Antiquities Exhibits

.The exhibition, "Kings of the Sun", which will run until Feb. 7, 2021, will display 90 artifacts unearthed by the Czech archaeological mission working on the site of Abu Sir in Egypt's Giza governorate. Chief among these treasures is the head of a statue of King Ra-Nefer-F produced around the year 2460 BCE. Abu-Sir is a royal burial ground with three pyramids built during the Fifth Dynasty. The display will encompass artifacts from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BCE and include an extensive collection of statues from the tombs of Princess Sheretnebty and the scribe Nefer discovered in 2012. Statues of a writer, senior statesmen, and royal staff as well as canopic jars, and Faience ushabti figurines will be presented. Image: Old Kingdom statue of an Egyptian couple from the exhibit "Kings of the Sun" courtesy of Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Mercury, the messenger of the gods, is typically depicted as a youth with wings on his hat or feet.  This monumental bronze statue, commissioned by Lorenzo Ridolfi in 1549 and completed in 1551, formerly stood at the center of the courtyard of the Palazzo Ridolfi in Florence. The inscription on the base states that the "Florentine friends Zanobi Lastricati and Ciano Compagni made the figure in order to learn." The latter was a perfume-maker employed by the duke of Florence, and, on the basis of an ancient marble sculpture of Mercury, he made a model which Lastricati then used for casting the bronze.  The inscription expresses the idea that the sculptures of antiquity represented an ideal worthy of imitation.  - The Walters Art Museum Image: Mercury, bronze, 1551, after a Roman Imperial Period original, by Zanobi Lastricati that I photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland in 2015.

Historically known as Scythopolis, Beth Shean (Beit She'an) is located at the junction of the Jordan River Valley and the Jezreel Valley.   The city was founded in the Late Neolithic or Early Chalcolitic Period (sixth to fifth millennia BCE).  In the Biblical account of the battle of the Israelites against the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, the bodies of King Saul and three of his sons were hung on the walls of Beit She'an.  In Roman times, after Pompey annexed Judea to the Roman Empire,  Beit She'an was refounded and rebuilt by Gabinius. The town center shifted from the summit of the mound, or tell, to its slopes. Thereafter, it became the leading city of the Decapolis, a league of Judean cities, and was the only Decapolis city west of the Jordan River.   The city flourished under the "Pax Romana", as evidenced by high-level urban planning and extensive construction, including the best preserved Roman theatre of ancient Samaria, as well as a hippodrome,...

The Yorkshire Museum in York, England, originally opened in 1830, has reopened to the public once more after its pandemic closure in March.  Its permanent collections  include archaeological remains, numismatics, astronomy, biology, and geology and objects on display are a selection of artifacts from its almost a million objects dating as far back as 500,000 BCE.  One of its permanent exhibits is "Roman York - Meet the People of the Empire."  A statue of the Roman God Mars is prominently displayed, and there is an interactive display describing the lives of some of the Romans whose remains have been found in York. The final record of the famous lost Roman legion, the Ninth Legion, is on display as part of the Roman gallery. The stone inscription, which has been dated to Trajan's twelfth year as emperor, between 10 December 107 and 9 December 108, commemorates the legion's rebuilding in stone of the south-eastern wall of Eboracum's legionary fortress. I had the pri...

Yesterday I finished editing and uploading my images of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum)'s Chinese and Japanese Art on display in their Asian galleries to Wikimedia Commons.  These are high resolution images suitable for both print and digital applications and I only require attribution for their use. The Penn Museum's Asian collection ranges from bronze vessels of the Zhou Period (1046-256 BCE) to sculptures of the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1912 CE).  Most objects on display at the time of my visit in 2015 are related to Buddhism in some form. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Asian_art_in_the_University_of_Pennsylvania_Museum_of_Archaeology_and_Anthropology I'm now working on my images of their ancient Egyptian collection and will begin uploading those soon.  Most of my images of their spectacular objects from ancient Mesopotamia including the death pit of Ur have been uploaded from my Flickr account by another Wi...

The soldier on the plaque wears a tunic and cuirass and a crested and plumed helmet with cheek guards. His spear is beside him. The modeling is bold and chunky but not unaccomplished. The left side of the frame and the front of the soldier's helmet are both chipped. The plaque is sharply convex on a vertical axis and probably decorated a cylindrical box or a piece of furniture. It must have been secured by vertical framing that overlaped the grooved frame on the sides since no attachment holes exist. Plaques of this type normally have been attributed to the 3rd or 4th century, but the similarity of this one in size and style of carving to a plaque from a 1st century BC tomb at Cuma, Italy, raises the question whether this and perhaps other plaques may not be much earlier in date. Image: Carved bone plaque depicting a soldier, probably from furniture or storage chest, 1st century BCE or 3rd-4th century CE, Roman  at the Walters Art Museum courtesy of the museum.

 Many religions of the ancient world were syncretistic, meaning that as they grew and came into contact with other religions, they adopted new beliefs and modified their practices to reflect their changing environment. Both Greek and Roman religious beliefs were deeply influenced by the so-called mystery religions of the East, including the Egyptian cult of Isis, which revealed beliefs and practices to the initiated that remained unexplained, or mysterious, to the uninitiated. Most popular Roman cults had associations with these mystery religions and included the prospect of an afterlife. Zeus Labraundos was a local version of Zeus from Mylasa in Caria (southwestern Asia Minor), of whom very few representations exist except on Roman coins. The front of his apron-like garment is decorated with images of divinities and astral symbols. On his head, he wears a tall headdress with lotus elements reflecting Egyptian influences and the eagle of Zeus at the front. - Walters Art Museum Rema...

 Egyptian male, probably Ptolemaic to Roman Period, 100 BCE - 100 CE grey-black basalt.  Once part of a statue placed in a temple as a votive gift,  the sculpture portrays an older man with firmly set facial features.  Signs of age, with hints of bittersweet emotion, appear only in the private sculpture of the Late and Ptolemaic Period, never in royal works.  This is in direct opposition to works of the Middle Kingdom where signs of age, wariness, and care appeared first in royal facial features.  - Walters Art Museum Image: Egyptian male, probably Ptolemaic to Roman Period, 100 BCE - 100 CE,  grey-black basalt, that I photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

 Salus, personification of the security and welfare of the Roman people, 200-250 CE Salus was the Roman personification of health and well being, and came to be very closely associated with the Greek goddess Hygieia, the daughter of the healing god Asclepius. She is often represented in works of art with the same attributes as Hygeia – in particular both are frequently depicted with a snake wrapped around one arm. However, they each kept their own separate identities, and served very different functions. While both deities protected individual health, Salus was also responsible for the prosperity of the Roman state and its rulers. In this regard, she personified the security and welfare of the Roman people, and was therefore an especially important deity for the city of Rome. She had a temple and cult on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, and various representations of the goddess appeared on Imperial Roman coins. Because the Getty’s statue is close to life-size, it may have been a cult im...

  I first learned of the Riace warriors while listening to the Great Courses lecture series "Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome presented by John R. Hale of the University of Louisville.  Dr. Hale made them sound so intriguing I had to research them further and see what they actually looked like since I was listening to an audio version of the course while I commuted to work at my university.  When I finally saw them I found them absolutely breathtaking, too!  The Riace Warriors, are two full-size Greek bronzes of naked bearded warriors, cast about 460–450 BCE that were found in the sea near Riace, Italy in 1972. The bronzes are now in the collections of the  Museo Nazionale della Magna Graecia in the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria, Italy.  Stefano Mariottini, then a chemist from Rome, chanced upon the bronzes while snorkeling near the end of a vacation at Monasterace. While diving some 200 metres from the coast of Riace, at a depth ...

 Senhouse Roman Museum is built upon the site of Alauna, a castrum or fort in Roman Britannia just north of the town of Maryport in Cumbria. It was linked by a Roman road to the Roman fort and settlement at Derventio (Papcastle) to the southeast, and thence by another road northeast to the regional hub of Luguvalium (Carlisle). The fort was established around 122 CE as a command and supply base for the coastal defences of Hadrian's Wall at its western extremity. There are substantial remains of the Roman fort, which was one of a series along the Cumbrian coast intended to prevent Hadrian's Wall being outflanked by crossing the Solway Firth.  Geo-magnetic surveys have revealed a large Roman town surrounding the fort. An archaeological dig discovered evidence of a second, earlier, larger fort next to, and partially under the present remains. The Roman fort site was owned from the 16th century by generations of the Senhouse family. The main building on the site was constructed as...

Conceived primarily in two dimensions—front and rear silhouette—this small bronze dancer probably once belonged to an elaborate candelabra or incense burner. The exaggeratedly long fingers and pointed shoes characterize the work as Etruscan, as do the stylized folds of the figure’s dress, which add visual interest but not verisimilitude. While her right hand holds above her head a cylindrical support, her left squeezes a small object, perhaps a fruit or clapper. - Cleveland Art Museum Etruscan fashion reflected the influence of Ionia and the Near East especially in pointed footwear, soft conical hats, and generally highly decorative patterns. Increased trade with Greece and Magna Graecia resulted in the adoption of long dresses secured at the shoulder by a brooch, light shawls, a long, simple white cloak (himation) with a red or black border, and a short-sleeved tunic (chiton) made from linen.  However, the Etruscans' flamboyant taste was expressed in much more vibrant colors than ...

In Greek art, the kriophoros is usually a shepherd or, later, Hermes. This statuette may be unique in presenting a warrior-hero as kriophoros. It is certainly one of the earliest sculptural representations of this type. The figure appears to be wearing a helmet, secured under the chin with a painted strap. Double outlines, reinforced at the bottom with incision and adorned with dotted circles in the area of the nipples, were used to suggest breastplates. A thick waist belt, decorated with painted crosshatched lines, is clearly the heroic zoster (warrior's belt). As described in ancient Homeric poetry, the zoster is the ultimate symbol of valor and prowess, worn by such heroes as the brothers Agamemnon and Menelaos and old King Nestor. This figure is shown in the solemn act of presenting a ram, most likely as a sacrificial offering, to a god or goddess. - Cleveland Art Museum Image: Kriophoros (Ram-Bearer) Crete 7th century BCE Terracotta courtesy of the Cleveland Art Museum

 Although many of us are familiar with the story of Marsyas, a musically gifted satyr who found an aulos (a type of flute) discarded by Athena and challenged Apollo to a musical contest and lost, being flayed for his hubris, the Romans viewed Marsyas quite differently.  Among the Romans, Marsyas was cast as the inventor of augury and a proponent of free speech and "speaking truth to power". The earliest known representation of Marsyas at Rome stood for at least 300 years in the Roman Forum near or in the comitium, the space for political activity. Depicted as a silen carrying a wineskin on his left shoulder and raising his right arm, The statue was regarded as an indicium libertatis, a symbol of liberty, and was associated with demonstrations of the plebs, or common people. It often served as a sort of kiosk upon which invective verse was posted.  Marsyas was sometimes considered a king and contemporary of Faunus, portrayed by Vergil as a native Italian ruler at the time ...

The scale and style of this extraordinarily sensitive figure recall decorative sculpture found in grander private homes in Hellenistic Greece, such as the Houses of the Five Statues or of the Diadoumenos on Delos. Her identity is not certain. She shares much with goddesses such as Aphrodite (love), Artemis (hunting), and Themis (established law). However, an attribute made perhaps either of stone, wood, or ivory and now missing, was once dowelled into the top of the tree-stump at her left. This is likely to have been a lyre, identifying the figure as one of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory). It may be Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance whose name means "she who rejoices in the dance". The softness of the facial features, whose elements flow into one another, was achieved by carving the head separately, to guarantee the very finest marble. This may also at times have enabled division of the carving between master craftsman (head) and workshop (body), but her...

 Looking through images I took of artifacts in Chicago's Field Museum way back in 2005, I saw this sensitive sarcophagus portrait of an Egyptian woman.  I had just begun photographing museum collections back then and had not yet developed my method of sequential identification information so I didn't have the full reference I like to provide whenever I feature a particular artifact.  The Field Museum also does not provide a convenient database of their collections on their website either so I had to do a bit more digging.  I used Google Images to try to locate similar images that might have more description and discovered that this portrait caused quite a stir back in 2009 after Michael Jackson's death because people thought it looked like a portrait of him.  An article referred to the piece as 3,000 years old which would place it in the early part of the Third Intermediate Period so I hope that is correct.  I found other sarcophagus images at the Field Mus...

The wild boar features prominently in the cultures of Indo-European people, many of which saw the animal as embodying warrior virtues. Cultures throughout Europe and Asia Minor saw the killing of a boar as proof of one's valor and strength. Neolithic hunter gatherers depicted reliefs of ferocious wild boars on their temple pillars at Göbekli Tepe some 11,600 years ago. Virtually all heroes in Greek mythology fight or kill a boar at one point. The demigod Herakles' third labor involves the capture of the Erymanthian Boar, Theseus slays the wild sow Phaea, and a disguised Odysseus is recognised by his handmaiden Eurycleia by the scars inflicted on him by a boar during a hunt in his youth. To the mythical Hyperboreans, the boar represented spiritual authority. Several Greek myths use the boar as a symbol of darkness, death and winter. One example is the story of the youthful Adonis, who is killed by a boar and is permitted by Zeus to depart from Hades only during the spring and su...