Cult figurines found in Pompeii domus

Ancient

The excavation of a domus neighboring the House of Leda and the Swan has uncovered 13 terracotta figurines believed to be associated with the cult of Cybele.

The domus is being excavated to secure the excavation fronts (the boundary areas between unexcavated and excavated sites). On December 11th, archaeologists removing a thick blanket of lapilli (the small pumice stones that pelted Pompeii in the first stage of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.) from a room in the domus uncovered a niche in the north-south wall. Inside the niche were 13 terracotta figurines between 15 and 20 cm high (6-8 inches) cast with bivalve molds (clay forms with the negatives of the front and back of the statuettes). They were painted in bright polychrome colors, traces of which survive.

The sculptures emerged from the pumice at a height of over 2 metres above the floor level. The walls of room that contained them, probably the atrium of the house, were painted and frescoes have emerged on the upper part of the walls.

The niche was lined with travertine blocks and the figurines were found upright in a horizontal line, suggesting they were lined up a shelf that was destroyed in the eruption. Many fragments of terracotta were also found, so there were probably many more statuettes on the shelf than the ones that remain largely intact. Most of them are anthropomorphic figures. Non-people represented include a walnut, an almond, the head of a rooster and a glass pine cone that somehow managed not to get smashed to smithereens.

The grouping of figures seem to refer to the myth of Cybele and Attis or to represent symbols used in the cult worship. Originating in Phrygia, the cult of Cybele worshipped her as the goddess of nature and its cycles (birth, death, renewal). According to the myth, Zeus spilled his seed on a stone while attempting to rape Cybele. The androgenous Agdistis was born from that seed. The gods castrated him and from that blood an almond was born. Nana, daughter of the river Sangarius, fell in love with the almond, got pregnant and gave birth to the handsome shepherd Attis. Cybele fell in love with her odd grandchild and forbade his marriage, so he castrated himself under a pine tree. He was then reborn and became Cybele’s consort. This cycle was key to the mystery cult, and Cybele’s priests, known as Galli (also the word for rooster) were eunuchs, said to have castrated themselves at the moment of greatest sexual pleasure as an offering to the goddess. The Galli had another ritual in which they used to beat their chests with pinecones.

One of the figurines is Attis, recognized by his Phrygian cap, the cist he carries, his shepherd’s crook and a rooster. There’s also a separate rooster votive figurine, the almond and pinecone and a fragmentary female figure depicting a mother about to give the breast to her infant.

Stolen Pompeii earthquake relief found in Belgian village stairwell

Ancient

An important marble relief depicting the earthquake of 62 A.D. that was stolen from Pompeii in 1975 has been found in affixed to the wall of a stairwell in a home in Herzele, Belgium. The strip of marble depicts the city in the grip of the earthquake, one of its gates captured in the moment it sheers off the defensive walls and collapses.

The homeowner, 85-year-old Raphaël De Temmerman, bought the relief under circumstances that were almost comically shady during a trip to Italy in 1975. He was visiting Pompeii with his little boy Geert when they were approached by a man carrying something heavy in a burlap bag. He showed them the contents — a marble slab — and asked them for money. A quick exchange of cash for goods, and the seller turned tail and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him.

De Temmerman took his “souvenir” home and added it to the new gray marble cladding on the staircase wall, a renovation inspired by Pompeii and ancient Rome. Only when he planned his move to an apartment earlier this year did he have the relief examined for appraisal and authentication. Experts from the Gallo-Roman museum in Tongeren confirmed it was authentic, but refused Temmerman’s offer to sell it to them. The day after, the judicial police came by with a search warrant.

De Temmerman finally learned the background of the piece from the documents left by the police. The marble relief had been stolen on July 14th, 1975, from the house of banker L. Caecilius Iucundus where it originally hung above the atrium altar.

“A fair amount is known about how the item was stolen at the time,” says Bart Demarsin of the Gallo-Roman Museum. He is one of the people who went to see the stone in Herzele and has no doubt that the piece is real: “It closely corresponds to the original piece that we recognise from the photos”.

The marble stone in question features a scene from the Pompeii earthquake in CE 62. “That piece corresponds to a similar piece, which also depicts buildings that collapsed during that earthquake,” Demarsin adds. The pieces originally came from the home of a wealthy Roman banker in the centre of Pompeii.

Both pieces were removed from the residence and had been on display at the site for a long time. Today the first piece is still on display in Pompeii’s museum, the other was stolen in the 1970s, and has now turned up in the house in Herzele.

Naturally Italy wants the relief back. Technically they would have to carry out an investigation to prove the theft and illicit transfer of the artifact to Belgian authorities before they can lodge an official claim, but experts from Pompeii are planning to view the relief to confirm for themselves whether it’s the long-lost original, and it’s likely Belgium will return it at that time.

Meanwhile, the De Temmermans want compensation for the looted object they bought out of a burlap sack on the street from a guy who fled the scene and are considering getting a lawyer to advocate for their interests. Their argument is that at least they kept the looted object safe for five decades after buying it and exporting it in violation of several Italian laws.

“The judicial police told us we might still be able to get compensation, because after all, the piece hung here for 50 years without anything happening to it. It could so easily have been sold on or broken.”

This news video shows the relief embedded in the marble wall of the stairs going down to the basement.

Early David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio restored

Renaissance

Caravaggio's 'David with the Head of Goliath' before restoration. Oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Photo by Alberto Otero Herranz. Caravaggio's 'David with the Head of Goliath' after restoration. Oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Photo by Alberto Otero Herranz.David with the Head of Goliath in the Prado Museum, the only work by the Baroque master Caravaggio in Madrid and one of only four in all of Spain, has been restored, revealing its original colors, tones and compositional elements that were hidden under years of dirt and yellowed varnish.

Created around 1600 when Caravaggio had just burst on the scene in Rome causing a sensation with his intense contrasts of light and dark and embrace of naturalism, this version of the Biblical story of the boy David’s triumph over the Philistine giant Goliath depicts David reaching to grab Goliath’s head, which he has just severed, by the hair to string it up with a rope. This was a radical new perspective for a story that had been so often painted before, and it would exert a powerful influence on artists who followed him.

It entered the Royal Collection in Madrid in 1794 and has been on display continuously since. Last year it was part of a Guido Reni exhibition and its dire need of conservation was so evident it caused comment. In September of this year, restorer Almudena Sánchez began the treatment process.

The principal aim of this restoration has been to reinstate the original image devised by Michelangelo Merisi, “il Caravaggio”, which had been disappearing over time beneath layers of dirt and oxidised varnish. The opaque nature of these old layers of varnish eliminated the space and depth in the composition. This made it more difficult to perceive the dimensions of the place in which David and Goliath are located, given that within the scene as a whole it was only possible to distinguish the parts of the figures brightly illuminated by the focused light source.

This issue was also partly the result of previous selective cleanings, which had essentially concentrated on the foreground planes and the most brightly lit parts of both figures, ignoring the background of the composition and the areas in shadow. The result was to gradually transform Caravaggio’s original chiaroscuro into a violent contrast of light and dark, leaving the figure of David outlined against a flat black background. The composition was consequently reduced to a single plane.

The yellowish tone of the old varnish altered Caravaggio’s original colours, giving a warmth to the pale, luminous tones of the flesh and clothing which totally modified the artist’s concept. In turn, the loss of transparency in the varnish blurred the volumes and eliminated the elements located in the background and in the areas of shadow. In these conditions it was only possible to appreciate the scene depicted by Caravaggio in a partial manner.

The restoration of the depth of field revealed significant areas of the complex composition previously lost to the darkness, including Goliath’s buttock on the right, his bent leg rising off the canvas behind David’s back. A previously invisible pale round of light around David’s head has also been uncovered.

X-rays revealed that Caravaggio had made a major change in composition: Goliath’s head was first captured still living, eyes wide, mouth open in a yell. Caravaggio changed that in the final version, half-closing his vacant eyes and making the opening of the mouth smaller so you can’t see his upper teeth and tongue.

According to Almudena Sánchez, the restorer who has undertaken the project: “This restoration reveals a new Caravaggio, giving us a previously unknown image of the painting, the true image of this great masterpiece which after so long in the shadow has recovered the light with which it was originally conceived.”

“Boy Bishop” token found in Norfolk

Medieval

A metal detectorist working with the National Trust has unearthed a medieval Christmas token at the Oxburgh Estate in Norfolk that was likely dispensed by a late medieval “Boy Bishop” in a St. Nicholas Day procession.

The token dates to between 1470 and 1560 and was designed to resemble coinage but was not legal tender. They were made of lead in penny, half penny and groat sizes. On December 6th, the Feast of St. Nicholas, a choirboy would be selected to wear bishop’s vestments, mitre and crook and lead a service and a procession to collect donations for the church. The Boy Bishop would throw tokens into the crowd during a procession through town, and those tokens could be exchanged for food in town during the holiday season between December 6th and December 28th.

Found at West Park near Oxburgh Hall in a survey as part of a parkland restoration project, the token is well-preserved on one side depicting a long cross with dots between the arms. The other side is heavily corroded but likely featured a portrait of St. Nicholas. It probably came from Bury St. Edmunds Abbey 30 miles away which was one of the richest and most influential monasteries in England.

[National Trust Archaeologist Angus Wainwright says:] “We believe that one of the inhabitants from Oxborough village must have made the long trip to Bury St Edmunds, around 27 miles, to see the festive ceremonies in the massive Abbey Church where they may have acquired the token. As one of the biggest buildings in Western Europe this must have been a mind-blowing experience for someone from a tiny village.

“This discovery shows how rich the cultural life of even the poorest folk could be in the Middle Ages. It’s also interesting that the Christmas period was a time for fun and celebration aimed at children, with a child taking on the role of the bishop, and St Nicholas as patron saint of children.”

The practice died with the Reformation as the monasteries were destroyed and the very concept of saint days discarded. The token is now on display at Oxburgh Hall.

Scandinavia’s oldest ship burial found in Norway

Medieval

A mound at Leka in central Norway has been identified as a ship burial constructed in the Merovingian era (550-800 A.D.), predating the Viking era by a hundred years. Radiocarbon dating results indicate the mound was built around 700 A.D., making it the oldest known ship burial in Scandinavia.

The Herlaugshaugen mound was surveyed this summer by archaeologists and volunteer metal detectorists at the behest of national and county heritage authorities. The team recovered large iron rivets, some with wood corroded around them, confirming that the mound contained a ship burial.

“This dating is really exciting because it pushes the whole tradition of ship burials quite far back in time,” said Geir Grønnesby, an archaeologist at the NTNU University Museum. […]

The development of shipbuilding has played a key role in the discussion about when and why the Viking Age started. We can’t say that the Viking Age started earlier based on this dating, but Grønnesby says that you don’t build a ship of this size without having a reason for doing so.

“The burial mound itself is also a symbol of power and wealth. A wealth that has not come from farming in Ytre Namdalen. I think people in this area have been engaged in trading goods, perhaps over great distances.”

The mound is located along a shipping route that at least from the mid-8th century was a key stop in the trade of whetstones to mainland Europe, so it stands to reason that the locals could have had the knowledge, skills and incentive to build large ships.

At 200 feet in diameter, Herlaugshaugen is one of the largest burial mounds in Norway. It was first excavated in the late 18th century. Those early excavations reportedly unearthed a bronze cauldron, animal bones, iron nails and most dramatically of all, a seated skeleton with a sword. The finds were lost, disappearing from view in the 1920s. The skeleton, also missing, was exhibited as the semi-legendary 9th century king Herlaug, after whom the mound was named.

According to the Heimskringla, the collection of sagas of the kings of Norway by 13th century chronicler Snorri Sturlason, Herlaug and his brother Hrollaug co-ruled the petty kingdom of Naumudal, north of Trondheim, in the 860s A.D. The minor kingdoms were constantly squabbling with each other, and in 866 A.D., Harald Hårfagre, king of Agder, started a campaign to defeat them all and unite Norway under his rule. Many kinglets went down to defeat. After his conquest of Trondheim, the brother kings knew they were next. They had very different reactions to the news.

North in Naumudal were two brothers, kings,—Herlaug and Hrollaug; and they had been for three summers raising a mound or tomb of stone and lime and of wood. Just as the work was finished, the brothers got the news that King Harald was coming upon them with his army. Then King Herlaug had a great quantity of meat and drink brought into the mound, and went into it himself, with eleven companions, and ordered the mound to be covered up. King Hrollaug, on the contrary, went upon the summit of the mound, on which the kings were wont to sit, and made a throne to be erected, upon which he seated himself. Then he ordered feather-beds to be laid upon the bench below, on which the earls were wont to be seated, and threw himself down from his high seat or throne into the earl’s seat, giving himself the title of earl. Now Hrollaug went to meet King Harald, gave up to him his whole kingdom, offered to enter into his service, and told him his whole proceeding. Then took King Harald a sword, fastened it to Hrollaug’s belt, bound a shield to his neck, and made him thereupon an earl, and led him to his earl’s seat; and therewith gave him the district Naumudal, and set him as earl over it.

The newly-discovered date means the skeleton found within was not in fact Herlaug, but rather an elite individual who died close to two centuries before the king of lore sealed himself into his own tomb in a final act of defiance.