Category: Ancient

Colossus of Constantine returns to Rome

Ancient, Museums

The full-sized reconstruction of the colossal statue of Constantine that once stood in the Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum has gone on display in the garden of the Villa Caffarelli Garden, just behind the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill where the surviving fragments of the original statue are exhibited in the entrance courtyard.

The original colossus was an acrolith (a composite where the head, chest and limbs are made of expensive materials while the hidden structural elements were wood covered with draped clothing) of Constantine seated and enthroned in the style of the cult statue of Jupiter in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline. It may have even been reworked from a statue of Jupiter, as there is evidence the head was recarved from a figure with a high forehead and a beard into the clean-shaven, wavy-banged Constantine. Created between 312 and 315 A.D., the colossus was placed in the western apse of the Basilica Nova, also known as the Basilica of Maxentius. After the Fall of Rome, the statue was looted for the gilded bronze draped around the body and broken up. Nine pieces of it, including the head, hand, foot and knee, were unearthed in 1486 and relocated to the Palazzo dei Conservatori by Michelangelo when he was working on the Capitoline piazza in 1536–1546. A tenth fragment was found in 1951.

The reconstruction was a joint collaboration between the Capitoline Superintendency, the Fondazione Prada and Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation. In 2022, the Factum Foundation scanned the 10 surviving fragments of the statue in ultra-high resolution and used the data to create a 3D model, extrapolating the lost parts from the shape and size of the fragments and from surviving examples of smaller-scale statues of seated and enthroned deities/emperors.

Once the model was mapped out, the material reconstruction was carried out using resin, polyurethane, marble powder, plaster and gold leaf on an aluminum support to make a light-weight but visually accurate replica of the massive original statue. The finished reconstruction is more than 40 feet high.

The new colossus made its debut at the Fondazione Prada in Milan last year. On Tuesday, February 6th, the Colossus of Constantine was unveiled in Rome. Visitors will be able to see the surviving fragments at the Capitoline Museums then pop over to the beautiful garden of the Villa Caffarelli to see what they looked like before they were fragments.

Meteorite iron identified in Bronze Age gold hoard

Ancient, Treasures

Analysis of two iron objects in the Treasure of Villena, the Bronze Age gold hoard discovered in southeastern Spain in 1963, have identified the metal as meteorite iron. The treasure is the largest and most important Bronze Age hoard ever found in the Iberian Peninsula, and the second largest set of prehistoric goldsmithing in Europe after the riches found in the Royal Tombs of Mycenae, Greece. Now we know it is also the only hoard on the Iberian Peninsula to contain objects made from meteoric iron.

The first pieces of the treasure were found loose in a gravel pit on December 1, 1963. Workers found a gold bracelet and took it to a jewelry store where they were informed it was enormously valuable by weight alone, never mind its historic significance. Archaeologist José María Soler heard about the find and quickly followed up with an excavation of the pit. Soler and local volunteers unearthed the rest of the treasure grouped together in a large ceramic vessel.

The hoard consists of 66 pieces, most of them gold, nine of them 23.5 carat gold. The 11 bowls, 28 bracelets, three bottles and miscellaneous fragments of decorative elements made of gold all together weigh 9.75 kilos (21.5 lb). There are also three bottles made of silver (600 grams, 1.3 lb, total weight), a gold and amber button and the two iron pieces that were the subject of the recent study.

Iron was extremely rare in Bronze Age Spain, and therefore considered a precious metal like gold and silver. The iron in the Villena hoard is the oldest in Spain. The objects are an open bracelet with rounded ends and a hollow hemisphere of iron covered with thin bands of gold incised with decorated lines that may have been a sword pommel. The corrosion of the iron over the centuries has broken and deformed some of the gold strips.

The discovery of the treasure caused a sensation at the time, and garnered enormous scholarly attention. Experts have long debated its date range. The metal analysis that revealed the meteorite iron also conclusively answered the dating question: the Villena Treasure dates to the Late Bronze Age (1,400-1,200 B.C.)

Their analysis has been able to determine that these are not pieces made with terrestrial iron produced by the reduction of minerals existing in the mantle of planet Earth. Instead, they are “extraterrestrial and [were] made during the Late Bronze Age.” To obtain this data, two tiny extractions were made, under the supervision of the technical staff of the Alicante museum. The samples were then taken to Madrid for analysis at the laboratory of the National Archaeological Museum.

“Meteorite iron is found in certain types of aerolites that, since they come from outer space, are composed of an iron-nickel alloy with a variable nickel composition greater than 5% by weight. They also contain other minor and trace chemical elements, cobalt being one of the most significant. However, the levels of nickel in terrestrial iron are generally low or very low and frequently not detectable in analysis,” the study explains.

The study has been published in the journal Trabajos de Prehistoria and can be read here. The treasure, which has been on display at the Villena Museum since its discovery, will soon move to a new state-of-the-art facility. The new Villena Museum (MUVI), located in a restored 1909 flour mill, opens on May 17th with the Treasure front and center in a spacious 800-square-foot room.

First Roman funerary bed found in London

Ancient

Archaeologists have unearthed a vanishingly rare Roman wooden funerary bed in an excavation near the Holborn Viaduct in London. This is the first complete Roman funerary bed found in Britain, preserved in the muddy, waterlogged soil of the former Fleet River in excellent condition for almost 2,000 years. Five wooden coffins from the Roman period were also found at the site. Before this exceptional bonanza, only three Roman wood coffins had ever been discovered in London. Artifacts found with the burials date them to the earliest period of the Roman conquest, ca. 40-80 A.D.

Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) has been excavating the site ahead of new office construction. The Holborn Viaduct area is in central London today, but it was 500 feet west of the walls of ancient Londinium next to the major Roman artery road known as Watling Street. The Roman practice was to bury their dead along roads outside the city walls to keep disease from spreading in the close quarters of urban centers. Archaeologists therefore expected they might find Roman-era burials here, but the profusion of well-preserved wooden coffins and the unique funerary bed and were a most happy surprise.

Carved of high-quality oak, the bed frame has two long side panels, two shorter head and feet panels with sturdy feet at the four corners and cross-slats connected to the sides with pegged joinery. The long sides are just under six feet long. It was found dismantled, taken apart carefully without damaging it at the time of the burial.

It was taken apart before being placed within the grave but may have been used to carry the individual to the burial. We think it was probably intended as a grave good for use in the afterlife. Tombstones from across the Roman empire show carvings of the deceased reclining on a couch or bed and eating as if they were alive.

Skeletal remains found with the bed belonged to an adult male in his late 20s or early 30s. Skeletal remains have also been found with the wooden coffins. There were no other grave goods associated with the bed burial, but several objects have been unearthed from a cremation burial: beads, a glass vial containing a dark substance and an oil lamp decorated with the figure of a defeated gladiator.

The Roman period is not the only one represented at the site. MOLA team has uncovered objects in later layers, including chalk floors and timber wells from a 13th century tannery and an impressive wooden water pipe from the 15th or 16th century that seems to have originally pumped water on a ship. Not long after the wooden pipe was made, another cemetery was built on the site, possibly connected to the church of St Sepulchre which was nearby. Remains of homes, shops and a pub attest to the explosion of new construction after the Great Fire of London in 1666. In the Victorian era, those older structures were demolished and the warehouses built.

Excavation of the site is ongoing and expected to continue through the early part of this year. Meanwhile, the objects recovered will be cleaned, stabilized and conserved. Developers plan to put a selection of the finds on display in the new office building when it opens its doors in 2026.

Legio XIII Gemina bricks found in Vienna

Ancient

An archaeological excavation of an elementary school in Vienna has uncovered bricks bearing the stamp of the Roman 13th Legion Gemina.

The Kindermanngasse Elementary School is the fourth oldest school in Vienna and its location in the historic center of the city required that it undergo an archaeological exploration before a planned renovation. The Vienna City Archaeology department has been excavating the inner courtyard for several weeks and unearthed evidence of a large-scale Roman building — traves of wooden beams and post holes — from the 2nd century. Archaeologists believe it had an industrial purpose, perhaps the production of bricks, although so far there has been no smoking gun to explain the function of the building. In one trench the team found a pit filled with bricks stamped with the name of Legio XIII Gemina. They were likely the broken remnants of pilae stacks, the pillars of brick used to raise the floor for the hypocaust heating system.

Vindobona was founded at the site of a settlement of the Celtic kingdom of Noricum. In the 1st century A.D., the oppidum was absorbed into the Roman province of Pannonia and a fort was built there, part of a line of defenses alone the Danube limes (frontier). Legio XIII Gemina, descendant of the famous Thirteenth Legion that crossed the Rubicon with Julius Caesar in 49 B.C., was transferred to Vindobona by the emperor Trajan in 98 A.D. Legio XIII built a permanent military fort in what would become the heart of modern-day Vienna, although they would not be stationed there long. They were replaced by Legio XIV Gemina in 101 A.D.

The stone fortress was expanded and rebuilt over the centuries, with large stone walls constructed in the early 2nd century. The Kindermanngasse in the historic center of the city is less than two miles from the remains of homes of the legion’s officers found in previous excavations and other significant remains of the civilian settlement, but remains from the initial construction by Legio XIII are rare.

The excavation is expected to come to an end early this month.

Roman silver toilet spoon found in Wales

Ancient

A Roman silver toilet spoon discovered by a metal detectorist in Wales was officially declared Treasure by the regional coroner last Thursday. The silver ligula was found by detectorist Valentinas Avdejevas in the Vale of Glamorgan in June 2020. It consists of a small circular bowl with a long, tapering handle that comes to a rounded point. It is very petite, just 2.5 inches end-to-end with the bowl just .2 inches in diameter. Originally straight, the spoon is now bent in two places: the bowl is almost at a right angle, and the handle bends again about two-thirds of the way down.

The ligula was a small spoon with a slender handle used to scoop cosmetics, perfumes or unguents out of long-necked bottles. (So toilet in the sense of ablution rather than going to the lavatory.) They are usually plain and undecorated, although some examples have been found with molded bands or incised lines. They were created out of a single piece of metal crafted into a cylinder and then the end hammered into the bowl.

Most of the ligulae that have been found are made of copper alloy. The silver ones are more rare and based on some of the contexts where they have been found, archaeologists believe the silver examples may have been dedicated to medical purposes (eg, for pharmaceutical portioning, or as surgical curettes or sounds) rather than used for personal hygiene or adornment.

Because it is more than 300 years old and composed of more than 10% precious metal, the ligula meets the criteria for Treasure under the Treasure Act of 1996. It will now be assessed to determine a fair market value by the Treasure Valuation Committee. Local museums will then be given the opportunity to acquire the toilet spoon for the assessed value. The Cowbridge and District Museum has already expressed interest in acquiring the ligula for its collection.