Antiquities Exhibits

The Horti Lamiani (Lamian Gardens) was a luxurious complex of an ancient Roman villa with large gardens and outdoor rooms located on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, in the area around the present Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. They were created by the consul Lucius Aelius Lamia, a friend of Emperor Tiberius, and they soon became imperial property.  Along with other ancient Roman horti on the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline hills, they were discovered during the construction work for the expansion of Rome at the end of 1800s. The villa and gardens were scenically divided into pavillions and terraces adapted to the landscape, on a model of Hellenistic tradition. They were eventually filled with exceptional works of art, from original ancient Greek sculptures to exquisite frescoes and marble floors. A museum of the nymphaeum excavations is planned to open in 2021. The land for the horti Lamiani was originally a cemetery just outside the ancient Servian Wall but was purchased by Lucius Aelius L...

Head of a woman, Greek, 200-100 BCE Marble at the Yale University Art Gallery. "In Greek and Roman female portraits, private women often imitated goddesses or queens in order to gain status and influence. This head, perhaps, echoes features of the goddess Aphrodite or the Egyptian ruler Cleopatra VII (reigned 69–30 BCE).  Although extensive damage and repairs, including a damaged nose and a missing section of hair, have made examinations of the head difficult, one can still see the resemblance to the two iconic figures." "The figure’s melon hairstyle and the beginnings of what was probably a slightly aquiline nose relate the head to portraits of Cleopatra VII who is shown with these features in her more ‘masculinized’ portraits, as in her portrait on a silver denarius in the British Museum.  At the same time, the portrait of a woman also has the classic turn of the head and soft facial features one finds in portraits of typical Greek women and of Aphrodite.  Cleopatra VI...

 Linen Shroud of a Woman Wearing a Fringed Tunic, 170–200 CE, said to be from Fayum at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This round-faced Romano-Egyptian woman wears a fine tunic with narrow clavi (stripes) and a mantle draped over her arms.  She must have been extremely wealthy as she wears a great deal of jewelry including earrings, three necklaces, six twisted gold bracelets, and three rings.  Curators are surprised by what appears to be red socks on her feet as there has been no recovery of socks in the archaeological record from this period. She apparently still practices Egyptian religion as she is flanked on either side by Egyptian deities including Anubis.  The Met curators point out that she seems to step forward from a light gray rectangle. This form could be interpreted as a doorway, a late reminiscence of the so-called False Doors of pharaonic Egypt, elaborate niches through which the dead were believed to communicate with the living.  Imag...

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 ...

 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...

This nobly restrained composite statue depicts a virtuous Roman matron of a distinguished family. She is commemorated as both a chaste wife and mother of children, and her portrait celebrates marriage as an enduring value and symbol of Roman life. This figure provides a notable contrast with the DMA's luxuriant Roman portrait head of a youth (1984.163) in both style and character. Whereas the boy exudes exuberant youth with his active gaze and foppish curls, the Roman matron embodies the discreetly refined dignity of an aristocratic lady.  She holds her mantle like a veil over her shoulder and stands in modest dignity, as though she were a priestess of the home. Often found in imperial female portrait statues, the body type is based on Greek draped figures from the 4th century BCE. Associated with the work of Late Classical sculptors such as Praxiteles or Lysippus, figures like this of the so-called Small Herculaneum type were frequently adapted in Roman art. Here the heavily drape...