Antiquities Exhibits

Eros, the Greek god of love, was capable of overpowering the minds of all gods and mortals. According to an early myth, Gaia (goddess of the Earth) and Eros were the source of all creation. Literary references of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. often portray Eros as a cruel, capricious being who causes burning desire. In Classical art he is usually represented as a beautiful winged youth. During the Hellenistic period (323–31 BCE) a new image of the god as a baby took hold. The popularity of that iconography is linked to the myth of Eros being the son of Aphrodite, born of her affair with Ares (god of war). The most innovative and influential representation of Eros during the Hellenistic and the Roman periods was of Eros sleeping.  Variations of the type are known from hundreds of sculptures, which, to judge from the number of extant replicas and adaptations, was one of the most popular ever produced in Roman Imperial times. It was also among the earliest of the ancient statues ...

Back in 2016, I had the opportunity to participate in a study tour that included a visit to the Ashmolean Museum where I photographed the so-called "Arundel Marbles". So here is a selection of my photographs of them as today's featured "Antiquities Alive" virtual exhibit. The Arundel marbles are a collection of carved Ancient Greco-Roman sculptures and inscriptions collected by Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel in the early seventeenth century, the firs t such comprehensive collection of its kind in England. They are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The Earl of Arundel had supervised excavations in Rome, and deployed his agents in the Eastern Mediterranean, above all at Istanbul. Late in the seventeenth century, a visitor to Ottoman Turkey (in modern-day Izmir) complained: "the scarcity of antiquities now to be found in Smyrna arises from hence, that it furnished the greatest part of the Marmora Arundeliana." The earl displayed his unriv...

Last Supper in Pompeii July 25, 2019 to January 12, 2020 at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom.  Everything from the exquisite mosaics in the villas of the wealthy to the remains found in kitchen drains reveals what the people of Pompeii loved to eat and drink. Many of the 300 objects on display have never before left Italy – they range from the luxury furnishings of the Roman dining room, to the carbonised food that was on the table when the volcano erupted.  The exhibition will recreate the atmosphere of a Pompeian dining room with the frescoes from one of the city’s grandest houses (the House of the Golden Bracelet); beautiful mosaics from triclinium floors; silver dinnerware; and elaborate furnishings like the four-foot statue of Apollo made to bear a tray for favoured diners. Image:  Polychrome mosaic emblema (panel) showing fish and sea creatures, 100–1 BCE Pompeii, House of the Geometric Mosaics, at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

Last Supper in Pompeii.  July 25, 2019 to January 12, 2020 at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.  Everything from the exquisite mosaics in the villas of the wealthy to the remains found in kitchen drains reveals what the people of Pompeii loved to eat and drink. The Ashmolean’s 2019 summer exhibition, will tell the story of this ancient Roman town’s love affair with food. Objects, on loan from Naples and Pompeii range from the luxury furnishings of the Roman dining room, to the carbonised food that was on the table when the volcano erupted. Image: Reconstruction of a Roman triclinium at the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in Zaragoza, Spain.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Francis Raher.

Antinous: Boy Made God - September 25, 2018 - February 24, 2019 at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. Antinous as Dionysos Roman 2nd century CE at the Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy. Antinous was a boy-favorite of the Emperor Hadrian. He drowned in the Nile in A.D. 130, and the emperor founded a city in middle Egypt in his honor called Antinoopolis or ‘Antinous City’. A striking portrait of the boy was created by a great court sculptor, and this image was widely reproduced around the empire. More than eighty busts and statues survive. This exhibition explores the spread of Antinous’ image and his empire-wide cult as a hero and god.