Month: October 2011

Sixty pairs of Roman shoes found in Scottish ditch

Ancient, Roma, Caput Mundi, Treasures

Archaeologists excavating a site of a future Tesco supermarket in Camelon, Scotland, have discovered a range of Roman artifacts including 120 leather hobnailed shoes in a ditch outside what was once the entrance to a fort along what would become the Antonine Wall. The fort dates to the second century A.D. and so the shoes probably do as well.

The find likely represents the accumulated throwaways of Roman centurions and soldiers garrisoned at the fort, said dig coordinator Martin Cook, an archaeologist with AOC Archaeology Group, an independent contractor in Britain.

“I think they dumped the shoes over the side of the road leading into the fort,” he said.

“Subsequently the ditch silted up with organic material, which preserved the shoes.”

Despite being discards, the hobnailed shoes are in relatively good condition, Cook added.

It’s the largest cache of Roman shoes ever found in Scotland. Other finds at the site include several brooches, coins, animal bones, glass, some standard ceramic pots and some high-quality, expensive French Samian ware ceramic.

The Camelon fort was at the north-west frontier of the empire. It was of strategic importance to the military and was also one of the most densely populated areas of Scotland at that time. There is evidence of significant local habitation in the area of the fort before the Romans came between 80 and 83 A.D., and evidence that habitation resumed as soon as they left in 90 A.D.

There is an earlier fort dating to the first century A.D. on the site as well, but it hasn’t been excavated this time. Both forts predate the Antonine Wall and were probably occupied during the wall’s construction. Camelon had a port on the River Carron, so building supplies could come in via boat.

Thus far the archaeological team has only been able to excavate less than 5% of the fort site, and they have to stop shortly because that Tesco is still going up. The good news all the finds will go on display on the building site for a month in a portable cabin, and Tesco has agreed to build only on the easternmost side of the site to allow the rest of it to be preserved in situ under a parking deck.

The Falkirk Council hopes that once the on-site display period is over, the artifacts will end up in Falkirk Museum. There are many other artifacts from Roman Camelon in the local museum, so all those shoes would be in excellent company.

“Weary Herakles” gets his legs back

Ancient, Museums, Treasures

The torso of Herakles that the Boston Museum of Fine Arts recently admitted after decades of shameless, self-serving denial was the other half of a statue whose legs were in the Antalya Museum in Turkey has finally been rejoined to its limbs and put on display.

The torso flew back accompanied by no less a dignitary than the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He was in New York last month to attend the UN General Assembly and he volunteered to pick up Herakles top half and carry it back to Turkey in his plane. Herakles and Erdoğan flew back together on Sunday, September 25. Museum workers immediately began to put humpty dumpty together again.

The two parts of the statue were reunited by experts and went on display at the Antalya Museum following a ceremony. Speaking at the event, [Turkish Culture Minister Ertugrul] Günay said, “Today was a special day for all people who attach importance to history and archeology.”

The lower half of the statue was found by Professor Jale İnan during excavations near Perge, Antalya province, in 1980. İnan searched extensively for the upper half of the statue, a feat that took 10 years, until she was finally able to locate it in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1990, at the age of 76.

The Antalya Museum’s “Weary Herakles” display looks a lot better now.

P.S. – Seeing the statue back together really puts to the lie to all the huffing and puffing the Boston Museum of Fine Art did to pretend the halves could have come from two completely different copies of Lyssipos’ original “Weary Herakles.”

World’s oldest running car sells for $4,620,000

Modern(ish), Treasures

The world’s oldest running car, an 1884 De Dion Bouton et Trepardoux Dos-a-Dos Steam Runabout, sold at RM Auctions‘ Hershey, Pennsylvania, sale on October 7th for a world record $4,620,000. There are a couple of older motorized vehicles that might vie for the title of oldest car (depending on how you define car), but they are in museums and are not in running condition. This particular car is not only 127 years old and still running, but it’s also street-legal, an impressive achievement considering it runs on steam generated by a coal-fed boiler.

In 1881 the dashing young Comte de Dion, a roguish fellow famed for his skill with the dueling pistol and the ladies, encountered an impressive model steam engine in a toy shop in Paris. The engine was built by Georges Bouton and Charles-Armand Trepardoux who were earning meager ducats creating toy models and scientific instruments. De Dion hired them on the spot to build him a steam engine big enough to power a carriage, but compact enough to allow passengers besides just the driver.

Bouton and Trepardoux, after an initial failed attempt, came up with a relatively compact car — nine feet long weighing 2,100 pounds — that ran off of twin compound steam engines fueled by coal that was fed automatically through a hopper. The “spade handle” steering controlled the front wheels which in turn drove the back wheels through a connecting rod motion, like a locomotive. It seated four people, back to back (hence the dos-as-dos in the name), and was driven by one driver, so despite its train-like engine and wheel arrangement, it really is a fully recognizable family sedan as we know them today.

De Dion called the prototype “La Marquise” after his mother (who PS, thought he was crazy) and by 1886 he had sales materials and a small production line including a three-wheel model, a dog-cart, even an 18-seat bus. Of course, these were extremely pricey (a new quadricycle went for 4,400 francs ($850) in 1889) so few were ordered and made. As far as we know, De Dion sold a total of 30 of his steam vehicles, 20 tricycles, four or five quadricycles, and a handful of the larger carriages. Only two other quadricycles and six tricycles are known to exist today, but none of them run.

This particular “La Marquise” wasn’t one of the ones sold. It was the prototype, the first one ever made, and it bears clear marks to that effect. You can see that the brackets which hold the water tank to the frame were re-cut to clear a lug and it has the original brass plate attached to the boiler on which the mandatory 5 year inspections of the boiler were recorded. The first one was in 1889.

Another claim to fame of this vehicle is that it was driven in the first official car race in 1887. Georges Bouton drove this prototype from Paris to Versailles and was clocked at a top speed of 37 miles per hour.

“La Marquise” stayed in De Dion’s hands until 1906 when he sold it to French army officer Henri Doriol. It remained in the Doriol family for 81 years, but they never drove it because in 1914 its brass and copper fittings had been extensively cannibalized for the French government’s war effort. For decades Doriol and his son tried to restore it but were unable. They sold it in 1987 to Tim Moore, an enthusiast who tracked down an 1890 model at the museum in Le Mans and copied the missing fittings. He had it up and running within a year. Moore sold it to collector John O’Quinn in 2007 and it is O’Quinn’s estate that put it up for auction Friday.

Behold its steam chugging greatness in action:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riO3UUC9qo0&w=430]

Roman statue found at Epidaurus

Ancient, Roma, Caput Mundi, Treasures

The torso of a larger-than-life male sculpture was discovered during restoration work on the Little Theater of Ancient Epidaurus, the Greek city famed for its acoustically brilliant large theater. The statue is the figure of an idealized muscular male standing with a cloak wrapped around his arm and thrown over his shoulder.

Archaeologists think it’s a second century AD Roman copy of an original Hermes by leading Greek Classical sculptor Polycleitus. The enhanced musculature marks it as an Imperial-era Roman copy and although none of Polycleitus’ original works have survived, they were widely copied which is why we have enough of an inkling of what they looked like to determine which statue may have inspired any given copy.

Roman Emperor Hadrian went on a state visit to Epidaurus in the second century A.D., inspiring beautification and flattery projects in the city. This torso could have been a Hermes originally that was then modified in Hadrian’s honor to bear the imperial visage, or modified to bear the visage of another high official. This was a common practice at the time, and is one of the reasons heads so often go missing, because they had already been replaced at least once.

The statue had been built into the wall of a 4th century A.D. building near the Little Theater. The building is in cross proximity to more ancient ones that are thought to have been part of the city Agora.

The Little Theater was built in the same century (4th century B.C.) as the famed Epidaurus Theater. It was rediscovered in 1970 under a field olive trees. As per its diminutive monicker, the Little Theater had 9 tiers and 18 rows of seats and could seat about 2,000, whereas the big one started out with 34 rows (the Romans added another 21 rows) and could seat 15,000 spectators. The large theater, to this day fascinating to all performers and engineers because of its astonishing acoustics that allow anyone seated anywhere to hear with complete clarity the sound of a match being struck on stage, was designed by Polycleitus the Younger, the son of the sculptor who made the original Hermes this torso is thought to have been copied from.

The statue has been transferred to the Museum of Asklepios Epidaurus for cleaning and maintenance.

Aztec ceremonial platform found in Mexico City

Medieval, Treasures

Archaeologists excavating Mexico City’s Templo Mayo have discovered a circular platform studded with snake heads that they hope might be a clue to finding an Aztec emperor’s tomb. It is 15 yards in diameter and dates to around 1469.

The team has been digging for five years looking for what would be the first tomb of an Aztec ruler ever found. The Spanish priests who accompanied Cortés and his troops to the Aztec capital then known as Tenochtitlan recorded that Aztec kings being cremated at the foot of the Templo Mayor on a structure called the “cuauhxicalco.” This platform could well be the cuauhxicalco, and if it is, then perhaps an imperial tomb is nearby.

There are no other extant sources that describe how the Aztecs buried their royalty, however, so the archaeological team doesn’t have a lot to go on. On the other hand, the Spanish conquistadors did provide themselves with a rare opportunity to see the death of three Aztec kings — Montezuma II, his brother Cuitláhuac, and Cuitláhuac’s nephew, Cuauhtémoc — within six years of their arrival, so an argument could be made they are expert witnesses.

[National Institute of History and Anthropology archaeologist Raul Barrera] said the platform, which is still being unearthed, was gradually uncovered over the preceding months. It is covered with at least 19 serpent heads, each about a half-yard (meter) long.

Barrera said accounts from the 1500s suggested the platform was also used in a colorful ceremony in which an Aztec priest would descend from the nearby pyramid with a snake made of paper and burn it on the platform.

Records indicate there were a total of five such platforms in the temple complex. One was found several years ago, but that platform was farther from the ritually important spot at the foot of the pyramid, where the most recent finding was made.

In 1997 archaeologists found underground chambers using ground penetrating radar very near the spot of the snakehead platform. They thought perhaps those chambers would prove to be the tomb of Emperor Ahuizotl who ruled at the end of the 15th century, but when they excavated all they found was a staircase and some offerings.