Month: July 2019

11th c. wall found under Moravian castle

Medieval

Archaeologists excavating Břeclav Castle in Moravia, Czech Republic, have discovered a section of timber and clay wall from the original castle built in the 11th century by Břetislav, Duke of Bohemia. Preliminary dating results have found the wall dates to 1041, a period when Břetislav expanded his territory with incursions into Moravia and built a network of defensive forts. Břeclav, located on the Thaya River a stone’s throw from the borders of modern-day Austria and Slovakia, was a strategically significant spot for a castle. 

Archaeologist Miroslav Dejmal of the Archaia Brno organization, who is conducting the research emphasized the importance of the find, saying that walls dating back to the 11th century are extremely rare. 

“What you see here are the remnants of a wall made of clay and wood. These are the foundations, because the upper part was obviously destroyed by a fire, as you can see from this soft charcoal.”

The original wall, which was hidden for centuries under a thick layer of clay, is estimated to have been around 8 metres high and parts of it are now being analysed. Preliminary results suggest that the wall is nearly a thousand years old and dates back to the first mention of the town in written records. 

The town began as the castle. Duke Břetislav built the castle for defense of the border and as an administrative center for the region. In the 13th century the castle was acquired by Queen Constance of Hungary who added an imposing stone tower. During the Hussite Wars that followed the first Defenestration of Prague, the protestant Hussite forces were garrisoned in the castle from 1426 until the conclusion of hostilities in 1433. The market town of Břeclav, which had grown under the shadow of the castle, was destroyed during the wars of the 15th century. The townspeople fled to the castle for safety and lived to rebuild the town even closer to the castle that had saved them.

In the first half of the 16th century, Břeclav Castle was bought by the House of Žerotín. They rebuilt the castle in Renaissance style to function as a manor house but they had barely a century to enjoy it before it was confiscated by the crown after the Žerotíns were involved in an uprising. The next owner was the House of Liechtenstein who bought it in 1638. Between the wars with the Ottoman Empire and Thirty Years’ War, the Liechtensteins never really lived in the castle. Finally in the early 19th century they decided to put their own stamp on it and rebuilt the castle in the style of a romantic faux ruin. 

The castle is now being rebuilt yet again. This new construction aims to return it to the Renaissance style of the Žerotín days. The discovery of the medieval wall won’t change the reconstruction plans, but it will delay them as authorities decide how best to preserve (and take advantage of) the find. 

The spokesman for Břeclav City Hall, Jiří Holobrádek, says the find has generated great interest among the locals, but it is early days yet to say how and in what way the remnants of this medieval wall will be preserved. 

“It is too soon to say how we will proceed. Much depends on the outcome of the expert analysis that has only just started and we will obviously heed the advice of historians and archaeologists. However, given the importance of the discovery, it would be good to find a way to present it to the public.”

It’s going to be a tricky thing. Removing it presents major preservation challenges as the wood once exposed begins to decay. Keep it in situ will require careful planning to prevent it from being damaged by construction right above it. The archaeological team is scanning the wall and will create a 3D model of it. That will help determine how best to proceed.

 

Villa of the Papyri

Ancient, Museums

The Getty Villa in Malibu, built to house oil billionaire J. Paul Getty’s extensive collection of antiquities, is a replica of the Villa dei Papyri, a huge, ultra-luxurious home discovered in Herculaneum in the 18th century. The collection has only grown in size and quality since the Getty Villa was completed in 1974, and the museum has hosted a myriad world-class exhibitions of artifacts on loan from all over the world. Only an exhibition dedicated to the model for the Getty Villa was lacking, and there has never been an exhibition dedicated solely to the Villa dei Papyri exhibition anywhere.

It is more than appropriate, therefore, that the first one of its kind would debut at the Getty Villa. Buried by Vesuvius: Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri runs through October 28th and features a breathtakingly beautiful assemblage of statuary in bronze and marble, frescoes, engravings and artifacts from the villa or associated with its study.

The Villa dei Papyri was discovered by well-diggers quite by accident in 1750. It was excavated by Karl Jakob Weber, a Swiss military engineer who was charged by Charles III of Naples with the first organized excavations of Pompeii and Stabiae as well as Herculaneum. In keeping with his education a an architect and engineer, Weber took a systematic approach to excavation, as opposed to previous diggers who were there to score treasure and gave not a single rat’s ass about the archaeological contexts in which the artifacts they plundered had been found. They used tunnels to break through walls and floors, cleaned out whatever they could and bored into the next space. Weber also had to use tunnels as the ancient city was buried under 100 feet of volcanic ash turned to solid rock and there was a modern city on top of it, but he was cautious and deliberate about it, following the architectural layout of the spaces to minimize damage and maximize understanding of the full scope of the massive villa.

He was also an excellent artist, as luck would have it, and Weber’s drawings of the finds were included in the multi-volume folio of illustrations, Le Antichità di Ercolano, which was a huge hit in mid-18th century Europe and directly influenced the revival of Greco-Roman motifs in the decorative arts.

Weber’s floor plan of the Villa dei Papyri, its accuracy confirmed by more recent excavations even as they expanded into previously undiscovered areas, published in Le Antichità was used by architectural firm Langdon and Wilson to create the Getty Villa in Malibu. The unknown details and additional spaces for the museum were based on fully excavated Roman structures from Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae.

“The Villa dei Papiri is one of the most luxurious private residences of the ancient classical world ever discovered and one which had an important role in the early history of archeology. Especially important are its unique collection of ancient bronze statuary and antiquity’s only surviving library of papyrus scrolls, which provide an unprecedented insight into the philosophical interests of its aristocratic Roman occupant – none other than the father-in-law of Julius Caesar,” says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Among the most impressive of these finds is a rare bronze sculpture of a drunken satyr, which, as part of a collaborative conservation project with the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN), is undergoing analysis and conservation treatment in our conservation studios before going on display in the exhibition.”

Potts adds, “For several decades, we have worked closely with Italian colleagues and institutions in conserving, protecting, researching and celebrating Italy’s extraordinary cultural heritage. We are delighted now to be collaborating with MANN, the Parco Archeologico di Ercolano (PA-Erco), and the Biblioteca Nazionale “Vittorio Emanuele” di Napoli (BNN) in organizing this exhibition. We have had several successful collaborative conservation projects with MANN over the past few years including, most recently, their monumental funerary vessel (krater) from Altamura in 2018, and three of their splendid bronzes: the Ephebe (Youth) in 2009, the Apollo Saettante in 2011, and the over-life-size sculpture of Tiberius in 2013.”

This video provides a fascinating glimpse into the conservation of the Drunken Satyr. At the end you see a view of the underside which was torn apart by the volcanic impact. It’s amazing how well the bronze survived when you see how Vesuvius battered it.

Vividly colored medieval fresco found in Aventine church

Medieval

A medieval fresco has been rediscovered behind a wall in the Basilica of Saints Boniface and Alexis in Rome. It is an excellent state of preservation, the colors of its original polychrome paint still vividly saturated. The fresco dates to the mid-12th century and depicts two holy figures believed to be Saint Alexis and Christ the Pilgrim in the top section and an angel in front of a be-columned structure on the bottom. It is three feet wide and 13 feet high. There may be more of it, possibly a section at large as the one visible now, hidden by the wall.

The fresco was found by art historian Claudia Viggiani who spent years hunting it down. Her quest began when she found a 1965 letter from an official of Rome’s public works to the Lazio monuments superintendency mentioning a fresco “in excellent condition” had been found during consolidation work on a bell tower. The letter did not note the name of the church. Viggiani doggedly pursued the case until she located the church on the Aventine and the fresco in the interspace behind a small door.

Restorer Susanna Sarmati has been working to stabilize the fresco since its discovery.

Dating back to the mid-12th century, the painting has a polychrome frame that restorer Sarmati said was of “exceptional sophistication” and that it is difficult to “find ones that are so complete”. She pointed at the original brushstrokes on the wall, which can still be distinguished. Though other medieval frescoes exist in Rome, “their state of conservation despite restoration, is mediocre. This one, however,” she said, “which was never touched is almost perfect.”

In the medieval church, the fresco was prominently located on the counter-facade. Its significance lived on even as the church was extensively rebuilt: it was walled in, but not destroyed or painted over. It’s likely that the part of the fresco with the saint’s face remained visible through a crack on the nave.

Oldest Christian document from Roman Egypt identified in Basel

Ancient

A researcher at the University of Basel has identified the oldest Christian document from Roman Egypt in the papyrus collection of the University of Basel. Accounts of Christian life from this early period are sparse and tend to lean towards extreme situations like ascetics renouncing the wiles of society or bursts of persecution. This letter paints a far more quotidian picture of a Christian family living in the small urbs along the Nile in the desert of central Egypt, and it turns out they lived a lot like their non-Christian neighbors did.

The papyrus P.Bas. 2.43 has been in the possession of the University of Basel for over 100 years. It is a letter from a man named Arrianus to his brother Paulus. The document stands out from the mass of preserved letters of Greco-Roman Egypt by its concluding greeting formula: After reporting on day-to-day family matters and asking for the best fish sauce as a souvenir, the letter writer uses the last line to express his wish that his brother will prosper “in the Lord.” The author uses the abbreviated form of the Christian phrase “I pray that you fare well ‘in the Lord’.”

“The use of this abbreviation – known as a nomen sacrum in this context – leaves no doubt about the Christian beliefs of the letter writer,” says Sabine Huebner, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Basel. “It is an exclusively Christian formula that we are familiar with from New Testament manuscripts.” The name of the brother is also revealing, Huebner goes on to explain: “Paulus was an extremely rare name at that time and we may deduce that the parents mentioned in the letter were Christians and had named their son after the apostle as early as 200 AD.”

Huebner has narrowed down the letter’s date to around 230 A.D., making it 40-50 years older than the previous earliest-known Christian letter, and traced its origin to Theadelphia in the Faiyum area of Egypt. It was part of the Heroninus archive, a collection of more than 1,000 papyri from the 3rd century pertaining to the administration of an agricultural estate in the area. The largest single papyrus archive from Roman times, it was split up and sold in the early 20th century and is now scattered through several institutions.

Here is the translation of the full letter:

“Greetings, my lord, my incomparable brother Paulus. I, Arrianus, salute you, praying that all is as well as possible in your life.

[Since] Menibios was going to you, I thought it necessary to salute you as well as our lord father. Now, I remind you about the gymnasiarchy1, so that we are not troubled here. For Heracleides would be unable to take care of it: he has been named to the city council. Find thus an opportunity that you buy the two [–] arouras2.

But send me the fish liver sauce3 too, whichever you think is good. Our lady mother is well and salutes you as well as your wives and sweetest children and our brothers and all our people. Salute our brothers [-]genes and Xydes. All our people salute you.

I pray that you fare well in the Lord.”

1 A gymnasiarch was the supervisor overseeing the gymnasium, a position of great significance particularly in the training of athletes for prestigious competitions, and developing into a wider role in municipal affairs of the metropolis of Roman Egypt. Prominent individuals vied to serve a term of one year or more during which they would have to give freely of their time and money. It was like the urban praetor role in Rome; the more sumptuous their contributions, the greater the title and the greater the honor.  If a gymnasiarch died before the term was up, his son would take over and serve it out. A court case (its records survive in papyrus fragments) in 155-6 A.D. attests to the importance of the office, how it conferred life-long, inheritable status, and how people could buy their place in the gymnasiarch rota from the heirs of a deceased one.

That was in the halcyon days of the Antonine dynasty, however. Things took a sharp 180 come the economic and military doldrums of the late Severan emperors. At the beginning of the 3rd century, trade slowed and money was so tight even among the city’s elite that people qualified for the role started working assiduously to avoid it. When he couldn’t dodge the expensive bullet, the new gymnasiarch served only one year and the expenses were shared by other incumbents to the office.

Against that backdrop of economic uncertainty and looming Crisis of the Third Century, I’m wondering if Arrianus is tossing his brother a bit of a hot potato when he tells him that side of the family can’t deal with this gymnasiarchy situation at the mo.  They seem to have been a locally notable family, incidentally, with two important offices (gymnasiarchy and city council) ongoing concurrently.

2 An aroura was a measure of arable land equal to a square of 100 Egyptian cubits.

3 I think this is the first time I’ve written about a letter in which somebody actually asks for garum to be sent! So many shipwrecks and residue-tested amphorae later, we get a glimpse of the demand behind the inexhaustible supply of brine-fermented mashed fish guts in the Roman world.

Huebner has published the letter in a monograph, Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament, now available for pre-order from Cambridge University Press.

1st bull sacrifice found in Selinunte

Ancient

An excavation at the ancient Greek site of Selinus (modern-day Selinunte) in western Sicily has unearthed ancient votive sacrifices of bull horns and antlers. This is the first evidence of bull sacrifice discovered in Selinus whose acropolis is peppered with temples ranging in date from the earliest years of the city’s founding in the 7th century B.C. until its conquest by Carthage in the 4th century B.C.

An international team of archaeologists and students from New York University and University of Milan has been excavating the temple precinct for 13 seasons. This year’s dig expanded on three trenches along the sides of Temple R and Temple C. Built in the early and late-6th century B.C. respectively, R and C are among the oldest temples at the site, and the excavation focused on exploring the most ancient phases of the sanctuary when the temples were constructed.

Temple R libation altar. Photo courtesy the University of Milan.On the east side of Temple R, the archaeological mission unearthed the remains of the western wall of a cult structure with limestone foundations and a crude raised brick platform that dates to the last quarter of the 7th century B.C., predating construction of R. The square structure was approximately 15 feet long and included had two shrines. The discovery a votive deposit of red deer antler (Cervus Elaphus) just outside its perimeter indicates the building had a religious purpose. It appears to be the oldest cult building in the urban sanctuary of Selinunte. It was deliberately but carefully demolished when Temple R was built.

The excavation also revealed initial phases of construction of R, including two post holes, used to lift the stone blocks and a hollow libation altar in excellent condition. Most notably, the team unearthed a votive deposit of two bull horns (Bos Taurus) from a large adult animal. This is the first archaeological evidence for the sacrifice of bulls in the great urban sanctuary of Selinunte.

The trench between Temple R and Temple C has revealed the foundations of C, exposing how the slope of this side of the acropolis was artificially construction to support the monumental temple. This layers are well preserved and shed new light on how the temple was built, particularly the construction of the foundations and crepidoma (the platform on which the temple superstructure was built). Here archaeologists found additional votive deposits of exceptional quality made of gold, silver, ivory and one Egyptian faience falcon.