Month: November 2021

The history of writing in 1.5 hours

Ancient, Multimedia

Among the many treasures of this summer’s virtual lecture series accompanying the Getty Museum’s exhibition on 3000 years of Mesopotamian history, there was one particularly sparkly jewel. From Laundry Lists to Liturgies: The Origins of Writing in Ancient Mesopotamia was an absolute revelation, and I’m not just saying that because it was hosted by my favorite Assyriologist, Dr. Irving Finkel of the British Museum. Dr. Finkel and Getty Museum Director Timothy Potts cover an enormous amount of ground on the origins and evolution of cuneiform: the first known writing system, its beginnings as a combination of pictograms and impressions, the incredible complexity of early Mesopotamian mathematics, writing’s shift from drawing to symbol to sound and ever so much more. The discussion lasted an hour and a half and I was riveted the entire time.

The webinar took place on August 11th, and I have been waiting impatiently ever since for the Getty to upload it to their YouTube channel as they did for the other videos in the series soon after the live debut. Finally two weeks ago I emailed the Getty’s Public Programs coordinator asking forlornly whether something had gone awry with the one video I was keenest to share. Something had — they didn’t get into specifics, just that they had experienced difficulties with the upload — but they were optimistic it would be up within a couple of weeks.

The couple of weeks have elapsed and the video is at long last available. Set aside a block of time and bask in the illumination:

4th c. B.C. Greek amphora pits found in Marseille

Ancient

A preventative archaeology excavation in Marseille has unearthed three pits of Greek amphorae dating to the 4th century B.C. Archaeologists have been excavating the site of an office building renovation in a neighborhood of the city that was extensively reconstructed in the second half of the 19th century. A 16th century convent was on the site before then. The Greek-era pit had been absorbed into this much later construction.

The oldest city is what is now France, Marseille was founded as Massalia by colonists from the Ioanian Greek city of Phocaea in around 600 B.C. It was an emporion (trading post) for the burgeoning Ioanian Greek trade networks in the Western Mediterranean. Local production of amphorae and ceramics began virtually immediately to facilitate the transportation, consumption and storage of imported goods like wine and cereals. By the 4th century B.C., Massalia was a power center on the coast of southern Gaul, founding cities from The Pillars of Hercules to Corsica.

The recent excavation attests to Massalia’s active pottery industry in what was then the periphery of the city. The archaeological team discovered three pits with vertical walls. The first pit was filled with rubble rich in charcoal, clay nodules, kiln fragments and overfired ceramics. This was clearly a reject pit. Pieces from the potters’ workshop, likely located nearby, that failed to meet expectations were tossed into the first pit. The second pit is partially filled with complete Massalian amphorae that were arranged in layers. The third pit was damaged in modern construction and contains ceramic fragments that have yet to be dated.

The excavation made it possible to collect a large quantity of ceramic furniture, crockery and amphorae, dating homogeneously from the second half of the 4th century B.C. and illustrating the diversity of Massalian productions. The shapes identified correspond mainly to locally made dishes, cups or jugs. Mortars and amphorae also contain a paste rich in mica fragments, typical of Marseille potters’ workshops. Some of these are stamped with Greek letters that increase the body of [known Greek maker’s marks in] the south of France. A few shards of untreated Gallic ceramic as well as Attic imports complete the lot. Fragments of Etruscan, Phoenician-Punic and Iberian amphorae, correspond to older vases, are probably found in a residual position.

Mass grave of 25 women, children found in Chan Chan

Ancient

Archaeologists have unearthed a mass grave containing the remains of 25 individuals, mostly women, at the pre-Inca site of Chan Chan near Trujillo in northern Peru. The bodies were  wrapped in layers of fabric and arranged in seated positions within an excavation area of 10 square meters at the southern wall of the Chimu citadel. They were buried with 70 pottery vessels and artifacts associated with textile work.

According to Jorge Meneses —head of the archaeological research project— this find is unusual due to its characteristics and location in a raised area of the Utzh An (Great Chimu) walled complex.

“Most of them (the remains) belonged to women under 30 who were buried with objects used in textile activities, a couple of children, and a couple of teenagers. It is a very specific population, not too young considering the average human lifespan was 40 years,” he remarked.

At first examination, there is no evidence that the people in the grave were human sacrifices. They were not buried at the same time. One individual was buried shortly after his death. Some of the other people’s bones were bleached and disarticulated, indicating they had been moved to the mass grave after having decomposed at another location.

It is an unusual combination of features because while it is a mass grave, the burials and reburials were done with care and the quality and quantity of goods buried as funerary offerings suggest the deceased may have been members of the Chimu elite.

Tudor grotesque paintings found under walls

Renaissance

A complete 16th century wall painting has been discovered beneath a 19th century plaster wall at Calverley Old Hall in Leeds, Yorkshire. The painting covers the full surface of the Tudor wall. It was done in black, ochre and white pigments in the grotesque style, featuring fantastical beasts and men with climbing vine ornaments and columns. The date of the work could be as early as the 1540s. Most surviving wall paintings in English homes date to after 1575, so this could prove to be an exceptionally early example.

Grotesque was all the rage at the time, spurred by the rediscovery of the Domus Aurea in the 1480s and the Renaissance masters like Raphael and Michelangelo who were inspired by its wall frescoes. From Italy the style spread to Northern Europe where engravers printed illustrated books that were widely used as references by artisans. The grotesque wall paintings at Calverley Old Hall were likely made by local or traveling artists working off print books like these.

The Grade I-listed manor house has surviving elements that go back to 1300 and was extensively remodeled, added to and subtracted from for centuries. The last major addition dates to the first half of the 17th century. The Calverley family sold the estate in 1754 and it was divided into cottages. Except for the divider walls that separated the space for cottage tenants, the manor house is largely unaltered. The Landmark Trust bought Calverley in 1981, restoring two cottages for let. Since then it has restored the Chapel and the roof of the Great Hall, but the rest of the property, including the early 15th century timber-frame Solar Wing, unique in the country, and the interior of the late 15th century Great Hall, has simply been kept weathertight to protect it.

After a major fundraising appeal, the Landmark Trust has undertaken a comprehensive restoration of Calverley. The first phase is a thorough documentation of its current derelict state. The restorers were removing small areas of 19th century plaster in a cottage behind the Solar Wing to inspect the timber framing for any rot or damage when they spotted streaks of color on the oak. They called in specialists to investigate further. Removal of plaster from five more spots on the wall revealed the colors were part of a wall painting. Full removal off the plaster and lath exposed a complete wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling mural.

The top frieze of the mural features alternating Tudor roses and pomegranates. Symbol of the resurrection of Christ, a pomegranate (granada in Spanish) was added to the royal arms of Ferdinand and Isabella after the conquest of Granada in 1492 and their daughter Catherine of Aragon joined her family’s pomegranate to Henry VIII’s rose for her heraldic badge after her marriage in 1509. The two appeared frequently in prints, reliefs and manuscripts until the queen’s arms were replaced by the new queen’s arms when Henry married Anne Boleyn in 1533. The painting was done after both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn died and is likely a reference to the Calverleys’ Catholicism.

So who might have commissioned these wonderful paintings? The dendrochronology suggests that the roof (and therefore main structure) of the block was built 1514-39. The block had two phases (perhaps beginning as a stair turret) and its floor was inserted later, between 1547-85. This is a tantalisingly wide span of dates that covers a multitude of national and family events. The archaeology currently suggests the later period for the paintings – but even that is excitingly early.

At the moment, the most likely person to have commissioned the painted chamber seems to be Sir William Calverley (c. 1500-1572). He was knighted in 1548, and became Sheriff of York in 1549, a man of high estate and important affairs. We believe that the painted chamber was only ever reached at first floor level from the family’s private rooms and had its own private access directly onto the gallery of the family chapel. Perhaps it was Sir William’s privy chamber, where he entertained only his closest friends and associates. Or perhaps it was his second wife, Elizabeth Sneyd’s private parlour, a refuge from vigorous Sir William’s seventeen offspring.

The Landmark Trust is now raising funds to thoroughly conserve and display this unique artistic treasure. Donate online here.

Largest hoard of Roman silver found in Augsburg

Ancient, Treasures

City archaeologists in Augsburg have unearthed the largest Roman silver hoard ever discovered in Bavaria. The hoard of approximately 5,600 silver denarii from the 1st and 2nd centuries was found in the Oberhausen district, the oldest part of the city, at the site of a planned residential development.

The coins in the hoard range in date from the reign of Nero in the mid-1st century to that of Septimius Severus shortly after 200 A.D. Emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius are represented, as is a far less prominent emperor, Didius Julianus, who reigned for all of three months (March-June 193) after buying the purple when it was auctioned off by the Praetorian Guard. His coinage is much rarer, therefore, as his window to mint money was so short.

Augsburg was founded under Augustus between 8 and 5 B.C. as the Roman military camp on the banks of the Wertach river near its confluence with the Lech river. It was the earliest Roman fort established in the Alpine foothills, freshly conquered in 15 B.C. by Augustus’ stepson Tiberius. By around 10 A.D., the temporary camp had been transformed into a fort capable of housing 3,000 soldiers. A civilian settlement outside the camp quickly grew into the town of Augusta Vindelicorum which became the capital of the new Imperial province of Raetia in the reign of Tiberius. While there were no legions quartered there after 70 A.D., the city continued to grow and prosper

At the end of the 3rd century, the Emperor Diocletian reformed imperial administration and the province was governed by a dux, the top military authority in the region. Lesser government officials still administered the day-to-day civil affairs of the province from Augusta Vindelicorum.

The silver coins were discovered not far from the site of the earliest Roman base in Bavaria, also in the gravel of an old Wertach river bed. The area of ​​a future residential area had been archaeologically examined there. A container could no longer be identified. “We assume that the treasure was buried outside the city of Augusta Vindelicum near the Via Claudia running there in the early 3rd century and was never recovered. The hiding place was probably washed away many centuries later by floods in Wertach and the coins were thus scattered in the river gravel,” explains Sebastian Gairhos, head of Augsburg’s city archeology. “A simple soldier earned between 375 and 500 denarii in the early 3rd century. The treasure therefore has the equivalent of around 11 to 15 annual salaries.”

In addition to the coin hoard, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of Roman artifacts in the gravel from the former river bed (the Wertach’s path was straightened in 1900). They found weapons, tools, jewelry, dishes, vessels and much more sifting through 1000 cubic meters of river gravel, all of them believed to have come from the 1st century B.C. military base.

The recovered objects, many of which are heavily corroded and thick with concretions from centuries spent on a riverbed, will be analyzed and conserved. The city hopes to find a permanent home for them in a new museum dedicated to Augsburg’s Roman history, but that’s a bit of a pipe dream at the moment since there are no plans for its construction. Meanwhile, a selection of the coins from the hoard and other artifacts found in the excavation will go briefly on display at the Armory House of Augsburg from December 17, 2021 to January 9, 2022.