Roman History Books and More

house of augustus opens to the public

From the BBC:

Treasures revealed
The house of Roman Emperor Augustus opens to the public

And here is Mary Beard on this:   The house of Augustus: all mod cons?

virtual via flaminia

via David Meadows:  Virtual Museum of the Ancient Via Flaminia

It's a bit awkward to navigate (at least for this elderly person) so it's best to go to the Sitemap.  I do like the Archaeological sites feature.  And here is the actual map of the road.

N.S. Gill has more

for your diaries

Readers who will be in London between July and October 2008 might like to know that the British Museum will be devoting a major exhibition to Hadrian. For further details see this page from the BM's website.

ancient art follows me around . . . and villas in boscoreale, italy

Yesterday, I met a friend for lunch at the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York City.  And as ancient art seems to follow me around, I was not surprised to see a couple of Roman pieces in the Rotunda and Library respectively of Mr. Morgan's Library and Study:

• A Pair of Double Cups with Repoussé Decorations of Cranes, first century AD, silver with traces of original gilding. They were fairly small but delicately worked.
• A statue, "Running Eros, Holding Torch," Bronze, from the second or first century BC, which was found in one of the villas in Boscoreale, destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption, or so it said.  If you google boscoreale villas, or boscoreale archaeology, you'll find a lot of interesting things, including these pages from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Roman Painting: Frescoes From Campania.

met museum greek & roman galleries: an update

Good news:  the Met Museum has updated its pages on the new Greek and Roman Galleries.

Lots of stuff to see!

(Red and I will visit there in September and will report)

Marble grave stele of a little girl, ca. 450–440 B.C.; Classical
Greek
Marble, Parian; H. 31 1/2 in. (80 cm)
Fletcher Fund, 1927 (27.45)

the greek and roman galleries at the met – continued

Here is the latest version of the web pages about the New Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

From the site:

“The New Greek and Roman Galleries house art created between about 900 B.C. and the early fourth century A.D., tracing the parallel stories of the evolution of Greek art in the Hellenistic period and the arts of southern Italy and Etruria and culminating in the rich and varied world of the Roman Empire. The astonishing assembly of works on display—some never before seen by the public—bring to life the visual and conceptual roots of Western civilization.
Read more about the works on view, or see a list of images of selected highlights”.

more on the met’s greek and roman galleries

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Art Review

Classical Treasures, Bathed in a New Light

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

Published: April 20, 2007

With the Metropolitan Museum’s fine, new light-washed galleries for Greek and Roman art, Western antiquity from the Bronze Age through the reign of Constantine now unfolds in logical, stately order.

new greek and roman galleries at the met open

The new Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City open on Friday, April 20.  Can't wait to get there!

The current museum page, with history.

The New York Times has an article on the life and times of the galleries and their designer:

Arts / Art & Design

Redesigning the Met’s Home for Greek and Roman Art

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: April 18, 2007

Over the last several years, architect Kevin Roche has been busy transforming the Met’s southernmost wing, which will officially open on Friday.

Next entry

exhibit: ‘ancient art of the cyclades’, female folded arm figures

Today, we took advantage of beautiful late fall weather and drove into the country, and stopped by the small Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York.  The museum is a bit off the beaten path on Route 22, just south of the intersection with Route 35.

The museum currently shows the exhibit Ancient Art of the Cyclades, art created during the third millennium B.C. by craftsmen of the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea, in the white marble the islands are famous for.  Items displayed are mostly small female “folded arm” figures, the rest are pixides and other vessels in various forms.  Since there was no writing in the Cyclades at that point, the meaning of  the figures is not known and can only be speculated about.

The New York Times had an illustrated review on November 5, 2006, “Before Venus,” but unfortunately it's not online, or at least, I could not find it, TimesSelect access notwithstanding.

“Folded arm” figures as discussed here.

from naissus to eboracum, 1700 years on

The future emperor Constantine was born in Naissus, now Niš  in Serbia.  The local airport is named after Constantine, and the municipal website features a symposium on Niš and Byzantium to mark the 1700th anniversary of Constantine being proclaimed emperor in York on 25 July 306.  The history section in the menu on the left features “Niš through Centuries”, the first page of which covers the Roman period.  A villa of Constantine's day has been excavated in Mediana, now a suburb of Niš.  Again, follow the menu from history for more information on the villa and Constantine.

Also marking the 1700th anniversary of Constantine being proclaimed emperor is an exhibition in York (Eboracum), running until 29 October 2006.  The BBC has a gallery of images from the exhibition, and a smaller gallery of pictures from Roman York.

BTW, Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Constantine’s capital as emperor of the West under the tetrarchic system, is holding a major Constantine exhibition next year (2007).  Click here to read Irene’s account of her trip to Trier.  The municipal website includes photos and a video of the Basilica, built as Constantine’s audience chamber and now a church.

   
Irene’s photos of the Basilica (more)

an illustrated timeline of art history

Today I met a friend from out of town for lunch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we admired the new Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries for Byzantine Art … and did a spot of nitpicking as experts (one) and seasoned museum goers (both of us).

I googled the thing and found Byzantium (ca. 330-1453), and discovered to my pleasant surprise that the Met Online has an illustrated Timeline of Art History,  with various navigating options. 

Drop-down list for Byzantine Art

Drop-down list for Greek and Roman Art

Enjoy!

For those of you who know the museum:  The Byzantine galleries are the ones at the left and right sides of the Grand Staircase (where you walk through to get to the Medieval Section), and they are connected by a crypt-like area that has been opened up underneath the staircase, with the original brickwork maintained.  It contains the section Byzantine Egypt in the South.  It says in the brochure that

[the] newly expanded galleries restore much of the original Morris Hunt and Richard Howland Hunt 1894-1902 Beaux Arts plan for the building’s monumental Fifth Avenue facade and entrance.

As to the museum’s new entrance fee policy, here is a recent piece by fellow blogger Dorothy King:  Into the Metropolitan Museum:  What’s It Worth to You?

brooklyn museum: jewish mosaics, photos

Finally got a few photos of the exhibit, see brooklyn museum: jewish mosaics from the roman empire and more.

Click on images to enlarge









Photos © Dave Kush

glass in antiquity

David Anthony Durham, in his afterword to Pride of Carthage, writes: This book is a work of fiction and should only be read as a novel. It was inspired by real figures and events, but I have taken many liberties to arrange the material into a workable narrative.

That is the fiction writer's privilege. But should that extend to anachronism?

Bingley found this passage:

The magistrate rose and fetched a jug of wine and a glass. It was early in the day, yes, but Silenus found himself thirsty as well. He motioned for the jug and drank directly from it, deeply enough to ensure that he would feel the effects. Diodorus took the jug from him and refilled his glass. A few moments passed like this, the two of them shuttling the jug back and forth, each captured by thoughts of his own.

And he wondered, did they have wine glasses in the 3rd century BCE? I did some checking, and it seems not quite yet: Wkipedia, Glassmaking in Antiquity, and The History of Glass Making all refer to the 1st century BCE as the point when glass blowing was invented.

In the empire, glassmaking was raised to a real art. Here are photos I took at various German museums.

The Romans also knew how to make sliding glass windows, as these photos show, from a villa rustica in Ahrweiler, Germany.

[In April, we talked about wine making]

brooklyn museum: jewish mosaics from the roman empire and more

Today, we went to the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y., and among other things, saw the exhibit Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire (obsolete link removed 7/13), from a sanctuary floor of the synagogue in Hammam Lif, Tunisia.  This was of particular interest to me because I had seen a Tunesian mosaic exhibit in Cologne, Germany, a few years back.  There was a similarity in color selections.

Unfortunately, today was the last day, so the preceding link may not be up for long.   But here is an excellent write-up and background by Kris Hirst at Archaeology at About.com.  She includes illustrations, Scenes from Paradise, so I need not repeat a descripition.  Twenty-one pieces of the mosaics have been in possession of  the Brooklyn Museum since 1905.

I found the exhibit a little disjointed, with a lot of Egyptian Jewish material joined in, but the history of the mosaics, their discovery by French army captain Ernest de Prudhomme in 1883, the drawings of them by one of his soldiers which prove extremely valuable today, is fascinating and was well presented.  Emphasis was put on the fact that the patron/donor of the mosaic was a woman, the first known of this kind.  Analogies of religious symbolism between Judaism and Christianity were noted and a good general historic background given.

This discovery of the mosaics is termed "the birth of synagogue archaeology."

Some photos may be forthcoming.  Here  (8/14)

I spent a good deal of the remainder of the day in the renowned Egyptian collection, which is freshly introduced with Egypt Reborn.  At the bottom of that page are links to the rest of the collection. And there was also Egypt Through Other Eyes.  At the end of it, I was mentally exhausted...not being helped by us getting stuck in Sunday afternoon traffic... Unfortunately, the Brooklyn Museum is not as easily accessible to us as the Met, and other museums, in Manhattan.