by Mary Harrsch © 2025
Roman Times
An online magazine about current archaeology and classical research into the lives of inhabitants of the Roman Empire and Byzantium and the civilizations around them.
Saturday, October 18, 2025
The Changing Faces of Death: Etruscan Funerary Urns in Central Italy
Friday, October 17, 2025
7th century BCE Ivory depicting the "Sons of Tinia," precursor to Castor and Pollux
7th century BCE Ivory depicting the "Sons of Tinia" precursor to Castor and Pollux
Here is another double horse-headed pendant carved of ivory said to be from the area near Tivoli, Italy and dated to the 7th century BCE that I also photographed at the Ashmolean Museum in 2016 while I was in Oxford.
![]() |
Double horse-headed pendant carved of ivory said to be from the area near Tivoli, Italy and dated to the 7th century BCE photographed at the Ashmolean Museum by the author. |
Tivoli (ancient Tibur) lay on the eastern edge of Latium Vetus, just east of Rome, in an area inhabited by the Latini, one of the Italic tribes that formed the Latin League. However, by the late 8th–7th century BCE, this region was deeply influenced by Etruscan art and trade from the north and Greek and Phoenician luxury goods arriving through coastal markets such as Veii and Caere.
Thus, the piece was most likely made by a local Latin artisan or a craftsman working in an Etruscan-influenced workshop—possibly even in nearby Veii or Praeneste (Palestrina)—where such hybrid artistic traditions flourished.
The horse motif itself was widely used by Etruscans, Latins, and Sabines as a symbol of power, fertility, and divine favor. Its mirrored composition echoes both Etruscan repoussé bronzes (like the one I posted yesterday) and Near Eastern ivory plaques, showing how international visual language was adopted by Italic elites.
Elephant ivory from Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt was a prized imported luxury material in central Italy during this period, most likely obtained through Phoenician and Greek traders. Carthaginian and Cypriot merchants traded North African ivory as early as the 8th century BCE, which also reached Tyrrhenian ports. Workshops at Caere (Cerveteri) and Veii imported and crafted raw ivory into inlays, handles, and small sculpted objects similar in style to this pendant.
As with the bronze pendant I posted yesterday, the face-to-face horseheads probably reference the divine twins motif again, representing protection, fertility, or martial strength. In central Italy during the 7th century BCE, depictions of twin horsemen begin appearing in Etruscan bronzes, Praenestine cistae, and Latial ivory plaques, reflecting contact with Greek mythological imagery from the eastern Mediterranean.
Before full Hellenization, these paired horsemen likely embodied indigenous Italic guardian deities connected with fertility, initiation, and protection of travelers or warriors. The Etruscans referred to them as the Tinas Cliniar (“Sons of Tinia”), while the Latins later adopted the Greek names Castor and Pollux, integrating them into Roman religion.
The piece could have served as a pectoral ornament, harness fitting, or votive offering. The use of imported ivory would have underscored elite status and cosmopolitan taste—typical of aristocratic display goods in Latium and southern Etruria.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Etruscan influence in metalworking of the Golasecca and Veneti cultures
By Mary Harrsch © 2025
![]() |
Bronze pendant from north Italy possibly from the Golasecca culture dated to between 800-500 BCE photographed at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford by Mary Harrsch. |
Monday, September 15, 2025
Signals, Colors, and Cuckolds: Reading Roman Comic Art
by Mary Harrsch © 2025
I found another interesting theatrical scene found in either Herculaneum or Pompeii and reproduced by Henri Roux Ainé in a copper engraving and reproduced in Barré’s 1839 text. Barré interprets it as a comedic slave holding his left hand in a signal indicating a cuckolded husband. On the right we see an embarrassed young woman and an older woman that Barré describes as wearing a red headdress and all red clothing that would normally signal to the audience she was, "a mother of a courtesan or an old woman who traffics in the dishonor of young girls," what we would call in modern terms, a Madame, who secures men for young women working as prostitutes. However, she looks equally grief-stricken at the gesture indicating she is either a matronly companion or mother of the younger woman. Barré uses this image to decry "the comic theater of the ancients in terms of decency, nobility, and dignity."
Barré’s interpretation of the matronly figure is really just based on her red attire. The girl is wearing nothing immodest and her attire is described as a blue undergarment with a white overgarment. I assume he identifies the slave because of the comic mask and the fact that he wears a short, striped yellow tunic and cloak.
In Roman comedy, masks and short tunics in yellow, brown, and other “common” hues were associated with low status. Maidens were often depicted in delicate colors such as white and blue which Barré tells us in his translated text is the case here. A lena or procuress was usually depicted as an older woman in gaudy or bright colors, sometimes red as in this case that is meant to signal vulgarity on stage. However, the facial expressions of both the younger woman and the matronly woman appear to be embarrassment and I don’t think that would be the case if the older woman was a procuress even though Barré’s interpretation was based upon known ancient theatrical costumes.
Red
and especially crimson was produced with a luxury dye, that under normal
circumstances connoted wealth. However, it was also associated with sensuality
and women of questionable reputation when used in theatrical or satirical
contexts. Wall paintings often transposed these stage conventions, but with
artistic license. The frescoes in domestic settings weren’t exact reproductions
of stage costumes — instead, they gave viewers enough hints (mask, garment length, bright vs. modest colors) to
trigger recognition of stock types.
Saturday, September 13, 2025
Decoding a 2,000-Year-Old Theatrical Mystery from Herculaneum or Pompeii
by Mary Harrsch © 2025
![]() |
Print from a copper engraving by Henri Roux the Elder of a fresco found in either Herculaneum or Pompeii of characters in a tragic play included in an 1839 text by Louis Barré |
ClaudeAI agreed saying: "The way the fabric drapes around the center figure's head and face, creating that enveloping hood-like effect, is very characteristic of how the sakkos was typically depicted in ancient art. This head covering was particularly associated with older women, married women, and those in domestic or religious roles - exactly the kind of character you've identified as the nurse figure.
"This detail further supports your interpretation of this figure as the nurse or old woman character type from tragic drama. The sakkos would have been an immediately recognizable visual cue to ancient audiences about this character's identity and function in the scene - the wise, older female attendant or confidante to the tragic heroine.
"It's exactly the kind of costume detail that ancient artists used to help viewers instantly "read" the dramatic roles and relationships in a scene.