The History Blog

Five years ago excavations in the UK city of Colchester uncovered what archaeologists at first thought was an oddly wide road, but then quickly realized was actually a 2nd century A.D. chariot racing circus. This was a major discovery. Not only is it the only Roman circus ever found in the UK, but it’s the only one north of the Alps.

Nothing remains above ground except stones taken for later building, but for almost 2,000 years the 350m outline has remained remarkably intact, under fields and 19th-century army land. The stable blocks that held up to 2,500 horses for a day’s racing may lie under derelict Victorian cavalry stables and barracks. [...]

Since then CAT has traced long stretches of the perimeter, which had banked seats holding up to 15,000 people. In the central reservation they found bases of start and finish posts, and water pipes proving the circus was grand enough to have the elaborate fountain lap markers shown in Roman mosaics.

They also found scraps of beautifully decorated carriage harness right up against the wall – evidence of an F1 style crash when a driver lost control of his team and spun off into the barrier.

The remains were reburied for their protection. Unfortunately, they are located underneath said Victorian army barracks, gardens and public roads, so unless the community can raise £200,000 ($312,000) by the end of February to buy the Victorian garden site from developers, the circus will remain underground and be built upon.

Then they have to come up with another £550,000 ($860,000) to buy the barracks building itself. They tried to get a million pound grant from Heritage Lottery Foundation, but despite the international importance and rarity of the site, the bid was refused. It was just too high a price, ultimately. The HLF could fund tons of smaller projects for that money.

If they are able to buy the site, the next step will be to build a vistor center on the grounds of the barracks, right next to the starting gates of the circus. The boundaries and divider of the track will then be built up into knolls so the entire area can be walked and people can get a sense of the size of the structure, which in its heyday accommodated 15,000 fans.

Go to the Save Colchester’s Roman Circus blog for more news about the fundraising appeal and to donate to the cause.

The New Orleans Saints have won the Super Bowl for the first time in a decisive 31-17 victory of the Indianapolis Colts. This is a great boost for the city of New Orleans which has had a rough time of it the past 4 or so years.

But for those of us who find museum drama more fascinating than football, this victory means only one thing: the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s prize JMW Turner painting The Fifth Plague of Egypt is headed to the New Orleans Museum of Art where it will hang with pride for 3 months starting in July next to their beautiful landscape Ideal View of Tivoli by Claude Lorrain.

NOMA director E. John Bullard seems to be basking in the glow of victory. He tweeted: “Dreams DO Come True!” IMA director Maxwell Anderson just tweeted his congratulations. “Congratulations, Saints–great game.” Followed by: “PS–Did you want that picture via FedEx or UPS?”

But really both museums are winners, even if only one team won. Not only has the playful competition been a charming micro lesson in art history, but the bet has garnered the museums international attention. On Friday both directors were interviewed by the BBC. A week before then they were on NPR.

The sports press is showering the museums with stories about the bet too. As Tyler Green points out, the snarky comment from a sports blogger “and yes, I’m as surprised Indianapolis has an art museum as you are” illustrates the huge PR boost the popularity of this bet has brought to the museums.

There will no doubt be greater traffic in the Indianapolis Museum of Art — gotta see that Turner before it heads off to New Orleans — and in the New Orleans Museum of Art, especially after the victory Turner arrives. You can’t buy this kind of attention in prosperous times, never mind in a recession.

Edit: This morning Bullard tweets: “@MaxAndersonUSA, both teams made our cities proud. We would love to see you and Team @IMAmuseum (& the Turner) in #nola!”

All of that and more can be found in the newly uploaded online archives of the National Portrait Gallery. The archives, previously available by appointment only, track the fascinating history of the NPG since its founding in 1856.

The digitization project is two years old and they’ve got a third of the archive online, which is over 15,000 descriptions of a variety of records, including letters, posters, articles, reports, pictures, even x-rays. More records are being added to the online catalogue every day.

Among the correspondence and reports from the Gallery from 1940 to 1946 when the entire collection had been moved out of town to Mentmore, a mansion in Buckinghamshire, for safekeeping during the war. Apparently while the cats were away, the mice did literally play. There are carefully annotated lists of every rat killed, where and how. My favorite is the one killed in the library “speared by Pittock with poker after it had escaped, with great excitement”.

Then there’s the story of the portrait of Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle that so enraged a suffragette she slashed his face with a meat cleaver in 1914. She claimed to be protesting the repeated arrests of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, but I’m not clear on why poor Mr. Carlyle got it in the face.

On a tragic note, the gallery archive describes a shocking, bloody murder-suicide that took place in Room 27 in the east wing of the NPG in 1909. A well-dressed 70-year-old gentleman was viewing portraits with his 58-year-old wife when he took out a revolver, shot his wife in the head then shot himself. The man died instantly. His wife survived a little longer, bleeding profusely all over the parquet floor. The subsequent cleanup is a focal point of the report.

Who knew a portrait gallery could see so much dramatic action?

St. Antony’s Monastery was founded by followers of the saint in 356 A.D. right after he died. Although St. Antony founded several monasteries during his lifetime, none of those survive today.

The monastery, only a mile and a quarter away from the cave over the Red Sea where St. Antony lived his extraordinarily long and ascetic life, is the oldest active Christian monastery in the world, and has just been reopened to the public after an 8-year, $14.5 million restoration.

In the government-sponsored project, workers renovated the fortress-like ancient wall surrounding the monastery and the walls of its two main churches — the 14th century Church of the Apostles and the 6th century Church of St. Anthony. They also renovated monks’ quarters and a 6th century tower into which monks would retreat during attacks by marauding Bedouin tribes throughout the Middle Ages. [...]

Amid the renovations, archaeologists from the American Research Center in Egypt discovered the remains of the original monks’ cells dating back to the 4th century under the Church of the Apostles. After they were excavated, archeologists in 2008 covered them with thick glass so that visitors to the church can see them below their feet. ARCE also renovated stucco paintings in Church of St. Anthony.

The wall paintings had been obscured by years of accumulated soot, candle grease, oil and dust. The oldest of these paintings date to the 7th and 8th centuries, and are attributed to a Coptic master artist known as Theodore. The others are from the 13th century and while we don’t know who the artist was, they appear to be Byzantine in style.

The monastery complex also includes a library with 1700 handwritten documents. There used to be many more, but the Bedouin who sacked the monastery in 1454 used them as fuel for their fires.

The reopening comes at a crucial time in Egyptian sectarian politics. A shooter opened fire in a church on Orthodox Christmas Eve (December 6th) killing seven people. Zahi Hawass emphasized during the unveiling of the monastery renovation that the shooting was a criminal act that can happen “between two brothers”, that Egypt was as committed to protecting its Coptic and Jewish heritage as it is committed to its Muslim heritage.

It all started with a little friendly smack-talk on Twitter. Blogger Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes tweeted that the Indianapolis Musem of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art should get a Super Bowl art loan bet going.

Maxwell L. Anderson, director of the IMA, took up the challenge and offered NOMA a three-month loan of Ingrid Calame’s From #258 Drawing, at the same time scoffing at the notion that they’d have to part with it. “We’re already spackling the wall where the NOMA loan will hang,” Anderson tweeted.

NOMA director E. John Bullard glove slapped Anderson right back harder via email. “Max Anderson must not really believe the Colts can beat the Saints in the Super Bowl. Otherwise why would he bet such an insignificant work as the Ingrid Calame painting? Let’s up the ante. The New Orleans Museum of Art will bet the three-month loan of its Renoir painting, Seamstress at Window, circa 1908, which is currently in the big Renoir exhibition in Paris. What will Max wager of equal importance? Go Saints!”

Well of course Anderson couldn’t take that affront sitting down. He came back swinging via Twitter and Renoir is probably still holding a steak on this shiner: “We’ll see the sentimental blancmange by that “China Painter” and raise you a proper trophy: [a richly bejeweled Jean-Valentine Morel cup.]

So Bullard decided to cut to the chase with an email to Tyler Green: “I am amused that Renoir is too sweet for Indianapolis. Does this mean that those Indiana corn farmers have simpler tastes? If so why would Max offer us that gaudy Chalice — just looks like another over-elaborate Victorian tchotchke. Let’s get serious. Each museum needs to offer an art work that they would really miss for three months. What would you like Max? A Monet, a Cassatt, a Picasso, a Miro? Sorry but we have no farm scenes or portraits of football players to send you.”

ICEBURN! Anderson must have felt it too, because he stopped playing around. His next tweet went hardcore: “Colts will win; here’s how sure I am: [the IMA's four-by-six-foot JMW] Turner [The Fifth Plague of Egypt] for Vigée Lebrun’s Portrait of Marie Antoinette.”

Bullard dug the landscape and made a solid counteroffer again via email to Green: “I’m glad to see that Max has gotten serious. Certainly the Turner painting in Indianapolis is a masterpiece, worthy of any great museum. Regretably the size, over ten feet high with its original elaborate frame, and the fragile condition of New Orleans’ Portrait of Marie Antoinette prohibits it from traveling. I propose instead our large and beautiful painting by Claude Lorrain, Ideal View of Tivoli, 1644. This great French artist is considered the father of landscape painting and was one of Turner’s great inspirations. These two paintings would look splendid hanging together in New Orleans — or miracle of miracles, in Indianapolis.”

Anderson accepted with a joyous tweet: “Deal — Claude for Turner. Two masters in spirited competition across the channel, and between our fair cities. Go Colts!”

Bullard emailed back: “Max is a gracious opponent. Thanks for accepting the wager of a Claude from New Orleans for a Turner from Indianapolis. But this is definitely the Saints year. They are the Dream Team and in New Orleans we know that dreams come true. Geaux Saints!!!”

I don’t follow football, but now for the first time I’ll actually be curious to see who wins. And the directors’ reactions, of course.

Mitochondrial DNA testing performed on a tooth from a 2000 year-old skeleton unearthed in a cemetery in Southern Italy has returned surprising results: East Asian ancestry. From Oxygen isotope tests we do know that he was not born in Italy, but we don’t know whether he himself was born in East Asia or whether he was descended from East Asians on his mother’s side.

Rome at the time had no direct contacts with the Far East, although East Asian goods like silk and spices did get to the Empire via trading routes in the Near East. This the first hard evidence we have of East Asians living in the heart of the Roman Empire.

According to Tracy Prowse, assistant professor of Anthropology, and the lead author on the study, the isotopic evidence indicates that about 20% of the sample analyzed to-date was not born in the area around Vagnari. The mtDNA is another line of evidence that indicates at least one individual was of East Asian descent.

“These preliminary isotopic and mtDNA data provide tantalizing evidence that some of the people who lived and died at Vagnari were foreigners, and that they may have come to Vagnari from beyond the borders of the Roman Empire,” says Prowse. “This research addresses broader issues relating to globalization, human mobility, identity, and diversity in Roman Italy.”

He was certainly no Magus from the East bearing riches. He was buried with only one pot and it’s a local piece. There’s nothing in the pot that suggests its owner was East Asian, so the isotopic and mitochondrial DNA analysis are the only indicators of this remarkable anomaly.

Somebody else — somebody with more and fancier grave goods — was even buried on top of him later.

“This multi-faceted research demonstrates that human skeletal remains can provide another layer of evidence in conjunction with archaeological and historical information,” says Prowse.

The cemetery is in the settlement of Vagnari in Puglia. The area was populated from 4 B.C. onwards, but in the 1st century A.D. it became personal property of the Roman Emperor run by a resident administrator. Vagnari was an industrial site, used for making tile and smelting iron. Its workers were both craftsmen and slaves. We don’t know which one our East Asian friend was.

The 1925 Bugatti Type 22 Brescia that was fished out of Lake Maggiore after 73 years underwater sold for an astonishing $370,000, three times Bonhams’ pre-sale estimate. The bidding for the rusting hulk was brisk at the Rétromobile sale, with buyers vying over the phone as well as in the room.

The winning bidder was a representative of US Bugatti collector Peter Mullin. He intends to put it on display in its current condition in his new museum in California. The Mullin Automotive Museum is opening this year in Oxnard, after an extensive remodel of what used to be the Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife. It will include all of Mullin’s 12 Bugattis, plus cars from the former Schlumpf collection with a particular focus on French Art Deco masterpieces.

The underbidder was another American collector, only he intended to restore it. He couldn’t compete with Peter Mullin, however, who instructed the European dealer representing him at the auction that there was no limit to what he would pay. As the representative put it “Bugatti is the first disease.”

Acting on [Mullin's] behalf, Dutch dealer Jack Braam Ruben said: “Anyone can buy a restored Brescia [Bugatti]… To us it is the ultimate sculpture, an automotive Dali or Monet, created by the world’s most fabulous automobile creator and completed by the greatest creator of all, mother nature.”

Hear, hear. The story — for decades thought to be a legend — of the Bugatti at the bottom of the lake is the reason it sold for as much as it did. Restoring it fully would make it just a rebuilt old car. Only 20% of it is useable, so why take a car with such a luscious history and make it look new when you’d have to start almost from the ground up? By the time the restoration was done, hardly anything would be left of the original.

Keeping it as is will be quite a preservation challenge. The conservators will have to walk a very thin line between keeping it from degenerating further without fixing its many problems.

The Drowned Bugatti will be in great company in the Mullin Automotive Museum. You can preview/drool over of some of the beauties that will be its roomies on the museum Flickr stream.

The first of 250 British and Australian soldiers excavated out of 6 World War I mass graves in northern France in 2008 has been reburied with full military honors in a new cemetery built specifically for the fallen of Fromelles.

On Saturday, in a sombre but moving ceremony, the first of the unidentified soldiers – “known unto God”, as their gravestones are customarily inscribed – was laid to rest in the newly built cemetery 440 yards from Pheasant Wood, the scene of the fiercest fighting.

His oak casket was lowered into the ground by pall bearers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and surrounded by standard bearers from the Royal British Legion. Scores of residents from nearby villages attended the ceremony in the snow-covered graveyard, as well as several Australian families.

As the time-honoured words of the exhortation were read out and Last Post sounded, Kevan Jones, the Veterans Minister, paid tribute to the men who sacrificed their lives. “It was the wish of both the British and Australian governments to give these brave soldiers a fitting place of rest, honouring the commitment shown to our fallen after the First World War,” he said.

Captain Matthew Clarke, officer in charge of the fusiliers, spoke of his deep honour at taking part in the historic task. “We are finally giving these soldiers, who sacrificed everything for our freedom, a fitting military burial,” he said.

This currently unidentified soldier is the first of many to follow. His brothers in arms will be buried at a rate of 30 per day, three times a week over the next month. None of them are identified yet either.

DNA has been collected from all of the recovered bodies and from 150 family members of the thousands who died at Fromelles, so there’s a chance he and his comrades might be identified come Spring. Should that happen, the headstones will be engraved with the proper personal information.

The chances are slim, however. DNA degrades over the years, and the conditions in the mass graves were not exactly laboratory ready. Also, over 7000 soldiers died in the 1916 carnage, so the 150 families who donated their DNA for identification purposes are sadly just the tip of the iceberg.

The identification board will convene in March and to consider the DNA evidence along with any historical, anthropological and archaeological evidence that might serve to identify the deceased. If the soldiers are identified, their families will be given the opportunity to add a personalized inscription to the headstones.

To catch a glimpse of the lives of these men in the trenches of WWI, see this touching slideshow of some of their personal effects recovered from the mass graves.

For more about the infamous Australian soldiers who scandalized the British command with their cavalier attitudes toward discipline and impressed/scared the crap out of everyone else with their fierce loyalty and fearless, sometimes brutal fighting, read this outstanding essay from the Heritage of the Great War, the best WWI site on the web, in my opinion.