Antiquities Exhibits

The sarcophagus of Etruscan priest Laris Partunus found in the Tarquinian necropolis was produced in the late Classical Period.  This exquisite sarcophagus crafted of Parian marble is painted with scenes of the Amazonomachy.  The Greeks are shown in hoplite armor while the Amazons are wearing chitons. Surprisingly, the Amazons are depicted winning most of the paired battles instead of an equal number of victories as depicted on the Amazon sarcophagus also from Tarquinia. The Partunus sarcophagus also depicts blue-skinned demons, but unlike the fearsome blue demons seen in the Tomb of the Blue Demons, also in Tarquinia, these figures appear to be gently guiding an aristocratic lady to her family like Greek psychopomps,  creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.  The painting on the long side of the sarcophagus depicts the execution of Trojan prisoners. They too are accom...

The Phoenicians as a politically, religiously, and perhaps even ethnically distinct entity on the Levantine coast emerged at the end of the Late Bronze Age about 1200 BCE, as one of the successor cultures to the Canaanites.  From their homeland on the coast of the Levant, the Phoenicians spread throughout the Mediterranean and its islands including Cyprus, Sicily and Malta. Some scholars have observed that Iron Age Phoenicia was not a nation, but rather a collection of cities built around natural harbors along the coast. While they shared a common culture, these small states remained independent, competing with each other in the international marketplace.  "Depending on how evidence is weighed [based on Ugaritic texts and classical sources], Phoenician religion might be presented on the one hand as inclusive and diverse – a “conservatively” polytheistic society easily able to incorporate or syncretize new deities, customs and traditions or on the other hand as highly place-spe...

Discussion of a Roman sarcophagus with battle scene, Antonine Period, 2nd century CE marble at the Dallas Museum of Art:  The complex composition of this battle scene—with warriors, horses, captives, and trophies of armor intertwined to suggest the violence and bloodshed of war—is typical of Roman relief carvings during the Antonine period (138–192 CE). The sarcophagus was probably made to celebrate the victories of a Roman general in the series of wars that Rome fought with Germanic tribesmen along the Danube frontier, in what are now Hungary and Romania; however, the prototype for the scene might have been a monument created by the Greek King Attalos I of Pergamon in Asia Minor during the 3rd century BCE, which was erected to signify the Greek defeat of the barbarian Celtic invaders. The nude warriors with torques around their necks follow descriptions of Celtic warriors by classical authors. The powerfully modeled and lively Pergamene art style was much admired during the Roman ...

 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...

Clazomenae was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia and a member of the Ionian League. It was one of the first cities to issue silver coinage. Its ruins are now located in the modern town Urla near Izmir in Izmir Province, Turkey. The city was originally located on the mainland at Limantepe, but probably during the early fifth-century BCE Ionian Revolt from the Persians, it was moved to Karantina Island just off the coast. Soon after that, the city of Chyton was founded on the mainland. For some time it was subject to the Athenians, but during the middle of the Peloponnesian War (412 BCE) it revolted. After a brief resistance, though, it once more submitted to Athenian supremacy, and repelled a Lacedaemonian (Spartan) attack. In 387 BCE Clazomenae and other cities in Asia were once more taken over by Persia.  Then came Alexander the Great, who eventually connected Karantina island to the mainland with a causeway, the remains of which are still visible. Later, under the ...