The Harrowing of Hell

12th century
Stone relief
Cathedral museum, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

This is a Harrowing of Hell includes only the essentials. Adam and Eve stand in for the crowd of patriarchs and prophets described in The Gospel of Nicodemus and included in many plays and images of the Harrowing. As in larger western and eastern versions, Christ takes Adam's arm to draw him out of Hell. As a sign of his power he holds a scroll, not the cross that will become standard in this tradition.

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Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.