Roman stucco

 Traditional stucco was made of lime, sand, and water. Animal or plant fibers were often added for additional strength. Stucco was easily molded or modeled into relief decoration for walls, ceilings, and floors and was traditionally used as both an interior and exterior finish applied in one or two thin layers directly over a solid masonry, brick, or stone surface. The finish coat often contained an integral color and was typically textured for appearance.

Stucco relief was used in the architectural decoration schemes of many ancient cultures. Examples of Egyptian, Minoan, and Etruscan stucco reliefs remain extant. In the art of Mesopotamia and ancient Persian art there was a widespread tradition of figurative and ornamental internal stucco reliefs.

In Roman art of the late Republic and early Empire, stucco was used extensively for the decoration of vaults. Though marble was the preferred sculptural medium in most regards, stucco was better for use in vaults because it was lighter and better suited to adapt to the curvature of the ceiling.  Stuccowork grew in popularity in late Republican and early imperial Rome as a result of the construction boom associated with brick and cement construction. 

"Artists working in Roman Italy created expansive stucco schemes in private homes, tombs, and public buildings, particularly in baths. On walls, architectural members such as balustrades, column capitals, pilasters, columns, cornices, and frieze borders were fashioned in stucco and integrated into painted schemes. The stucco elements enhanced the two-dimensional decorative surfaces with projecting architectural members, adding a play of light and shadow to the interior spaces. The pieces in high relief were secured to the walls with metal rods or nails. Some forms were molded before they were attached to the walls, but other shapes and designs, such as cornices or frieze borders, were stamped into semi-dry plaster after application to the wall or ceiling. The stamped patterns imitated the egg-and-dart and vegetal borders carved on monumental architecture, a fashion that is also seen in contemporary Roman wall paintings, particularly those painted in the Second Style." - Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Read more about it at:

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/stuc/hd_stuc.htm

To see many of the stuccos in the tepidarium of the Forum Baths in Pompeii:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Forum_Thermae_(Pompeii)_-_Stuccos_in_Tepidarium

1st century CE stucco relief of a woman with deer from a Roman villa that I photographed at the Art Institute of Chicago

Stucco reliefs that I photographed in the tepidarium of the Forum Baths in Pompeii in 2007

Stucco relief fragment with standing figure identified as the Emperor Antoninus Pius on the basis of his similarity to known portraits. Before him kneels a barbarian suppliant. 138–161 CE, Roman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Stucco relief panel depicting nude female, 2nd half of 1st century CE, Roman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Stucco relief panel depicting nude follower of Dionysus, 2nd half of 1st century CE, Roman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Stucco relief panel depicting maenad with tympanum, 2nd half of 1st century CE, Roman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Stucco relief panel depicting Eros, 2nd half of 1st century CE, Roman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Stucco relief panel depicting a painther frequently associated with Dionysus, 2nd half of 1st century CE, Roman, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

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Byzantine Temple Pendants

 Temple pendants are thought to have hung near the temple or cheek, suspended from the wearer’s hair or headdress. The pendant’s hollow interior probably held a piece of perfumed cloth. A small stick would have been used to guide the cloth in and out of the pendant.

When Kievan Rus, a powerful new state to the north of the Byzantine Empire, accepted Christianity as its official religion in 988, the aristocracy also adopted the manners and dress of the Byzantine court. Local artists soon produced their own versions of Constatinopolitan fashions. Temple pendants of precious metals worked in cloisonné enamel or niello are local variants of the more intricately detailed works made for the Byzantine court. As in Byzantium, temple pendants may have been worn next to the face by both the men and the women of Rus. The works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art were perhaps buried by their owners when the Mongol armies under Batu Khan sacked Kiev in 1240.

In her paper "Temple Pendants' in Medieval Rus': How Were They Worn?", Ntalija Ristovska points out that  excavated burials with the precise location of ornaments on the body revealed by oxide staining on the skeleton, have shown that up to 12 rings were worn entangled in the hair at each side of the head, either in a cluster at the level of the temples or ears or arranged in a single row in the area between the forehead and the shoulders.  In some cases ornaments were secured by plaits or twisted sections of hair which ran from the temples to the back of the head.  Other examples revealed that one of more rings were threaded through leather and textile straps hanging from a headband or hat.  She also observes that combinations of different ornament types on each side of the head was common.

To read more about these ornaments and see drawings of excavated examples being worn check out her paper:

https://www.academia.edu/4539478/Temple_Pendants_in_Medieval_Rus_How_Were_They_Worn_in_Ch_Entwistle_and_N_Adams_ed_Intelligible_Beauty_Recent_Research_on_Byzantine_Jewellery_London_The_British_Museum_Press_2010_

Temple Pendant and Stick ca. 1080–1150 CE Byzantine courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Temple Pendant and Stick ca. 1080–1150 CE Byzantine courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 Temple Pendant with Two Birds Flanking a Tree of Life courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

An historical reenactor wearing temple pendants courtesy of Pinterest.

Two Sirens flanking a Tree of Life ca. 1000–1200 CE from Kievan Rus courtesy of the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Sirens in ancient mythology and beyond

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous creatures who lured nearby sailors to their deaths by enchanting them with music and singing voices which resulted in their shipwreck on the rocky coast of the sirens' island. Roman poets placed them on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli. Later, their "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, was considered to be  Cape Pelorum or the Sirenuse, near Paestum.  Plato said there were three kinds of Sirens: the celestial, creatures of Zeus,  the generative of Poseidon, and the cathartic of Hades. Originally, Sirens were shown to be male or female, but the male Siren disappeared from art around the fifth century BCE.

In addition to their role in menacing seamen, sirens were also thought to accompany souls on the journey to the afterlife, hence their portrayal on funerary art.  Sirens were first believed to look like a combination of women and birds in various  forms in ancient Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art. With their legendary male attraction, sirens were a popular motif for perfume vessels where they were often depicted as birds with large women's heads, wings, feathers and scaly feet. Later, they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings, playing a variety of musical instruments, especially harps and lyres. By the Middle Ages, however, they began to take on the attributes of mermaids.

Some of my favorite portrayals of sirens are on display at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.  Dating to 350-300 BCE, these almost life-sized sculptures  were found in a funerary context in Tarentum in southern Italy along with a musician thought to be Orpheus. In another funerary context, sirens are portrayed on a relief that once adorned a Lycian sepulchral tower now in the collections of the British Museum.  Of course I find the smaller perfume vessels and other objects depicting sirens endearing as well.

Images: Some of the images I have taken of sirens at the Getty Villa, British Museum, and the Walters Art Museum as well as other images from the British Museum, National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Perfume bottle in the form of a siren Greek mid-4th century BCE photographed at the British Museum

Terracotta flask in the form of a siren, Greek, made in Kythera, Crete 600 BCE photographed at the British Museum

Funerary sculpture of a siren from Tarentum in southern Italy 350-300 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa

Funerary sculpture of a siren from Tarentum in southern Italy 350-300 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa

Funerary sculpture group of two sirens and a musician thought to be Orpheus from Tarentum in southern Italy 350-300 BCE courtesy of the Getty Villa

Funerary sculpture of a siren's feet from Tarentum in southern Italy 350-300 BCE photographed at the Getty Villa

Attic Black figure plate with Gorgon's head and bands of animals and sirens ceramic 600 BCE photographed at the Walters Art Museum

Ceramic Vase in the form of a siren Greek 540 BCE photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Etruscan bronze weight in the form of a siren with loop 475BC-425BCE courtesy of the British Museum

Marble Siren found in the Necropolis of Ceramics in Athens beside the stele of Athenian warrior Dexileo who fell in combat in 394 or 393 BCE courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens

Gold earring in the form of a siren, Greek, mid-4th century BCE courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Harpy tomb originally part of a Lycian sepulchral tower 480-470 BCE courtesy of the British Museum

Oil Jar (Askos) in the shape of a Siren Greek from South Italy 480-450 BCE Bronze photographed at the Getty Villa

The Siren of Canosa, south Italy, Greek, 4th century BCE courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Luis Garcia.

Water Jar Handle (Kalpis) with a Siren Greek 450-425 BCE Bronze photographed at the Getty Villa

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The Vermand Treasure

The Vermand Treasure was discovered in the last quarter of the nineteenth century by Benoni Lelaurain.  It was recovered from a cemetery near the modern village of Vermand, which is located beside the Celtic oppidum of Viromandui.  In the 3rd century CE, Vermand served as a castra hiberna within the network of provincial Roman border defenses. It was also a thriving glass production center and home to a large number of refugees following the destruction of Augusta Viromanduorum in the late 3rd century by barabarian invaders.

The treasure was found in one of the few military burials in the cemetery.  However, grave robbers had previously plundered the burial, cracked the stone sarcophagus and scattered the contents. Perhaps they had been interrupted in their violation of the grave as six objects including this gilt silver spear shaft mount were left behind.  Others, documented in the excavation report, remained as well but it is thought the excavator's workmen pilfered the hilt of a sword and the majority of objects, held at the the Musée Lécuyer in St.  Quentin "disappeared" by the end of World War I.  These objects included an iron battle-ax head, ten small javelin heads, a lance head of iron inlaid with silver and copper, two small belt buckles with ferrets, an oval silver plaque, fragments of a sword blade and one or two more small bronze objects.

The grave was likely that of an auxiliary soldier.  The six-pointed interlaced star seen on the mount was not at that time a Jewish symbol.  It appears as a decorative motif in both Roman and Germanic art.

The objects were originally thought to be Merovingian artifacts dating from the 4th - 7th centuries but were reevaluated by The Metropolitan Museum of Art's curator of medieval art and reclassified as late Roman dating to the second half of the 4th century CE.

Image: Gilt silver (niello) mount for a spear shaft from the Vermand Treasure 400 CE courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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The value of finding Roman seal stamps in an archaeological site

Yesterday when I was translating the excavations records for the House of Sallust, I read about one of the finds there, a stamp with ring on the back.  The stamp found had a vase inscribed on the bevel portion of the ring and the words A • COSS•LBAN probably the last owner of the house or one of the guests staying at the hospitium (the House of Sallust was converted into a hospitium (a Roman hotel) during the last decades before the eruption of Vesuvius).

This morning while I was searching the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I found just such a stamp from the Villa at Boscoreale. Its ring is inscribed with a winged caduceus, the staff of Mercury, god of commerce.  Its letter inscription, L*HER*FLO, signifies Lucius Herennius Florus, the name of the owner of the villa at Boscoreale from which the Museum's Second Style frescoes come.  Of course, this is a little confusing since the frescoes are labeled as coming from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor.  The stamp was presumably the owner's property and likely served as the official seal of the household used to mark provisions. The museum curator tells us that many such bronze seals have been found in the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, although stamps with intaglio on both ring and plate are less common.

Roman seal stamp from Boscoreale 1st century CE

As for the actual ownership of the Boscoreale villa where the beautiful frescoes in the museum's collections were discovered, a set of bronze tablets was also found there inscribed with Lucius Herennius Florus as well. 

In my research, I've noticed how names given to excavated structures sometimes have little to do with the last actual owners of the property.  One of the first villas excavated in Pompeii was given the name "House of Diomedes" because early excavators found a tomb nearby inscribed with the name "Diomedes."  The suburban villa was discovered along the main road between Pompeii and Herculaneum and it was customary for wealthier Romans to build tombs along main roads leading into cities to publicize the family's wealth.  So, whether the individual buried nearby had anything to do with the excavated villa is questionable.  Finding one of these household seals in situ is far more convincing.

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Mars: The Roman God of War

Mars was one of the more important gods of the Roman pantheon. Numerous temples, shrines, and altars were dedicated to him in Rome and throughout the Empire. As the god of war, he had many of the same attributes as the Greek god Ares, but he was also closely associated with the imperial cult, since the emperor's power and popularity depended heavily on the army and its military successes. Mars was therefore often depicted on monuments celebrating imperial victories, notably on triumphal arches, a distinctively Roman type of public building. This fragment presumably comes from one such monument, perhaps even from the now lost Portico of Septimius Severus in Rome. Mars is represented in the canonical guise of an older, bearded man wearing a Corinthian helmet tipped back on his head. - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Image: Mars fragment possibly from the Portico of Septimius Severus courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colossal statue of Mars found in the forum of Nerva photographed at the Capitoline Museum

Colossal statue of Mars found in the forum of Nerva photographed at the Capitoline Museum

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Heraclius: The David of the Eastern Roman Empire?

The year the Roman emperor Heraclius came to power, the empire was threatened on multiple frontiers. Heraclius immediately took charge of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628. The first battles of the campaign ended in defeat for the Byzantines. The Persian army fought their way to the Bosphorus but Constantinople was protected by impenetrable walls and a strong navy, and Heraclius was able to avoid total defeat. Soon after, he initiated reforms to rebuild and strengthen the military. Heraclius drove the Persians out of Asia Minor and pushed deep into their territory, defeating them decisively in 627 at the Battle of Nineveh. The Persian king Khosrow II was overthrown and executed by his son Kavad II, who soon sued for a peace treaty, agreeing to withdraw from all occupied territory.  The Eastern Roman empire thus regained Jerusalem, Egypt, and other Byzantine territory.  To celebrate his victory Heraclius ordered the production of a set of silver plates. Elaborate dishes used for display at banquets were common in the late Roman and early Byzantine world.  Generally decorated with classical themes, these objects conveyed wealth, social status, and learning. But the set commissioned by Heraclius featured the biblical characters of David and Goliath dressed in the costume of the early Byzantine court, suggesting to the viewer that, like Saul and David, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius was a ruler chosen by God who had defeated a foe as formidable as the legendary Goliath.

Heraclius subsequently lost much of the recovered lands to the Muslim conquests but he still ranks among the great emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire.  His reforms of the government reduced the corruption which had taken hold in Phocas's reign, and he reorganized the military with great success. Ultimately, the reformed Imperial army halted the Muslims in Asia Minor and held on to Carthage for another 60 years, saving a core from which the empire's strength could be rebuilt.

Images: Silver stamps dating to 613–29/30 on the reverse of these masterpieces place their manufacture in Heraclius’ reign. At the top of this magnificent plate, David confronts Goliath, and between them is a personification of the river from which David gathered stones for his sling. The major scene shows the decisive battle. Although David appears to be on the defensive, his men move forward, forcing Goliath’s soldiers into retreat. At the bottom, the victorious David beheads the giant.  The Metropolitan Museum of art has produced a short video about the plate narrated by curator Helen Evans featuring the photography of Bruce J. Schwarz:

https://82nd-and-fifth.metmuseum.org/cinematic

I saw this spectacular plate back in 2007 but it was in a corridor that wasn't very well illuminated so my photographs are not as amazing as those of museum photographer Bruce J. Schwarz taken in a well lit studio.

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Figurines with articulated limbs: Children's toys or adult apotropaic objects?

Terracotta figurines with articulated limbs are often described as dolls or children’s toys, and are sometimes thought to have been dressed in clothes. While one cannot simply dismiss these assumptions, it must be pointed out that this hypothesis is based on an inaccurate reading of an ancient epigram, which was originally interpreted to say that a girl named Timareta dedicated to the goddess (at a sanctuary) her dolls and their dresses. However, more recently it has been convincingly argued that she in fact dedicated her hair and her own clothing. Another point to be made against the figurines being play things is that they are too fragile to be constantly handled by children. The fact that these “dolls” are often discovered in the graves of adults indicates their possible chthonic connection or apotropaic function. In addition, the movement these figurines were capable of when swinging, as well as the clanking noise they produced, might have made them attractive charms. - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Terracotta jointed doll thought to represent a ritual dancer Corinthian Greek 5th century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bone figurine with articulated limbs, Greek, Late 4th or 3rd century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ivory doll found in female burial along the Via Cassia near La Giustiniana Roman 2nd century CE photographed at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome, Italy

Ivory doll Ivory doll found in female burial Roman 2nd century CE at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome, Italy

Ivory jointed doll found in a female's sarcophagus in Tivoli, Italy Roman 2nd century CE photographed at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome, Italy

Segmented Roman bone dolls, 275-300 CE photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

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Roman boxing: More Bloodsport than Gentlemen's Competition

Roman boxing, far different than the boxing developed by the Greeks, was considered more of a gladiatorial show than an athletic contest. While the crowds were smaller than at the amphitheater and circus, boxing was an important part of public entertainment. Unlike Greek boxers, who wore leather thongs around their knuckles for protection and performed for prizes at the prestigious Panhellenic games, Romans used gloves with pieces of metal placed around the knuckles (caestus) to inflict the most damage possible. Moreover, there was no time limit or weight classification. Proclaiming a winner resulted from either a knockout or the conceding of defeat by one of the boxers. - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Image: Bronze hand of a boxer 1st to 2nd century CE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The hand is clad in a caestus (boxing glove), comprising a semicylindrical strip and a projecting spike, tied with cords running from the wrist. Although Roman boxers are represented on statues, mosaics, terracotta plaques and lamps, and bronze figurines, few objects show the actual boxing glove with such clarity of detail as the present piece. The hand is probably not a fragment of a larger composition; it was, perhaps, a votive, dedicated by a boxer on his retirement.

Images: Boxer Resting, a 1st century BCE copy of a 3rd century BCE Greek original. Notice the difference in the wrappings in my closeup of his hands. Photographed at the Palazzo Massimo, Rome, Italy.

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Ptolemaic Greek funerary traditions in Alexandria, Egypt

During the Ptolemaic period a distinctive type of subterranean tomb for multiple burials proliferated in the cemeteries around the city of Alexandria. Underground chambers cut into the living rock radiated from a central courtyard open to the sky. Most chambers contained a number of loculi, long narrow niches cut into the walls, which served as burial slots. Some loculi were sealed with painted limestone slabs in the form of small shrines. Here, a lively depiction of a man trying to bridle a horse, while a boy stands behind him, commemorates a man from Thessaly in Northern Greece, who must have been one of the many foreigners who congregated in the wealthy, cosmopolitan Ptolemaic capital. - Metropolitan Museum of Art

Image: Painted limestone funerary slab with a man controlling a rearing horse 2nd half of 3rd century B.C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The bit that controlled the mighty Bucephalus

There is evidence of the use of bits to control horses, located in two sites of the Botai culture in ancient Kazakhstan, dated about 3500–3000 BCE.  Nose rings appear on the equids portrayed on the Standard of Ur, circa 2600–2400 BCE. To date, the earliest known artistic evidence of use of some form of bitless bridle comes in illustrations of Synian (Syrian?) horseman, dated approximately 1400 BCE.  Metal bits came into use between 1300 and 1200 BCE, originally made of bronze.   The need for control of horses in warfare drove extensive innovation in bit design, producing a variety of prototypes and styles over the centuries.

This bit is of a distinctive type attested in Northern Greece and used for horses that are ridden rather than driven. Its most noteworthy occurrence is on the mount of Alexander of Macedon in the famous Alexander mosaic from the Casa del Fauno in Pompeii and now in the Archaeological Museum, Naples.

Bronze bit, Greek, 4th-3rd century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Detail of Alexander the Great and Bucephalus from the Battle of Issus Mosaic found in the House of the Faun, Pompeii, now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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