The sixth and eighth monograms show evidence of having been altered. The silver has been removed from the earlier form, and the grooves having been filled up with bronze fresh letters were inlaid: the lines stopped out however show a different colour from the original ground, and so the palimpsest can be read. The revision was made “after the birth of Michael the first son of Theophilus in 839 and his coronation in the year 840.[366] Before this time the monogram of John the patriarch, which may still be traced, occupied the position of Michael’s monogram: and instead of 6349 Indiction 4, the date was 6347 Indiction 2, thus giving the year beginning September 838, when John the Sixth was Patriarch of Constantinople.”[367] The inscription “Michael Conquerors” (which is formed by piercing a bronze plate, not by damascening, as shown by Salzenberg) occupies the top of the right-hand leaf of the door: that on the left corresponding to it is lost. MM. Curtis and Aristarches have restored this as above. The existing words, it is evident, must have been added after Michael’s birth and with the alteration of the monograms probably form a memorial of his coronation. _Murray’s Handbook_ 1893 suggests that the word Nikêtôn refers to the restoration of images; but the revision of the inscription was made during the lifetime of Theophilus, who was the last of the iconoclastic emperors. According to Muralt[368] Theophilus died Jan. 20 A.M. 6350 (842). Just before, feeling himself to be dying, he made the empress swear not to re-establish images, and not to depose the patriarch John. Three weeks however after the emperor’s death, Methodius was named patriarch. “The victory of the image-worshippers was celebrated by the installation of the long-banished pictures in S. Sophia on the 19th of February 842, just thirty days after the death of Theophilus.”[369] It is almost certain that the conjectural restoration is correct for Theophilus and Michael are thus associated in a mural inscription[370] and Niketes was a common title from Constantine downwards. On the panels are certain pin-holes[371] placed symmetrically between the monograms; these must have been for the attachment of reliefs. [Illustration: FIG. 68.--Bronze Doors in Narthex. Scale about four feet to an inch.] [Illustration: FIG. 69.--Inscription Damascened in Silver on Bronze Door.] * * * * * The Anonymous author speaks of doors of “elektron” and of silver dipped in gold, but we cannot rely on this any more than on his 365 doors of ivory.