St. Menas Plaque
5th-7th century
Marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria
On the St. Menas ampullae the saint is flanked by two camels and two crosses. Here the crosses are replaced by a pair of male figures. One version of the saint's passion begins with the rubric "The martyrdom of the holy and glorious martyr Mena and his companions." The text itself says nothing about any companions, but it may be that the rubricator had in mind a now-lost version whose secondary figures are being represented on this plaque.
After careful observation I have concluded that the creatures at the bottom are camels, but I should note the alternative possibility that they reference a legend in which the leader of the soldiers who were taking Menas's body to Egypt were attacked at sea by long-necked sea creatures. The sea could be what is pictured by the wavy lines at the bottom of the plaque. The soldier made a wooden plaque with those creatures worshipping St. Minas and placed it on the saint's body. So this could possibly be one of the copies of the plaque that pilgrims obtained at the saint's shrine in Egypt.
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Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.