Month: October 2019

Head of Pan repatriated to Italy

Ancient, Looting, Modern(ish)

A marble head of Pan stolen 51 years ago has been returned to Italy. The statue head, which dates to the 1st-2nd century A.D., was looted in February 1968 from the Farnese Gardens on the Palatine hill. US Ambassador to Italy Lewis Eisenberg formally handed over the looted object to Culture Minister Dario Franceschini in a ceremony on Rome on Thursday.

Carabinieri special investigators spotted the marble head in a California auction catalog in 2016 and notified their U.S. counterparts.

U.S. attache Armando Astorga said the piece entered the United States in the mid-2000s, after spending many years in private hands in Europe.

So far, the investigation has not determined the original thief.

The Farnese Gardens were built over the in-filled ruins of Tiberius’ palace by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III, in 1550. They were the first private botanical gardens in Europe, filled with rare plants imported from Africa and the Americas, grottos, aviaries, monumental gates, terraced balconies and staircases scaling the Palatine from the Campo Vaccino below. Alessandro Farnese’s collection of ancient statuary, assembled from finds on his own property and the acquisition of entire collections from other noble families, was installed in the botanical gardens.

The view from the garden included the Arch of Titus, the iconic three columns of the Temple of Castor of Pollux and the Basilica of Maxentius. In the 17th century the water supply to the Palatine was restored and the Farnese family expanded the garden to include fountains. Between the exotic plants, picturesque fountains, dramatic views and the Vatican museum-quality ancient sculptures, the Farnese Gardens became a popular stop for Grand Tourists of the moneyed classes.

The remains of the Roman and Imperial fora would be excavated in the 19th century, but by then the Farnese Gardens were almost as ruined as the great civic structures of the ancient city. When Antonio, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, the last Farnese of the patrilineal line died in 1731, Alessandro’s Palatine summer villa, botanical gardens and the greatest collection of ancient statuary assembled since antiquity passed into the hands of Antonio’s niece Elizabetta Farnese, Queen consort of King Philip V of Spain, and thence to her son Charles of Bourbon, soon to be king of Naples and the Two Sicilies. As absentee landowners, the Bourbon-Parmas neglected their Roman properties and by the mid-18th century the Farnese Gardens were already in decay. A century later, the villa and garden were largely in ruins.

The last King of the Two Sicilies, Francis II, sold the Farnese Gardens to Napoleon III of France. After the full Unification of Italy with Rome as its capital in 1870, the state bought the property and began to excavate it, seeking the remains of the ancient imperial palaces like the one Alessandro Farnese had so blithely filled in to make his garden. The archaeological site has been excavated off and on since then.

Just over a year after the head of Pan was stolen from the site, the Carabinieri Art Squad was founded on May 3rd, 1969. It was the first national police force division dedicated specifically to the protection of cultural heritage, anticipating by a year the UNESCO Convention combatting the illegal export and traffic in cultural artifacts. To mark the 50th anniversary of this important milestone in the fight against the illicit traffic in archaeological and artistic treasures, the Carabinieri are currently hosting an international conference on heritage protection. The head of Pan was repatriated on the opening day of the conference, a fitting celebration of the anniversary.

House of the Bicentenary reopens after 36 years

Ancient, Modern(ish)

One of Herculaneum’s greatest architectural and artistic gems has reopened to the public in grand style 36 years after it was closed in dismal condition.

Bicentenary House was home to Gaius Petronius Stephanus and his wife Calantonia Themis. It was one of the city’s finest private houses, with well-preserved mosaic floors and frescoes depicting mythological scenes and architectural and animal motifs.

The house gave onto Herculaneum’s main street and the entrance had a sliding wooden grill, which survived the volcanic inferno. “It is 2,000 years old. It is one-of-a-kind with its delicate decorations,” said Domenico Camardo, chief archaeologist at the Herculaneum Conservation Project.

Three stories high and 6,500 square feet in area, the House of the Bicentenary is considered Herculaneum’s most sumptuous noble villa (most of the ancient city remains buried under 60 feet of volcanic rock and the modern city on top of that). Its tablinium (reception room) is particularly splendid, with frescoes of the highest quality depicting scenes from mythology on the walls and an exceptional mosaic floor that combines opus sectile (prized stone materials like colored marbles custom cut and inlaid) and opus tessellatum (cube tiles at least 4mm long and wide).

The domus got its modern name because it was discovered in 1938, the bicentenary of the beginning of excavations at Herculaneum in 1738. Led by archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri, the open-air excavations during this period took place side-by-side with stabilization, restoration and exhibition of the sites. Artifacts found inside the domus were exhibited in the hall to the left of the atrium, which had been stabilized by crews of on-site masons and carpenters, as excavation continued in the rest of the villa. In the hall to the right of the atrium a sliding wood screen with a carved lintel, preserved by the eruption, was conserved and then displayed in situ for visitors. The tablinium frescoes and pavement were restored and that space was also opened to the public.

By 1983, the House of the Bicentenary was in dire straits from its exposure to the elements and its popularity with tourists. It was structurally unsound and the wall paintings were deteriorating at an alarming rate. The tuffa wall was breaking apart, the plaster layers separating off the walls, the paint layers flaking and turning to dust. Biological organisms, pollution particles, dirt and a coating from a previous restoration that was supposed to help preserve it but has instead accelerated the flaking were degrading the integrity and colors of the paint. The mosaic was lifting off the floor and had suffered significant tile loss.

In 2011, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) embarked on a comprehensive new conservation project of the House of the Bicentenary in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum and the Herculaneum Conservation Project. The team focused on the tablinium, starting with extensive research, study and documentation of the site’s condition and using that data to tailor a conservation plan that would stabilize and treat the wall paintings, mosaic pavement and architectural surfaces.

For example, researchers were able to identify the materials and methods used by the ancient artists to create the frescoes and each those used in later restorations. This was a complex multi-layers problem that required thorough archival research of Maiuri’s photographs and written records, close visual examination, imaging technology, scientific tests in situ and in the laboratory. Environmental monitoring of different parts of the room and analysis of the salts and biogrowths revealed how temperature, water and salt in the air and ground contributed to organism growth and the damage to the plaster and paint.

The project has been so successful in stabilizing the grand domus that not only can the site itself be reopened to the public, but the passive environmental approaches, materials and technologies used by the conservation team will now be deployed on other structures in the ancient city.

“It was an occasion to develop new, innovative materials and methods for conservation that can be used in the site and elsewhere,” said Rainer, explaining that other frescoes at the site had been covered by the same, damaging coating [that caused flaking in the triclinium wall paintings].

Indeed, the wealth of information from the conservation project and ongoing monitoring of conditions at the House of the Bicentenary will be of invaluable aid to the other sites struck by Vesuvius in 79 A.D. that are experiencing the same kinds of deterioration issues.

3,000-year-old Assyrian seal found Turkey

Ancient

Archaeologists have discovered a 3,000-year-old Assyrian seal cylinder in Turkey’s  southeastern Diyarbakir province. The seal was unearthed in an excavation at Zerzevan Castle, the ruins of a military base built by the Byzantine Empire in the 4th century.  The seal was discovered 13 feet under the surface of a field close to an underground Mithraeum that dates to the castle’s early days as an important military base. (Mithraism was extremely popular among soldiers who established the cave sanctuaries characteristic of the mystery religion all over the Empire.)

The seal has a unique inscribed godlike figure as well as a tree of life, a bird, and holy water in a vessel to nourish the tree of life, showing the importance of the seal, [noted Aytaç Coşkun, head of the excavation team].

Seals were often used in the ancient world to authenticate the source or authority of an object or document.

In continuous use as a military fortress until the Muslim conquests began in the 7th century, Zerzevan Castle protected the strategically important location on the ancient trade route between Amida (modern-day Diyarbakır) and Dara (modern-day Mardin). Major battles of the Byzantine–Sasanian wars (which continued off and on from 285 to ca. 628 A.D.) were fought at this site. At its peak, the castle covered 14 acres and included a civilian settlement with private homes, an extensive water system with canals and cisterns, a palace, an administrative building, a granary, arsenal, pagan sanctuaries and, later, a Christian chapel. The extensive ruins of the castle would house a small community again from the late 19th century through the 1960s when a village was founded in its environs. Archaeological excavations at Zerzevan Castle began in 2014 and have continued every year since.

This year’s excavation has born rich archaeological fruit. In addition to the seal, numerous bronze artifacts were found the date to around the same period. This suggests that the site was in use long before the construction of the castle in the 4th century, that there was an Assyrian presence, perhaps a fortified structure, perhaps a settlement, there before the Eastern Roman Empire was a twinkle in Constantine’s eye.

London’s largest Bronze Age hoard found

Ancient, Museums

A Bronze Age hoard discovered at a site overlooking the River Thames in east London is going on display for the first time at the Museum of London Docklands. Containing 453 assorted bronze objects, the hoard dates to between 900 and 800 B.C. Objects in the hoard include axe heads, spearheads, tools and fragments of blades from swords, daggers and knives. There are two very rare and unusual pieces in the assemblage: decorated terret rings from horse harnesses. This is the third largest Bronze Age hoard ever discovered in the UK and the largest found in London.

The hoard was found during an archaeological survey of a site slated for gravel extraction in Rainham in the London Borough of Havering on September 21st, 2018. The site was known to have Bronze Age features from aerial photographs taken in the 1960s. Earthworks, field systems and an enclosure could be identified in the shots, and archaeological excavations confirmed the presence of numerous Bronze Age sites. It was a crop marking on the site that spurred the archaeological investigation in advance of development.

Almost all of the objects are damaged. Only 77 of the 453 are intact, most of them axe heads. There is no indication of why they were assembled and buried together in a pit.

“We do have quite a few weapons, a lot of tools that relate to woodworking, so gouges, chisels, things like that, [and] we have a lot of objects that are used in metal working – like ingots that would be melted down to be able to cast the bronze tools and weapons,” said [Kate Sumnall, curator of the exhibition], adding that while the hoard included bracelets there was otherwise little jewellery. Intriguingly some items, including a number of woodworking axes, are more typical of elsewhere in Europe.

“Our site is not a little isolated site, it is much part of a bigger European connection, with a lot of trade, a lot of movement, a lot of communication of ideas and also of goods as well,” said Sumnall, adding that the axes appeared to have crossed the Channel. “Either it is trading or it is people coming across, bringing their own stuff with them.”

According to Sumnall there are myriad possible explanations for the hoard, ranging from it being an offering to gods to being a rubbish pile of bronze goods that were thrown away as iron took over as the metal of choice. Another suggestion is that it could have been the stash of a travelling metalworker who travelled from settlement to settlement.

The hoard was declared treasure at a coroner’s inquest in July of this year. The age and number of artifacts guaranteed that outcome. The Museum of London then acquired the hoard.

It will go on display in a dedicated exhibition at the Museum Of London Docklands from April 3rd through October 25th, 2020. After that, it will move to the Havering Museum, a cool community-focused museum that opened in 2010 in a renovated historic brewery near the hoard’s find site.

World’s oldest pearl found in Abu Dhabi

Ancient

The oldest pearl in the world is going on public display for the first time at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. It was discovered in 2017 at the site of a Neolithic settlement on Marawah Island off the western coast of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The pearl was radiocarbon dated to between 5800 and 5600 B.C. The lustrous natural pearl is less than three millimeters in diameter and is a pink in tone. It was found on the floor of a stone structure.

Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of [Department of Culture and Tourism] Abu Dhabi, said, “The Abu Dhabi Pearl is a stunning find, testimony to the ancient origins of our engagement with the sea. The discovery of the oldest pearl in the world in Abu Dhabi makes it clear that so much of our recent economic and cultural history has deep roots that stretch back to the dawn of prehistory. Marawah Island is one of our most valuable archaeological sites, and excavations continue in the hope of discovering even more evidence of how our ancestors lived, worked and thrived.” […]

Collapsed stone structures from Neolithic era on Marawah Island archaeological site. Photo courtesy Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi.The Neolithic sites on the island of Marawah were first identified in 1992 during a survey carried out by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS. Subsequent excavations have shown them to include numerous collapsed stone structures, the earliest architecture yet discovered in the UAE. Aside from the priceless Abu Dhabi Pearl, significant finds from the key Marawah site have included an imported ceramic vase from the ‘Ubaid civilisation in Mesopotamia (Iraq), beautifully worked flint arrowheads and shell and stone beads. Numerous painted plaster vessel fragments were also discovered and represent the earliest known decorative art yet discovered in the UAE. At the beginning of 2020, a major new excavation will take place to uncover more of the settlement.

To be clear, it’s not the oldest pearl ever formed. There are fossils of pearls dating back to the Cretaceous (145-65 million years ago). It’s their interaction with humans that is comparatively young, and little wonder given how well-concealed they are. The Abu Dhabi is the oldest known pearl found in an archaeological context and therefore the earliest known evidence of pearling anywhere in the world. The previous record-holder for oldest archaeological pearl, unearthed at a Neolithic site in Umm Al Quwain (also in the UAE) was radiocarbon dated to ca. 5500 B.C. That pearl was even smaller — about 1.7 mm in diameter — and was found in a burial placed above the upper lip of the deceased. 

Diving for pearls was dangerous and difficult work, but pearls and mother-of-pearl objects have been found at multiple Neolithic sites on the Arabian Peninsula. The former had ritual and aesthetic value; the latter was necessary to make fish hooks to catch large fish. Archaeologists believe they were also important trade items, bartered, for example, with Mesopotamia in exchange for decorative ceramics like the one found at Marawah. Pearling remained a crucial element of the economy of Arabian Gulf communities for thousands of years. Abu Dhabi was a center of traditional pearl diving and trade well into the 20th century.

The pearl will be part of the 10,000 Years of Luxury exhibition, the first museum exhibition dedicated to the history of luxury in the Middle East. It runs from October 30th through February 18th, 2020.