Wallace-Hadrill to present Herculaneum: Living with Catastrophe in Lexington, VA

I see that Dr. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill will present Herculaneum: Living with Catastrophe at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia on Tuesday, March 23, at 7 p.m. in the Stackhouse Theater.  Oh how I wish I could attend that lecture.  I love living on the west coast but up here in the Pacific Northwest we seldom get the opportunity to hear such world class presentations from classical scholars like Dr. Wallace-Hadrill.

[Image of  Dr. Wallace-Hadrill courtesy of  The Alleghany Journal]

I always enjoy his insight that he has shared in numerous History Channel programs.  Even after all of the years he has spent studying ancient Rome, he still talks about it with such marvelous enthusiasm.  I had hoped to catch a glimpse of him when I visited Herculaneum in October 2007, but no such luck. I did watch some of his researchers working on this beautiful mosaic in a bath complex:

[Image: 1st century CE Roman mosaic found in the ruins of Herculaneum.  Photographed by Mary Harrsch]



Herculaneum is a rather small excavation compared to Pompeii so I was able to explore it in about half a day.  There is much more of the site as yet unexplored but it has been covered by the modern city of Naples so it is doubtful any more of the ancient complex will be unearthed (except perhaps, sadly, by tunneling looters). Much of the artwork originally found in Herculaneum has been removed and placed in the Museo Archaeologico di Napoli but there are still a few pieces in situ.

The day I was there, the Villa di Papiri was closed because of ongoing excavations there.  I would have loved to have seen it, too, so I could compare the layout to the Getty Villa in Malibu that is based upon it.

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Ancient Vine Delights Visitors with Beautiful Recreations of Ancient Life

Today I received a news alert from Heritage Key about the impending illumination of Hadrian's Wall event and it included a marvelous video of a 3D recreation of Hadrian's Wall and Newcastle Fort by a system's analyst known as Decimus who manages a website called Ancient Vine.  The graphics in the video were absolutely stunning.



I actually thought Decimus had merged 3D computer graphics with live action because the soldiers in the video looked so lifelike.  When I visited his site I saw that they were creations of his talent as well:

Decimus has also created a virtual Roman domus as part of the exhibit "A Day in Pompeii" at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

Above is Decimus' recreation of a Roman tablinum.  The museum created a wonderful video of a virtual visit to the domus complete with rain water falling in the atrium, music and background sound effects.

He is now working on a reconstruction of the ancient city of Alexandria.

He has already finished several iterations of the Pharos lighthouse and is presently working on a recreation of the famous library.

Decimus is also working on a game set in the fictional Roman town of Opacia that was built on the ruins of Oplontis.  It will be an adventure/role playing game and I'm sure the visuals alone would make it well worth the price of the final product!

He has a marvelous image gallery and even offers his graphics for free use with attribution.  His site also features a discussion forum with interesting discussions about both Roman History and 3D graphics tools.  So, please check out Ancient Vine and continue to encourage such an artistic enthusiast!

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HBO’s Rome Gets a Big Screen Script

It looks like Bruno Heller's plans to resurrect Vorenus and Pullo in a big screen treatment of HBO's Rome is moving forward.  According to this article, a script has been written and financing has been secured for the project.  I was at least relieved to see that the story would resume just four years after the original miniseries concluded.  I had read at one point that there were rumors Heller was going to take the boys to Judea for a rendezvous with a certain messiah which, of course, didn't make any sense at all since Vorenus and Pullo would have been so old they couldn't have lifted a gladius.

According to this release, we will find them fighting the barbarians in Germania - much better!  Kevin McKidd must be juggling the project with his appearances on "Grey's Anatomy".  McKidd appears to have been much more successful than Ray Stevenson at using the popularity he gained from "Rome" to leverage his career.  His own series on NBC, "Journeyman", only lasted a year but was a good effort.  I also saw him in "Made of Honor" with Patrick Dempsey who may have helped him land a spot on "Grey's Anatomy".  Stevenson has made a few films but none that garnered much notice.  He was such a natural in his role as Pullo.  It will be good to see him back in a starring role again with a good script to demonstrate his talent as well.

 
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Routine Child Sacrifice Not Practiced by Ancient Carthaginians After All

Although Hannibal was used as a "boogey man" to scare misbehaving Roman children, Carthaginians did not, contrary to popular myth, actually wantonly sacrifice their children according to a new report by researchers from the University of Pittsburg.

The scientists examined the remains of children found in Tophets, structures on the margins of Punic cemetaries where urns containing the remains of young children and animals were placed.  The contents of 348 urns were inspected for developmental markers that would reveal the children's age at death.

[Image: Medea Killing Her Sons by Delacroix, 1862.  Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

"Schwartz [Jeffrey H. Schwartz, a professor of anthropology and history and philosophy of science in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences and president of the World Academy of Art and Science] and Houghton [Frank Houghton of the Veterans Research Foundation of Pittsburgh] recorded skull, hip, long bone, and tooth measurements that indicated most of the children died in their first year with a sizeable number aged only two to five months, and that at least 20 percent of the sample was prenatal."

"Schwartz and Houghton then selected teeth from 50 individuals they concluded had died before or shortly after birth and sent them to Macchiarelli and Bondioli, who examined the samples for a neonatal line. This opaque band forms in human teeth between the interruption of enamel production at birth and its resumption within two weeks of life. Identification of this line is commonly used to determine an infant's age at death. Macchiarelli and Bondioli found a neonatal line in the teeth of 24 individuals, meaning that the remaining 26 individuals died prenatally or within two weeks of birth, the researchers reported."

"The team's report also disputes the contention that Carthaginians specifically sacrificed first-born males. Schwartz and Houghton determined sex by measuring the sciatic notch&'a crevice at the rear of the pelvis that's wider in females&'of 70 hipbones. They discovered that 38 pelvises came from females and 26 from males. Two others were likely female, one likely male, and three undetermined." - More: Spero News

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Romans to paint Trajan's Column - with light!

A couple of years ago I attended an excellent exhibit at the Getty Villa about the use of vibrant color in ancient art.  At that exhibit, copies of some ancient sculpture had been brightly painted to demonstrate how Greek and Roman temples and the frieze of the Parthenon actually looked to ancient Greeks and Romans.

Now, Italian researchers, using analysis of ancient pigment fragments recovered from the monument carved with scenes depicting the Emperor Trajan's battles with the Dacians, are planning to repaint Trajan's Column but use projected light instead of physical paint so the original is not damaged or irrevocably changed.  High-definition film containing appropriately colored images of the column's reliefs will be projected onto the monument for a few minutes each hour during the evening hours beginning next year to give visitors a view of the intricately detailed 100-foot column that has not been seen in almost 2,000 years.

Discovery News has  an interesting video about the project:

http://news.discovery.com/videos/archaeo-roman-column-painted-in-light.html

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