Noah and His Sons

12th century
Mosaic
Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily

The vintage on the left illustrates Genesis 9:20, "And Noe, a husbandman, began to till the ground, and planted a vineyard." Then he drank the wine, was drunk, and fell asleep naked in his tent. The inscription is a mangled version of what must have been given to the mosaicist as Hic ostendit cham verenda patris eius suis fratribus, "Here Cham shows his father's nakedness to his brothers" (from verse 22). Then (verse 23) Shem and Japheth cover him with a cloak.

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