553); a Georgios at theThird Council of Constantinople (680); a Theodoros at theQuinisext Council (692); another Georgios at theSecond Council of Nicaea (787); and a Gregorios at thePhotianCouncil of Constantinople (879).^[5][6][4] A seal indicates that there was also a bishop named Michael in the 10th or 11th century.^[4]

No longer a residential bishopric, Camuliana is today listed by theCatholic Church as atitular see.^[7]

The image of Christ that appears in Camuliana is mentioned in the early 6th century byZacharias Rhetor, his account surviving in a fragmentarySyriac version, and is probably the earliest image to be said to be a miraculous imprint on cloth in the style of theVeil of Veronica (a much later legend) orShroud of Turin. In the version recorded in Zacharias's chronicle, a pagan lady called Hypatia was undergoing Christian instruction, and asking her instructor "How can I worship him, when He is not visible, and I cannot see Him?" She later found in her garden a painted image of Christ floating on water. When placed inside her head-dress for safekeeping it then created a second image onto the cloth, and then a third was painted. Hypatia duly converted and founded a church for the version of the image that remained in Camuliana.

In the reign ofJustinian I (527-565) the image is said to have been processed around cities in the region to protect them from barbarian attacks.^[8] This account differs from others but would be the earliest if it has not suffered fromiconodule additions, as may be the case.^[9]

One of the images (if there was more than one) probably arrived inConstantinople in 574,^[10] and is assumed to be the image of Christ used as apalladium in subsequent decades, being paraded before the troops before battles byPhilippikos,Priscus andHeraclius, and in theAvarSiege of Constantinople in 626, and praised as the cause of victory in poetry byGeorge Pisida, again very early mentions of this use of icons.^[11]

It was probably destroyed during theByzantine Iconoclasm,^[12] after which mentions of an existing image cease (however Heinrich Pfeiffer identifies it with theVeil of Veronica andManoppello Image^[13]), and in later centuries its place was taken by theImage of Edessa, which apparently arrived in Constantinople in 944, and icons of theTheotokos such as theHodegetria. The Image of Edessa was very probably later, but had what apparently seemed to the Byzantines an even more impressiveprovenance, as it was thought to have been an authentic non-miraculous portrait painted from life during the lifetime of Jesus.

• Beckwith, John,Early Christian and Byzantine Art, Penguin History of Art (now Yale), 2nd edn. 1979,ISBN 0140560335
• "Chronicle":The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor: Religion and War in Late Antiquity, Eds: Geoffrey Greatrex, Sebastian P. Brock, Witold Witakowski, 2011, Liverpool University Press, Armenian Research Center collection, Translated Texts for Historians Series Vol 55,ISBN 1846314941, 9781846314940
• Emerick, Judson J.,The Tempietto Del Clitunno Near Spoleto, 1998, Penn State Press,ISBN 0271044500, 9780271044507
• Kitzinger, Ernst, "The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm",Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 8, (1954), pp. 83–150, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University,JSTOR
• Mango, Cyril, "The Camuliana Image of Christ" inArt of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453: Sources and Documents, University of Toronto Press, 1986, pp. 114–115

The fullest account of the image and its history is in:Ernst von Dobschütz,Christusbilder. Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende. Texte u. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Leipzig 1899,online in German, access date 2012-09-05

38°54′15″N35°14′39″E / 38.904207°N 35.244039°E /38.904207; 35.244039

• Populated places in ancient Cappadocia
• Roman towns and cities in Turkey
• Populated places of the Byzantine Empire
• Catholic titular sees in Asia
• Byzantine icons
• Eastern Orthodox icons
• History of Kayseri Province

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