Antiquities Exhibits

Despite fanciful descriptions by some ancient sources like Nicias (470-415 BCE) that amber "is a liquid produced by the rays of the sun, and that these rays, at the moment of the sun's setting, striking with the greatest force upon the surface of the soil, leave upon it an unctuous sweat, which is carried off by the tides of the Ocean, and thrown up upon the shores of Germany", Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder cited sources who were well aware of amber's actual origin from tree resin. In Book 37, section XI of Natural History, Pliny wrote: "Amber is produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the pine genus, like gum from the cherry, and resin from the ordinary pine. It is a liquid at first, which issues forth in considerable quantities, and is gradually hardened [...] Our forefathers, too, were of opinion that it is the juice of a tree, and for this reason gave it the name of "succinum" and one great proof that it is the produce of a tree o...

When the so-called "Griffin Warrior" was discovered near the Palace of Nestor in Pylos, the young man who died around 1500 BCE was buried with some 2,000 objects, including silver cups, beads made of precious stones, ivory combs, a sword and four intricately decorated solid gold rings. Archaeologists Shari Stocker and Jack Davis from the University of Cincinnati that excavated the warrior's burial think these grave goods provided evidence that Mycenaean culture recognized and appreciated Minoan culture more than previously believed, especially the gold rings. Made of multiple sheets of gold, the rings depict detailed scenes including bull leaping and iconography such as sun symbols and mythological genii creatures from Minoan mythology.   Originally the rings were thought to have probably been crafted on Crete where they were used to seal documents or indicate ownership of goods or other objects and pillaged in warfare. But, after extensive study, Stocker and Davis have e...

This exhibition uses mummies from the collections of the Manchester Museum (England) to allow visitors to examine life for the wealthy in multicultural Roman Egypt, where diverse Egyptian, Roman, and Greek communities and cultural influences were blended. The exhibition journey traces expectations for the afterlife and introduces cultural constructions of identity, strikingly demonstrated by haunting painted panel portraits. The practices of preservation and decoration of the body, and the transformation of the deceased into a god, are explored by the mummies on display. Eight gilded mummies  and more than 100 related objects are presented in the display, including papyri, jewelry, ceramics, and artworks depicting deities that connect the daily lives of these Greco-Roman Egyptians to the religious world of the gods in a series of lavishly illustrated thematic sections covering the period from 300 BCE to 200 CE. The youngest of the preserved individuals is a 2 or 3 year-old child wr...

Statues of Mourning Women, South Italian (Apulian, Canosan), 300-275 BCE Terracotta, now in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa venue, Pacific Palisades, California This group of mourning women, often understood as female figures in prayer (orantes), was likely produced in the area of Canosa in south-eastern Italy. Although there are considerable differences in terms of clothing, poses and hairstyles, the four statues seem to depict a type of youthful female figure, probably envisioned as one of the mourners who expressed their grief during funerary ceremonies. The group was intended to be placed around a funerary couch (kline), and was probably produced for a fairly prestigious client who, in the context of Romanization in the area, aspired to underscore his economic prosperity, personal identity, and native traditions. The figures were made not with molds, as has been previously conjectured, but rather through a modeling process over a fairly thick conical structure. W...

"The banquet was one of the most popular and consistent funerary motifs in ancient Etruria. The earliest banquet scenes depict people sitting, whereas later representations show banqueters reclining on couches. The deceased is either depicted at a meal or ancestor figures are shown welcoming the newly deceased to the banquet. The characterization of the deceased at a meal is a funerary theme that also finds expression in the earlier tomb groups of the Villanovan period." - Anthony S. Tuck, The Etruscan Seated Banquet: Villanovan Ritual and Etruscan Iconography One of the earliest representations of a seated banquet was found in the Tomb of the Five Chairs at Cerveteri. A terracota figure was originally placed on each of five rock-carved thrones in a side chamber of the cruciform tomb.  Two stone tables were placed in front of the chairs  and classicist F. Prayon further describes the setting as including a large basket, libation table, and a rectangular base used for two addi...

Then said Achilles, "Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, see to these matters at some other season, when there is breathing time and when I am calmer. Would you have men eat while the bodies of those whom Hector son of Priam slew are still lying mangled upon the plain? Let the sons of the Achaeans, say I, fight fasting and without food, till we have avenged them; afterwards at the going down of the sun let them eat their fill. As for me, Patroclus is lying dead in my tent, all hacked and hewn, with his feet to the door, and his comrades are mourning round him. Therefore I can think of nothing but slaughter and blood and the rattle in the throat of the dying." - Iliad 19.226 As some of you know, I am the spouse of a veteran who has suffered from PTSD since service in Vietnam back in 1967-68. Although the psychological trauma suffered by those who have experienced a traumatic event now has a very modern-sounding diagnosis, it is not a recent phenomenon but has been a plague u...

During the Ptolemaic period a distinctive type of subterranean tomb for multiple burials proliferated in the cemeteries around the city of Alexandria. Underground chambers cut into the living rock radiated from a central courtyard open to the sky. Most chambers contained a number of loculi, long narrow niches cut into the walls, which served as burial slots. Some loculi were sealed with painted limestone slabs in the form of small shrines. - Metropolitan Museum of Art Roman columbaria were often built partly or completely underground as well. Most columbaria were managed by funeral societies and used by the lower and middle-classes. Niches could be quite simple or elaborately decorated with inscriptions, paintings, and mosaics depending on each family's economic means.   The Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas is a 1st-century CE Roman columbarium, situated near the Porta Latina on the Via Appia, Rome, Italy. It was discovered and excavated in 1831 by Pietro Campana. Though its nam...

The Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave is a richly-furnished Celtic burial chamber dating from 540 BCE near Hochdorf an der Enz (municipality of Eberdingen) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Beginning in 1968, a volunteer at the State Antiquities and Monuments Office in Baden-Württemberg, Renate Leibfried, kept coming across stone fragments plowed up in the field. She reported her observations and the Archaeological Preservation Office identified what had been a large burial mound.  Dr. Jörg Biel led a complete excavation of the site between 1978 to 1979. The grave contained a Celtic prince, roughly 40 years of age and 6 ft 2 in tall, who was laid out on a bronze recliner with eight wheels.  He wore a gold-plated torc on his neck, a bracelet on his right arm, a hat made of birch bark, a gold-plated dagger made of bronze and iron, rich clothing, amber jewelry and the remains of thin embossed gold plaques which once decorated his now-disintegrated shoes. Other grave goods included a razor ...