Mimesis and Memory in Uppenna Tomb Markers

In the late fourth century a basilica was constructed in Uppenna (Henchir Chigarnia, Tunisia). Over the next two centuries this site became a hub for Christian burials, housing more than eighty funerary mosaics. These mosaics adhered to a consistent tripartite form: a chi-rho at the head, a central epitaph, and a lower decorative motif. While previous scholarship has rightly emphasized their communal function, this study argues that the Uppenna mosaics also operated as mimetic representations of the deceased, offering a theologically grounded vision of the self. Drawing on Augustine’s De cura pro mortuis and contemporaneous funerary orations, the paper argues that these mosaics functioned as catalysts for devotional engagement, animating the burial site through prayerful response from the living. Within this framework, the chi-rho functions as a symbolic portrait, inviting remembrance and prayer while replacing the individual face with the image of Christ. Even when epitaphs are absent or illegible, the mosaics maintain their mimetic function through spatial and symbolic cues. The paper situates the mosaics within the broader Late Antique visual culture of memory, affect, and vision, suggesting that their design was intended to create a devotional experience rooted in interior sight rather than physical likeness. This analysis is complicated by the site’s complex archaeological history, marked by the destructive and disjointed excavations carried out under French colonial rule in the early twentieth century. The site’s politically fraught historiography is critically examined alongside earlier interpretations of the mosaics, offering a fuller understanding of how excavation history has shaped their reception and meaning. Ultimately, the mosaics at Uppenna reveal how early Christian communities used symbolic imagery not to represent the dead in likeness, but to make them present through the shared language of faith, memory, and hope in resurrection.