Antiquities Exhibits

Baby rattles go back at least 2500 years. Ancient rattles were made of various materials, including clay, wood, bronze, dried heads of poppy flowers, and pebbles. One of the oldest infant rattles in central Europe was found in Poland  in a grave of a baby who was a member of the early Iron Age Lusatian culture (1300 BCE – 500 BCE).  That hollow clay rattle was shaped like a pillow and was filled with little balls. It was found next to a tiny urn containing the cremated remains of the baby.   Children in ancient Greece and Rome would have been amused by mold-made rattles like those pictured here. In his Politics, Aristotle observed  that young children should be given a rattle (particularly one designed by Archytas) to keep them quiet.  Greek mold-produced terracottas began to appear in the archaeological record around the 7th-century BCE. These figures were formed by pressing wet clay into a two‑part mold to form a small sculpture in the round that can be s...

The Getty Villa has reopened and is now hosting the special exhibit "Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins."  Some of the objects are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  Others are on loan from The Louvre and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ancient Mesopotamia, centered in present-day Iraq, occupies a unique place in the history of human culture. It is there, around 3400–3000 BC, that all the key elements of urban civilization first appear in one place: cities with monumental infrastructure and official bureaucracies overseeing agricultural, economic, and religious activities; the earliest known system of writing; and sophisticated architecture, arts, and technologies. For some three thousand years, Mesopotamia remained the preeminent force in the Near East. In 539 BC, however, Cyrus the Great captured Babylon and incorporated Mesopotamia into the Persian Empire. Periods of Greek and Parthian rule followed, and by about AD 100 Mesopotamian culture had effective...

 The Romans favored bronze and marble above all else for their finest work and loved miniatures.  By the mid-1st century CE, Roman sculptors began to move away from emulating their Etruscan and Greek predecessors and sought to capture and create optical effects of light and shade for greater realism.  This trend may well have developed from the tradition of keeping realistic wax funeral masks of deceased family members in the ancestral home.  Although few bronze examples have survived due to a high demand for reuse of the alloy, those that did, like this poignant figurine, portrayed a people who were realistically scarred, wrinkled, or plump, like this healthy-appearing little girl. Sadly (from my viewpoint anyway), towards the end of the Empire, the influence of art from the eastern Mediterranean resulted in figural sculpture with enlarged heads, vacantly staring eyes, and out-of-proportion torsos and limbs such as those seen in works portraying the emperor Constant...

While looking through my images of artifacts in the British Museum this morning, I came across this terracotta figurine from Boeotia dated to around 400 BCE.  It is identified as merely a youth crowned with a wreath holding a puppy while another dog stands beside him.  As I studied the image, though, I wondered about the identification of it as just a youth.  The broad hips and thighs are reflective of a female form although it is clearly male.  I wondered if it may be a type of Aphroditus statue.  The deity is thought to have arrived in Athens from Cyprus in the 4th century BCE although there have been some Aphroditus herms dated to the 5th century BCE.  Aphroditus was later renamed  Hermaphroditos to reflect its parentage from Aphrodite and Hermes. The deity makes an appearance in the work, On Moral Characters, penned by Theophrastus.  A native of the island of Lesbos, Theophrastus succeeded Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. His given name wa...

There are illustrations of dogs on the walls of caves and tombs dating back to the Bronze Age, as well as statues, children's toys, and ceramics depicting dogs.  The Ancient Greeks and Romans, contrary to the Semitic cultures, favored dogs as pets, valuing them for their faithfulness and courage.  Homer's Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, who raised a dog called Argos, and who was the only one that recognized him when he returned home after his travels, disguised to concealed his appearance. This theme has been often depicted in ancient Greek vases, and in Roman reliefs and sculptures.  Dogs were given as gifts among lovers and kept as pets, guardians, and for hunting.  The ancient Romans kept three types of dogs: hunting dogs, especially sighthounds, Molossian dogs like the Neapolitan Mastiff, often depicted in reliefs and mosaics with the words "Cave Canem", and small companion dogs like the Maltese, used as women's lap dogs. Greyhounds were often represented...

Domesticated dogs appeared in prehistoric paintings at sites like Bhimbetka in central India that date back more than 100,000 years. During the Bronze Age statues, children's toys, and ceramics depicted dogs. Hunting dogs were most commonly portrayed but pet dogs, valued for their faithfulness and courage were also subjects of ancient art. Dogs were often seen on Greek and Roman reliefs and ceramics as symbols of fidelity and given as gifts among lovers.  Homer's Odyssey reinforced this concept of a dog's faithfulness by telling the story of Odysseus' dog who was the only one that recognized him when he returned home after years of wanderings, even though he was disguised to conceal his appearance. Sadly, because dogs were revered for their loyalty, they were also sometimes sacrificed in special religious rituals.  During Xanthika, a spring purification of the Macedonian army, a dog was sacrificed.  The Spartans sacrificed a dog to Enyalius, the son of Ares, in one o...

Made in Taras, South Italy between 290-250 BCE, this Greek relief sculpture was probably once part of a grave monument.  A nude youth, with a horse rearing up behind him, lunges forward to attack an unseen foe.  The presence of the large snarling dog indicates this is a hunting scene and identifies the deceased as a member of the elite.  It also refers to an activity thought to be one of the pleasures of the afterlife.  Photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California. Funerary relief of a hunter with horse and hunting hound Greek, Taras, South Italy, 290-250 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California by Mary Harrsch.

Archaeological evidence dates human occupation of the region of Colima, Mexico as far back as 1500 BCE. During the Los Artices era, which began around 500 BCE, shaft tombs and a distinctive ceramic style called rojo bruñido, or burnished red appeared. During the Comala phase, around 100 to 600 CE, the Comala perfected burnished red pottery and created representations of people and animals with skill and fluid lines. The best known are the so-called fattened dogs. Comala sites began to reflect the influence of Teotihuacan with the construction of monumental pyramids and plazas and the appearance of the gods Huehueteotl and Tlaloc. Playful Puppies earthenware 300 BCE-300CE Colima Mexico at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, California. Female standing figure, west Mexico, Colima, 300 BCE - 300 CE, earthenware, at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, California. Seated figure holding bowl, west Mexico, Colima, 300 BCE - 300 CE, earthenware, at the De Young Mus...

Roman sculpture of a hound attacking a deer in the Hall of Animals in the Museo Pio-Clementino. Actaeon was the son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia. He was a famous Theban hero and like Achilles he was trained by the centaur Chiron. The Hellenistic poet Callimachus, related the most famous version of Actaeon's fate. Artemis was bathing in the woods when the hunter Actaeon stumbled across her, thus seein g her naked. He stopped and stared, amazed at her ravishing beauty. Once seen, Artemis cursed him saying if he tried to speak, he would be changed into a stag. Upon hearing the call of his hunting party, he cried out to them and was immediately transformed. At this he fled deep into the woods, and doing so he came upon a pond and, seeing his reflection, groaned. His own hounds then turned upon him and pursued him, not recognizing him. In an endeavour to save himself, he raised his eyes toward Mount Olympus but the gods did not heed his plea, and he was ...

Ptolemaic Hellenistic mosaic floor from the royal quarter of Alexandria.2nd century BCE. Excavated from the grounds of the New Alexandria Library in 1993, this Ptolemaic mosaic from Hellenistic Egypt, dated between 200 - 150 BCE, is now located in the Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria, Egypt. While it is slightly damaged at the center with cracks and fragmentary along the sides (surrounded by a grey lion-head motif), this mosai c depicts a realistic scene of a male dog with a gilded metal askos vessel (for containing water or wine) with looped handles lying nearby. The rich variety of colored tesserae pieces adds depth, lighting, and shading to the scene similar to Hellenistic Greek paintings of the time period. It could represent a household owner's pet, or perhaps it implies a domestic banquet had occurred and the askos has been emptied for the occasion courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.