Antiquities Exhibits

Mark Cartwright of the Ancient History Encyclopedia just published and excellent article on the Gundestrup Cauldron and I wish to share it with you.  But first some of my personal musings about the object. The Gundestrup Cauldron, dated to the 1st century BCE, was discovered by workers cutting peat blocks in a bog near Gundestrup, North Jutland, Denmark on 28 May 1891 CE. The details of the decorative reliefs on the cauldron show a clear Celtic influence but some motifs, particularly the exotic animals (lions or leopards, elephants, and griffins), suggest, too, a Near Eastern influence so that scholars generally attribute its manufacture to peoples living in the Lower Danube region, specifically Dacia or Thrace (which is today’s Romania and Bulgaria). The use of silver is another link with the Lower Danube region as it is rare in Celtic art but not so in Thracian art.  When I first encountered Nuragic art from Sardinia, I wondered if those people may have had an influence on t...

During the Middle Assyrian Period, the social position of women in Assyria became lower than that of neighboring societies. Men were permitted to divorce their wives with no compensation paid to the latter. If a woman committed adultery, she could be beaten, have her ears or nose cut off, her nipples torn off, her eyes gouged out, or put to death. It's not certain if these laws were seriously enforced, but they appear to be a backlash against some older documents that granted things like equal compensation to both partners in divorce. A law code dating from the reign of King Tiglathpileser I (1115 - 1076 BCE), a particularly misogynistic ruler, in which punishments were especially severe, especially for women, reveals a woman could be punished not only for their individual transgressions, but also for crimes committed by their relatives under the principle of ius talionis (an eye for an eye). ‘If a man forcibly seizes and rapes a maiden who is residing in her father’s house... the ...

  Built by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, the palaces and storerooms of Nimrud housed thousands of pieces of carved ivory. Most of the ivories served as furniture inlays or small precious objects such as boxes. While some of them were carved in the same style as the large Assyrian reliefs lining the walls of the Northwest Palace, the majority of the ivories display images and styles related to the arts of North Syria and the Phoenician city-states. Phoenician style ivories are distinguished by their use of imagery related to Egyptian art, such as sphinxes and slender elongated figures wearing pharaonic crowns, and the use of elaborate carving techniques such as openwork and colored glass inlay. Some were also adorned with gold leaf. North Syrian style ivories tend to depict stockier figures in more dynamic compositions, carved as solid plaques with fewer added decorative elements. However, some pieces do not fit easily into any of these three styles. Most of the ivories were p...

Giovanni Barracco Ancient Sculpture Museum in Rome, Italy What was once known as the Ancient Sculpture Museum and is now known as the Museo Barracco, houses a collection of ancient Egyptian, Near Eastern, Etruscan, Cypriot, Phoenician, Hellenistic, Italic and Roman art once owned by Giovanni Barracco, quaestor of the Senate of the Kingdom who donated them to the city of Rome in 1904.  The first two rooms are dedicated to Egyptian and Near Eastern art.  Highlights include a female sphinx attributed to Queen Hatshepsut, a black granite portrait of Ramses II, and a diorite figure of a bearded priest that Barracco believed to represent Julius Caesar, dated to the third century CE.  There is also a large basalt hourglass attributed to Ptolemy Philadelphus found in fragments at the Campense Serapeum in Rome.  Near eastern art consists primarily of a variety of reliefs from the Assurbanipal's palace in Nineveh depicting Assyrian archers, Elamite warriors, and grooms and ...

Alalia, the Battle that Changed History, through November 3, 2019 at the Musei Di Maremma in Vetulonia, Italy.  The naval Battle of Alalia took place between 540 BCE and 535 BCE off the coast of Corsica between Greeks and an allied fleet of Etruscans and Carthaginians.  The Punic-Etruscan fleet of 120  pentekonters (ships with 48 oars and two steering rudders) defeated a Greek force of Phocaean ships while emigrating to the western Mediterranean and the nearby colony of Alalia (now Aléria).   Although the Greeks drove the allied fleet off, they lost almost two-thirds of their own fleet, a Cadmean victory according to Herodotus. Realizing they could not withstand another attack, the Greeks evacuated Corsica, and initially sought refuge in Rhegion in Italy. A legend describes how Greek prisoners were stoned to death at Caere by the Etruscans, while the Carthaginians sold their prisoners into slavery.  The exhibit features 150 objects on loan from the museu...

Phoenician, Roman, and Byzantine cultural remains at the archaeological site of Tipasa, Algeria. Among honeyed beaches, shady pine trees, and gently rolling hills, the sweeping turquoise sea serves as the backdrop for a layered history of golden ruins overlooking the coastal cliff.  Colonized several times over between the 6th century BC and the 6th century AD, Tipasa originated as a trading center for the Phoenicians of Carthage.  The site features a comprehensive Punic necropolis, ancient toilets, another theater, and a Christian religious complex fitted with thermal baths, basilicas, and tombs.  The most notable structure is the nearby royal mausoleum, Kbor er Roumia, which is the funerary monument of Berber King Juba II and Queen Cleopatra Selene II (Cleopatra and Marc Antony’s only daughter). Ancient remains of the tomb of Juba II and Cleopatra Selene (Cleopatra VII and Marc Antony's daughter) near Tipasa, Algeria.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. ...

Art from the Chalcolithic to the Byzantine Period. Ongoing. At the Hecht Museum of the University of Haifa in Haifa, Israel.  The Hecht Museum's collections from the Chalcolithic period to the Byzantine period include coins, weights, Semitic seals, jewelry, artifacts from the Temple Mount excavations, Phoenician metalworking, woodworking, stone vessels, glass making, and mosaics. The museum is also home to the Ma'agan Michael Ship, the wreck of a fifth-century BCE merchantman. Image: Figurine of the Phoenician goddess Tanit. She was equivalent to the moon-goddess Astarte, and later worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis, Juno Caelestis, or simply Caelestis.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Hanay.