Pilgrim flask from an ancient shrine of St. Thecla (Yale Art Gallery)
Next to the Virgin Mary, St. Thecla was the most popular female saint in late antiquity and an important organizing symbol of ancient women’s piety. Pilgrims to her various cult sites might purchase a flask (ampulla) of holy water, like this one in the Yale Art Gallery (Whiting Palestinian Collection, 1912.311; Davis, no. 13), as a sacred memento of their visit. Thecla is depicted ad bestias—surrounded by two bulls, a lion, and a bear—in a scene from her second martyr trial in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, chapters 33–35. The literary and material evidence for this important ancient Christian cult includes hagiographical narratives, miracle accounts, archaeological sites, sacred artifacts (ampullae, lamps, combs, crosses), wall paintings, and inscriptional evidence for ancient namesakes. See Stephen Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: A Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford University Press, 2001).