 The patriarchal , or double @-@ barred cross had become a common symbol for the True Cross by the time of the striking of the medalet . The historian Martin Werner argues that the form of the cross on the reverse , with the pendants , is set to resemble the crux gemmata , or jeweled cross , set up in the 4th or 5th century at what was believed to be the site of Golgotha inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem . Werner further speculates that the base of the cross on the medalet is meant to symbolize the hill at Golgotha . The circle crossing over the cross on the reverse is an early form of a cross that later appears in conjunction with the hetoimasia or " empty throne " motif in Byzantine art . 
