Sciency Thoughts: Statues

Showing posts with label Statues. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 September 2023

Australian National University agrees to return stolen artefacts to Italy.

The Australian National University has agreed to return three Greco-Roman items from the collection of its Classics Museum after establishing that they were removed from the country illegally, according to a press release issued by the university on 15 September 2023. The first of these items is an amphora with a depiction of Herakles slaying the Nemean Lion on one side and a pair of warriors fighting on the reverse, known as the Johnson Vase, which is believed to have come from the workshop of the Athenian artist Exekias, who was active between 545 and 530 BC. This item was purchased from an auction at Sotherby's in London in 1984, from a dealer subsequently identified as having been involved in the trade in stolen artefacts.

The Attic belly amphora, with two warriors in combat, a slain warrior between their feet and a male attendant figures to either side. Australian National Museum.

The Johnson Vase was identified as having been stolen from Italy by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, using an Artificial Intelligence system to search museum catalogues for missing art. After being contacted by the Caribinieri the Australian National University began an investigation into its collection, eventually identifying two further artefacts as stolen from Italy. The first of these, an Apulian red-figure Fish-plate, which was obtained in 1984 from Holland Coins and Antiquities, an American dealership run by David Holland Swingler, who was later unmasked as a major player in the international trade in stolen art, who smuggled stolen artefacts from Italy to the US in consignments of pasta and other foodstuffs.

Georgia Pike-Rowney of the Australian National University with the Apulian Fish-plate. Jamie Kidston/Australian National Museum.

The third item identified as having been stolen from Italy was a Roman marble portrait head, again obtained from Sotherby's, although this time in 1968, and which was found to have belonged to the collection of the Vatican, and to have disappeared while display in the Lateran Palace in Rome.

A Roman marble head in the collection of the Australian National Museum, found to have been stolen from the Lateran Palace in Rome in thw 1960s. Jamie Kidston/Australian National Museum.

The Australian National Museum has reached an agreement with the Caribinieri whereby the Johnson Vase and Apulian Fish-plate will remain on display in the Classics Museum for four years, and remain in the collection for study for a further four years, before being returned to Rome. The Roman head is expected to be returned to the Vatican in the near future.

The depiction of Herakles slaying the Nemean Lion on the Johnson Vase. Bob Miller/Australain National Museum.

Saturday, 16 September 2023

Roman Triton statue uncovered at Teynham archaeological site in Kent, England.

A Triton statue has been unearthed by archaeologists excavating a Roman mausoleum at Teynham in Kent, southern England. A section of Roman wall was he discovered at the site in 2017 during exploratory excavation work by a commercial archaeological company, related to a planned roundabout on the A2 Road (which follows the path of the Roman Wattling Street), with formal excavations by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust beginning in May 2023. These excavations found that the wall section was part of a walled enclosure with an area of about 30 m³, surrounding a square structure with an area of about 8 m³, with the whole standing in a precinct enclosure 65 m by 70 m, and surrounded by a ditch.

Plan of the Roman site excavated at Teynham in Kent. Canterbury Archaeological Trust.

Previous finds from the site include a Roman coin thought to date from between 320 and 330 AD, giving an approximate age to the site. The Triton figure was found placed carefully within a clay water tank which had been filled with burnt material, and lends support to the idea that the mausoleum is related to the nearby Bax Farm archaeological site, Roman villa decorated with maritime deities.

A Roman Triton statue uncovered at Teynham in Kent. Canterbury Archaeological Trust.

The exact nature of Triton changed over time. To the Hellenistic Greeks, he was a son of Poseidon and Amphitrite (the God and Goddess of the Sea, respectively) and an important Sea God in his own right. To the Early Romans, he was a son of Neptune, a minor Sea God usually depicted as a Merman. However, over time this idea appears to have changed, with the singular God Triton turning into a more generic term for a race of Mermen, the Tritons, who served as messengers of the God Neptune. Given the presumed Late Roman date of the Teynham Mausoleum this may have been the intended nature of the Triton statue found there.

Friday, 25 August 2023

Archaeologists uncover three-headed statue of the Goddess Hectate at Kelenderis on the southern coast of Anatolia.

Archaeologists from Batman Üniversitesi in Turkey have uncovered a three-headed statue of the Goddess Hecate while carrying out excavations at the ancient city of Kelenderis, close to the modern town of Aydıncık in Mercin Province, according to a press release issued by the university on 18 August 2023. Hecate was worshipped by the Ancient Greeks, and other peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, and was associated with magic, witchcraft, boundaries, doorways, night, light, the Moon, herbalism, graves, ghosts, necromancy, Dogs, and Snakes. Hecate was often depicted with a triple form, as three closely associated female figures, which may have given rise to the European belief in witches coming in threes. Interestingly, although Hecate was worshipped by the Greeks, and the oldest known depictions of her are all from Greece, it is thought likely that she was imported at some point from Anatolia and incorporated into the Greek religion. The Kelenderis statue of Hecate, however, is not evidence of this, as it depicts Hecate with three heads, a practice which is known to have started in Athens in the fifth century BC, and which implies that the statue dates from the Hellenistic Period at Kelendris.

A tripple-headed statue of the Goddess Hecate, uncovered at Kelenderis on the southern coast of Anatolia. Batman Üniversitesi.

The city of Kelenderis dates back to at least the eighth century BC, and was probably originally founded by the Phoenicians, although it appears to have attracted Greek settlers early in its history, and by the by the fifth century BC was a thriving Greek port. The city formed part of the Delian League, which fought against the Achaemenid Empire under the leadership of Athens, between 460 and 454 BC, but when Athens made peace with the Achaemenids, Kelenderis was effectively ceded to the empire, not coming back under Greek control until Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in 330 BC.