The barrier that separates the sanctuary from the nave, including the columns that pertain to it and the lintel that is above them; the seats that are within, and the steps that are in front of them, and the holy tables themselves — all of these are of silver suffused with gold, of precious stones and costly pearls.
This continued from the time of Justinian into the middle Byzantine period, as shown from a 10th-century excavation in Sebaste in Phrygia, which uncovered a marble templon whose epistyle is covered with busts of saints.
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The late 12th-century templon beam shows twelve canonical feast scenes, with the Deesis (Christ enthroned, flanked by Mary and St. John the Baptist) located in the middle between the Transfiguration and the Raising of Lazarus, linking the scene of Lazarus with the Holy Week images according to liturgical practice.