Unique Tyrian purple found at Carlisle Roman bathhouse

Ancient

An incredibly rare chunk of Tyrian purple dye, the first one of its kind ever discovered in northern Europe and maybe the whole Roman Empire, has been unearthed in the remains of the Roman bathhouse at the Carlisle Cricket Club. The soft purple lump about the size of a squashed golf ball was found in the drains of the 3rd century bathhouse last October. The unknown substance was tested by experts from Newcastle University who determined that it was an organic material containing Bromine and beeswax, indicating that it is vanishingly rare and prohibitively expensive pigment strongly associated with Rome’s imperial court.

Tyrian purple was derived from the mucus of the hypobranchial glands of the two species of Murex sea snails. Enormous quantities of snails were required to make the dye. About 12,000 of them needed to be collected and processed to produce less than two grams of pigment. The production was so time, labor and cost-intensive that the pigment was worth more than gold; as much as three times more, according to some ancient sources. Garments dyed with Tyrian purple were so expensive that they were the exclusive province of the wealthiest elites. In Rome, even going back to the days of the Republic sumptuary laws controlled who was allowed to wear purple clothes, and by the 4th century A.D., only the emperor was allowed to wear garments dyed with the precious pigment.

Solid samples of Tyrian purple have been found only in small bits in frescoes at Pompeii and some Egyptian sarcophagi, but these were just accidental areas of concentrated paint particles, not an unused chunk of the raw pigment. The Carlisle Tyrian purple lump may very well be unique, the only archaeological example found anywhere in the former Roman Empire.

Previous finds from the Carlisle Cricket Club excavations — an inscription dedicated to Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus and mother of Caracalla, tiles stamped with the IMP mark, giant statue heads, the sheer size of the bathhouse which is the largest building on Hadrian’s Wall– strongly suggest an imperial presence at the Roman cavalry fort of Uxelodunum. The discovery of the Tyrian purple, which was literally a metaphor for royalty (as in, “ascending to the purple” meaning taking the throne), is even stronger evidence.

Frank Giecco, Technical Director at [contract archaeology company] Wardell Armstrong, said:

“For millennia, Tyrian Purple was the world’s most expensive and sought after colour. It’s presence in Carlisle combined with other evidence from the excavation all strengthens the hypothesis that the building was in some way associated with the Imperial Court of the Emperor Septimius Severus which was located in York and possibly relates to a Imperial visit to Carlisle.

“Other evidence being an inscription stone to the Empress Julia Domna, the date of the monumental building – among the largest on Hadrian’s Wall – coinciding with Emperor Septimius Severus campaigns in Scotland, and an ancient source stating Septimius Severus was in Carlisle, and the high quality of the objects discovered at the bathhouse, granting of civic status to the local Celtic tribal capital at Carlisle; which in effect is the beginning of the city of Carlisle.

Liberty Leading the People‘s true colors revealed

Modern(ish), Museums

Liberty Leading the People, French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix’s iconic tribute to freedom won by armed revolution, has been restored to its brilliant original colors. Eight layers of oxidized varnish, applied in misguided previous attempts to revive its colors that backfired spectacularly when they yellowed, were removed. The heavy grime and dust that had settled in the varnish layers were removed with them.

The allegorical representation of Liberty as a bare-breasted woman in a Phrygian cap brandishing the French tricolor flag in her right hand and a bayonetted musket in her left as she exhorts Parisians from different social classes to the barricades was a depiction of current events, not the French Revolution of 1789. Delacroix painted it in October 1830, just three months after the July Revolution that had driven King Charles X (youngest brother of the guillotined Louis XVI) to abdicate and enthroned his distant cousin Louis Philippe I as constitutional monarch.

Louis Philippe’s Ministry of the Interior bought the painting in 1831, seeing it as great PR for the “citizen king” who had come to power thanks to the revolution it depicts. They even planned to hang it in the throne room of the Palais du Luxembourg, then the home of the French senate. That plan fell by the wayside when another revolution, the anti-monarchist Paris Uprising of 1832 sparked by the death of popular reformist general Jean Maximilien Lamarque, suddenly made the idea of revolutionary violence, barricades and bodies stacked like cordwood distinctly less palatable to the government. It was returned to Delacroix who stashed it at his aunt’s house to keep it out of harm’s way.

It would not be seen in public again until after yet another revolution, the Revolution of 1848, established the Second Republic. It was only on display briefly and then went back underground until it reappeared in the Salon of 1855. Finally France, now on its Third Republic, bought the painting for good this time in 1874 and it entered the collection of the Musée du Louvre.

The first extensive restoration took place in 1949 to repair damage inflicted during the hasty moves museums were forced to do during World War II. After that, it received minor touch-ups and repainting on a regular basis. It was loaned out only once, to Japan in 1999, and at that time the frame was replaced.

The canvas is so large (8.5ft x 10.5ft), that it was taken down from the wall, the frame removed and the six-month restoration done in situ. Before the cleaning began, the painting was analyzed with X-ray, UV and IR imaging that were compared to archive photographs to give restorers a baseline to work from. They then tested the cleaning process on tiny snippets of the painting.

As the varnish layers were removed, details emerged that had been obscured by the flattening effect of the yellow varnish. Delacroix layered color and textures to create contrasts that differentiated figures in the complex, dynamic composition and covey the illusion of three dimensional depth. For example, the cleaning revealed that the boy with the pistol is actually running slightly in front of Liberty instead of by her side, that there’s a shoe in the bottom left that previously blended into the paving stones and how the facades of the buildings on the right are each different from the one next to it.

Liberty herself proved to be a surprising revelation. Her tunic, heretofore believed to be yellow, is actually light grey with yellow added more saturated at the bust and then thinning and fading down her legs. The thick, even yellow coverage was overpainting applied in a 1949 restoration.

Benedicte Tremolieres, one of the two restorers to clean the canvas, said it was “enchanting” to see the painting reveal its secrets.

Her colleague Laurence Mugniot agreed.

“Delacroix hid tiny dabs of blue, white and red all over in a subtle sprinkling to echo the flag,” she said.

She pointed for example to the “blue eye with a speck of red” of one of the characters.

Rare 18th c. clock returned to Brighton museum 23 years after theft

Modern(ish), Museums

A rare 18th century musical automaton clock stolen from Preston Manor in Brighton in 2001 has been recovered by Sussex Police and returned to the museum. It was rediscovered when it was offered for sale at auction last year. The auction house subscribes to the Art Loss Register (ALR) due diligence service which checks items against the lost art database before a sale, and its experts recognized it as the stolen clock.

Lucy O’Meara from the Art Loss Register said: “The ALR’s research team identified the item as a match, despite extensive restoration and alteration to the clock.

“It had different urn finials and different feet making it appear at first glance to be a different clock. This was one of over 400,000 items our expert team checks against our database every year.

“Our recovery team used their detective skills to compare the wood grain which matched up exactly. After we identified the match, our team liaised with the auction house and notified Brighton & Hove Museums of the location of the stolen clock. Sussex Police’s Rural Crime Team then recovered the item from the auction house and returned it to the Museum.”

The clock was stolen on February 12, 2001, in broad daylight when Preston Manor was open to visitors. Staff pressed the alarm buttons and called the police but the thieves fled in a getaway car they had parked near the entrance. The Sussex Police investigated the theft, but no suspects were ever found. Two years later, the clock was sold at auction. At that time, the auction house had no information about its ownership history and it was not subscribed to the ALR, so the sale went through with nobody the wiser. The collector who bought it 20 years ago relisted it with the same auction house, only this time the ALR’s crack team stepped up to the plate.  The trail from the sale 20 years ago was too cold for the police to track down anyone involved in the theft.

The clock was made by Thomas Hunter Jr. of London, one of the top clockmakers in the country, in around 1760-70. It is a bracket table clock with painted maritime decoration above the clock face. It is both an automaton and a musical clock: ships above the clock face sail to the music every hour on the hour. The clock was acquired by the Stanford family of Preston Manor and was in the estate by at least 1905. It was placed in the south-facing Morning Room with a view of the sea, linking the maritime motif of the timepiece with Brighton’s own history as a seaside town.

When Preston Manor and its contents were given to the city in 1932, the clock was part of the gift. It quickly became one of the more popular features of the estate. Visitors assembled in the room to hear the music play and the ships sail among the painted waves. Brighton & Hove Museums plans to restore the clock back to working order so it can return to delighting visitors at Preston Manor.

Norton Disney dodecahedron goes back to Lincolnshire

Ancient

The unusually large and pristine Roman copper alloy dodecahedron found at Norton Disney last June is returning to Lincolnshire for the first time since its discovery. It will go on display at Lincoln Museum starting this Saturday as part of the Festival of History, a city-wide celebration of Lincoln’s heritage, as a centerpiece of the city’s Roman history.

Alongside the dodecahedron display, as part of the festival visitors can meet the mighty Romans themselves in the museum’s atrium, where the legion has returned to ‘Lindum Colonia’. And explore some of the many other Roman treasures that have been unearthed across the city and county in the archaeology gallery.

For those craving a deeper dive into Lincoln’s history, don’t miss out on a guided tour of Posterngate, where you can explore the hidden Roman gateway beneath the city streets[…]

Lincoln’s Festival of History events will take place over the long weekend (May 4-6th), which is a holiday in Britain, but the dodecahedron will remain on display until early September.

It is sure to be a big draw to the museum. The discovery of the dodecahedron made headlines around the world, and the North Disney History and Archaeology Group, the community archaeology organization that unearthed it, has gotten a barrage of messages from people sharing their theories about how the objects may have been used and why. The organization will return to the find site in June to pick up where the excavation left off when they ran out of time and money. While odds are slim that they’ll find a key clue to answer all the questions about the Gallo-Roman dodecahedra, the Norton Disney example is one of the only ones to have been found in its original depositional context and archaeologically excavated, so there’s at least a chance of finding out more about these intriguing artifacts.

The Stone of Destiny was a doorstep

Ancient, Medieval, Modern(ish)

The Stone of Destiny, the oblong block red sandstone used in the coronation of Scottish monarchs until it was snatched by King Edward I in 1296 and used in the coronation of English and British monarchs thereafter, started out as a step or threshold. A recent analysis of the 335-pound stone found the wear pattern on top of the stone was likely caused by many a foot treading upon it rather than by many royal butts perched upon or over it.

The first historical record of the Stone of Destiny being used for a coronation is Alexander III’s in 1249. It was reportedly covered in gold silk cloth, so its heavily worn surface was obscured from view. When Edward Longshanks pillaged it, he had it built in to his throne at Westminster, so again the stepped-upon surface was not visible. It was officially returned to Scotland in 1996 and displayed in the Crown Room of Edinburgh Castle with other Scottish regalia.

It left Scotland again last year for a very brief stint back inside Edward’s throne for the coronation of Charles III. Before its departure, researchers examined the stone in detail using digital technology to scan the surface, revealing the wear pattern of steps that can’t be seen at a glance. This indicates it had a long history of non-coronation use, perhaps as the step to a monumental structure like an early church or maybe even a Roman building.

Dr Nicki Scott, Senior Cultural Significance Advisor at HES, said: “While we know some inauguration rituals did involve the individual being inaugurated to step onto the stone, such as at Dunadd Hillfort, the level of wear on the Stone of Destiny doesn’t support such use.

“Even several hundred years of such a ritual wouldn’t create the level of wear we see. It’s more likely that the stone had earlier served as a step, although we don’t know the context for this.”

Professor Dauvit Broun, Chair of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow, who contributed to the new interpretation at Perth Museum, said: “The evidence is quite compelling. It means that, at some point, the Stone was repurposed as an inaugural throne.

Unfortunately there are no surviving origin stories with a plausible kernel of truth that could help explain the scientific findings. The legends about the Stone of Destiny all claim exotic provenance and quasi-miraculous journeys from distant lands. One of the myths about the stone is that it was “Jacob’s pillow,” the stone Jacob laid his head on when he dreamt about the ladder to heaven (Genesis 28:10-18). Another says that it was transported to Tara in Ireland by the daughter of a pharaoh and then brought to Scone by Kenneth MacAlpin, the legendary founder of Scotland.

After the coronation of Charles III, the stone returned not to Edinburgh, but to its ancient homeland in Perth for the first time in 700 years. It is now the centerpiece of the new Perth Museum.