Visual and ideological context of the Chalke inscription at the entrance to the great palace of Constantinople

This article revisits an inscription on the Bronze Doors of the Imperial Palace in Constantinople and addresses the problem of its dating as well as the ideological and theological meaning of the inscription in the wider spatial and symbolical context of Late Antique gate decoration. A tentative reconstruction of the Transfiguration scene which the inscription might have accompanied is proposed, and the wider exegetical context of the Transfiguration, primarily, the interplay of the theological ideas of the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Second Coming of Christ, embedded in this event are examined against the doctrines of the Byzantine Iconoclasts.