Reliquary Box with Scenes from the Life of John the Baptist, 1300s. John the Baptist--the first person to recognize Christ as the promised savior and the one who baptized him in the Jordan River--was one of the Byzantine Empire?s most revered saints. This box shows four scenes from the saint?s life: John?s martyrdom, Christ?s baptism, John?s birth, and the announcement of his birth to his parents. It probably once housed one of the saint?s relics; several were kept in churches and monasteries in Constantinople, including fragments of his skull and right arm and locks of his blood-clotted hair.