Ed. note: It would be nice to get a descriptor more compelling and useful than “pristine.”
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Archaeological excavations in the Black Sea province of Amasya have revealed 2,000-year-old mosaics with kilim-like motifs that are believed to date back from the Roman period.
The excavations are being carried out by the Amasya Museum Directorate in the Yavru village. Officials said that the mosaics with kilim motifs were “unique.”
Çorum-based Hitit University Black Sea Archaeology Research and Practice Center Deputy Director Associate Professor Esra Keskin said the mosaics that had been found in a palace-like place had a different design when compared to the other artifacts in the same era.
Keskin said the mosaics were surrounded by curbstones. “The eye shapes on the kilim designs of the mosaics still retain their secrets. The mosaics cover an area of 30 square meters and the kilim-like motifs on it show that they might have been the coat of arms of a military unit in the Roman era.”
Please spread the word to your colleagues and students about these exciting new courses organised by the Herculaneum Centre that will be running in September 2012 and March 2013. The courses are intended for university students of Roman history, archaeology, architecture, history of art and material culture, heritage management and conservation. On-site teaching will take place at Pompeii and Herculaneum and also at lesser-known sites like the Villa Sora; there will be classroom presentations to establish context, and guest lectures from local and international scholars. All nationalities are welcome (although teaching is in English).
See Blogging Pompeii for more information.
Back in the early fall, I wrote an entry for the Joukowsky Institute at Brown University ‘Archaeology for the People' competition. The aim of the competition was for archaeologists to sort of translate their scholarly writing into something for the general public without over-simplifying or romanticizing our work.
My entry did not win. Please enjoy my award-losing essay here.
Bulgarian Customs Capture Roman Statue at Turkish Border
The Bulgarian Customs Agency has bestowed upon the Regional History Museum in Burgas a statue of a Roman goddess or a female aristocrat that they captured at the Bulgaria-Turkey border.
The Roman statue is dated to the 2nd century AD; it was seized during a customs check at the Lesovo border crossing point from a Volvo truck with Turkish license plates transporting clothes from Turkey to Belgium via Bulgaria.
The statue was formally received as a donation Wednesday by Tsonya Drazheva, head of the Burgas Regional History Museum in connection with the European Cultural Heritage Days.
Under the Bulgarian legislation, the Roman statue will be kept in the Black Sea city of Burgas until the respective authorities figure out its origen and whether it has been stolen and searched for by Interpol.
More at the link.
BBC History - How Romans made marble statues ‘real’
The Romans have a reputation for being brilliant engineers and soldiers, but what isn’t as well known is that they also gave us wonderful artistic treasures.
The latest scientific techniques suggest that marble statues in the ancient world were not as monochromatic as we may imagine.
Alastair Sooke looks at the Treu Head in the British Museum, an important and rare marble head from the mid-second century AD, which would have been painted to make her look “like a real person”.
see the BBC site for video
Largest Roman mosaic in Southern Turkey unearthed by archeological team
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln archeological team, led by Hixson-Lied Professor of Art History Michael Hoff, has uncovered a massive Roman mosaic in southern Turkey – a meticulously crafted, 1,600-square-foot work of decorative handiwork built during the region’s imperial zenith.It’s believed to be the biggest mosaic of its type and demonstrates the reach and cultural influence of the Roman Empire in the area in the third and fourth centuries A.D., said Hoff, the director of the excavation.“This is very possibly the largest Roman mosaic found in the region,” Hoff said. “And its large size also signals, in no small part, that the outward signs of the Roman Empire were, in fact, very strong in this far-flung area of the Empire.”The discovery will aid researchers studying the region. Since 2005, Hoff’s team has been excavating the remains of the ancient city of Antiochia ad Cragum on the southern Turkish coast. Antiochus of Commagene, a client-king of Rome, founded the ancient city in the middle of the first century.“The mosaic is a quintessential Roman artistic element. This hammers home how Roman this city truly is,” Hoff said. “We always thought this was a peripheral Roman city, but it’s becoming more and more clear that it’s weighted more on the Roman side than the native side. The mosaic really emphasizes the pure Roman nature of this city and should answer a lot of questions regarding the interaction between the indigenous locals and the Roman Empire.”
Libyan authorities unveil ancient Roman figurines seized from Gadhafi forces
The pieces included a female figurine evocative of ancient fertility symmbols, several small stone human heads and two ornate terracotta fragments. Algabe said the figurines were likely used in pagan worship and dated back to the second and third centuries A.D., when a swathe of North Africa belonged to the Roman Empire.
Algabe said the pieces were seized from a car on the road to Tripoli’s airport in August as revolutionary forces were sweeping into the capital. It appeared Gadhafi’s forces wanted to smuggle them out of the country and sell them at auction to fund their fight, he said. Officials did not know how much the objects were worth.
The pieces probably do not represent a major component of Libya’s wealth of artifacts from the Roman era. Still, officials played up their recovery as significant.
Golden medallions featuring inscriptions and images found in a gravesite dating to the Roman era in Debelt, a village in the region of Bourgas on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, have been identified by archaeologists as being from the second century CE.
According to archaeologists, the graves are those of veterans of the eighth legion of Augustus. They are in the western part of the ancient Roman colony of Deultum, according to a report on July 17 2012 by public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television.
Today the gravesite is next to a street in the latter-day village of Debelt. Deultum, in its time, was known as “Little Rome in Thrace”, the report said.
The find was made by accident while people were pouring concrete for construction. The vibration of the concrete mixer caused the surface to crack and a tomb was found.
Krasimira Kostova, director of the Archaeological Museum in Debelt, said that the find was of extremely high value. The valuable gifts were evidence that the people who lived there were of high status.
The finds included golden jewellery and a needle, beads and scrapers used by the ancient Romans for bathing and massage and in medicine as a means of inserting medication in the ears and throat, the report said. All of these were signs of urban life in what was then an important place in the Roman empire.
An inter-ministerial committee will decide what will become of the site. According to the report, Debelt archaeological reserve is the only one in Bulgaria to have “European archaeological heritage” status.
A PAIR of first century bronze statues about to be sold on the black market have been recovered by police in Jaen.
The Roman figures, valued at six million euros each, were taken from the ancient Roman site of Sacilis Marcialis and are believed to form part of the Castor and Polix sculpture in Cordoba.
The statues, 1.50m and 1.30m in size, depict two naked males, with each piece weighing about 30 kilos and in a good state of conservation, although one has lost part of his chest and the other his genitals.
Police managed to trace the figures to a finca in Pedro Abad, in Cordoba, owned by two brothers who were planning to sell them for half their value.
According to police commissioner Daniel Salgado they were about to be sold on the black market to an Italian buyer via an intermediary.
Interpol are now hunting for the buyer.
One of the brothers has also been arrested and two other people charged with a crime against heritage and the attempted smuggling of historic property.
The statues will now be taken to the Cordoba Museum to be restored.
“It has been flattened,” spokesman Einar Bjorgo told AFP news agency.
Horrific.