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Mar

Dead and Buried: A Colombarium at Palazzo Massimo

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology and On Show

The Doria-Pamphili Colombarium in Rome's Palazzo Massimo Museum

Over the course of the past decades, the city of Rome has been busy reorganizing its system of National Archaeological Museums. For about one hundred years, starting in the late nineteenth century, the bulk of Rome’s expansive collection of antiquities was displayed at the Baths of Diocletian. In the 1990s, however, the objects were divided up between four differen sites and spread across the city.

While all four branches of the museum are chock-full of interesting artworks and artifacts, it’s the Palazzo Massimo that we love the most. From the extraordinary frescoes that once graced the walls of the Empress Livia’s dining room to the colossal bronze sculpture of the Hellenistic Prince, the permanent collection of the Palazzo Massimo is simply awe-inspiring.

And now they’ve made it better. Until June 7th, a special exhibit called “Discover the Massimo” celebrates the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Palazzo Massimo by putting on display some newly restored paintings and sculptures — some of which have been out of the public eye for quite some time.

Bird in the Doria Pamphili Colombarium

On a recent trip to the museum, we were quite happy to see that as part of the exhibit, archaeologists and restorers have fitted out a room with some 200 square meters of frescoes from a first-century columbarium, or burial chamber for cinerary urns, that was excavated between 1838 and 1922 in the Villa Doria Pamphili, Rome’s largest park.

What a treat! Though various colombaria have been excavated in and around Rome, none are open to the public, so the exhibition gives its visitors a chance to study a kind of Roman funerary architecture that’s normally not on view.

Painting from the Doria-Pamphili Colombarium

The term colombarium comes from the Latin colomba (dove), and the term originally referred to compartmentalized housing for doves and pigeons but was chosen by modern excavators to describe built tombs, the walls of which were lined with niches to hold cremation urns.

Such individual niches (visible in the photo of the museum exhibit above and the bottommost photo in this entry which shows the Doria Pamphili colombarium as it looked when excavated) were frequently marked by memorial plaques and portrait sculptures. As well, the walls of the colombaria were often decorated with painted images of mythological stories, landscape scenes, and animals, like those seen here.

Painting from the Doria Pamphili Colombarium

Studies suggest that the popularity of colombaria in Rome was due, in part, to rising population and the need to dispose of a large number of bodies in an environment in which land for tombs was at a premium. The construction of such built tombs that could house the remains of hundreds of individuals certainly seems to provide a logical solution, though one that would be available to only some classes of society, for burial in a colombarium was not an inexpensive endeavor. Inscriptions tell us that they were built by collegia, cooperative funeral clubs, in which members contributed to a joint tomb.

For information on the Palazzo Massimo and its special exhibits, see the city of Rome’s tourism site (www.romaturismo.com) or the museum Web site, archeoroma.beniculturali.it/it/palazzo_massimo, which is in Italian-only.

The Doria Pamphili Colombarium

Jan

The Ara Pacis in Color

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology, Art & Design and Past & Present

Ara Pacis Illuminated in Rome

Last week, the Comune di Roma treated residents and visitors alike to a series of special museum events and exhibits, among which was a full-color illumination of the front of the Ara Pacis or Altar of Peace.

As part of an actor-led tour that dramatically recounted the stories of Romulus and Aeneas in order to expalin their presence on the front of the Ara Pacis, lights were used to superimpose dazzling colors onto white marble facade of the altar. The goal was that of giving visitors an idea of the monument’s appearance at the time of its dedication in 9 BC.

Romulus Scene on the Ara Pacis

Though the altar is all-white now, scholars generally agree that monuments like it — as well as sculptures — were once brightly colored. Thus, vivid blues, greens, yellows, and reds characterized the illumination.

Vatican Museums Director, Antonio Paolucci, who co-organized the project, said that the projected colors were chosen based on traces paint recovered from the monument in the 1930s, such as red ochre and gold leaf.

The Ara Pacis or Altar of Peace was in celebration of the advent of peace under the reign of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus.

Though the color projections were a temporary holiday event, organizers say they hope to make the demonstration a permanent part of Ara Pacis Museum in December 2009.

Ara Pacis Flora

Jan

Improvements to Ancient Rome

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology, Birthday of Rome and Historic Sites

Roman Forum

From ANSA: The glories of Ancient Rome are to get a total makeover over the next two years, officials said this week.

The famed architectural sights will then be illuminated by a new lighting system, they said. Sites set for ”a complete clean-up” include the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Roman and Imperial Forums and Nero’s Golden House, said Heritage Undersecretary Francesco Giro.

Long-awaited projects such as an underpass linking the forums and a new walkway up to the Palatine are part of the scheme which aims to restore Rome’s ancient splendour by the spring of 2011.

Unsightly scaffolding, rusty fences and open digs will be cleared away ‘’so that the central archaeological area regains all its sumptuous beauty,” Giro said.

The ”crowning touch,” he said, would be an ”integrated” illumination system for the entire area.

Giro said the culture ministry hoped to have the lights in place for the 2,764th anniversary of Rome’s traditional founding date, April 21 753 BC.

Nov

The Lapis Niger in Re-View

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology

The Lapis Niger in the Roman Forum

Archaeologists and those interested in Rome’s earliest development will be excited by the recent announcement of Angelo Bottoni, superindent of archaeology in Rome, who says that the Lapis Niger in the Roman Forum will be opened to the public in 2009.

An archaic shrine–at which the oldest known Latin inscription was discovered–the Lapis Niger is a mysterious underground monument made up of an altar next to a truncated stele on which the Latin inscription is carved vertically in boustrophidon style (from left to right, then right to left, and alternating back and forth, “as an ox would plow a field.)

The underground stele and altar are capped by a black marble paving and “fenced off” with white marble slabs as if to keep the sacred spot from being walked upon by pedistrians. In fact, the inscription on the stele curses anyone who tramples or defiles the spot:

Whosoever defiles this spot, let him be forfeit to the spirits of the underworld; whosoever contaminates it with refuse, after due process of law, it shall be proper for the King to deprive him of his property. And whatsoever persons the King shall discover passing on this road, let him bid the Herald seize the reins of their draught animals, to force them to turn aside forthwith and to take the approved detour. And whosoever shall fail to take the approved detour and shall persist in traveling this road, let him after due process of law be sold at auction to the highest bidder.

What was the significance of the Lapis Niger shrine? The Roman historians Tacitus and Livy suggest that the area of the Lapis Niger was associated with the cult of Romulus, the legendary founder and first King of Rome. In the late Republic, tradition held that the ‘black stone’ was the very marker for the tomb of Romulus. Competing tradition held that it was rather the tomb of Hostilius, grandfather of Rome’s third king, Tullius Hostilius.

Lapis Niger Excavations & Stele

Rediscovered in the late 19th-century in excavations undertaken by Italian archaeologist Giacomo Boni, the Lapis Niger has been off limits to visitors in the past decades, as it is beneath a concrete covering that Bottini says is decaying. Thus the soprintendenza plans to remove the old cover over the shrine and erect a hut-like structure that will allow visitors to the Forum to view the excavations.

Work is scheduled to begin in December and is part of a larger plan to improve Rome’s archaeological area as a way of celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the birth of the Roman Emperor Vespasian in 2009.

Oct

Photo Sunday: A Nose for These Things

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology, Photo Friday and Photography

Emperors in the Louvre

We’re a bit late this weekend as Photo Friday is landing on Sunday evening, but we bring you a photo of Roman Emperors’ busts taken recently by Susan Sanders in the Louvre in Paris. With their drilled hair and beards, the faces look familiar. It’s a crowd that would make any lover of Rome feel at home.

For more photos by Susan, visit her blog: Rome With A View.

Oct

Excavating Gladiator

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology and Film & TV

Russell Crowe in Gladiator

Richard Owen of the Times provides the coverage:

Italian archeologists have discovered the tomb of the ancient Roman hero said to have inspired the character played by Russell Crowe in the film ‘Gladiator’.

Daniela Rossi, a Rome archeologist, said the discovery of the monumental marble tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus, including a large inscription bearing his name, was “an exceptional find”. She said it was “the most important ancient Roman monument to come to light for twenty or thirty years”.

The tomb is on the banks of the Tiber near the via Flaminia, north of Rome. Cristiano Ranieri, who led the archeological team at the site, said the tomb had long ago collapsed into the mud but its columns, roof and decorations were intact. Some parts of the tomb had slipped into the river, but had been recovered.

Marcus Nonius Macrinus, born in Brescia in northern Italy, was a general and consul who led military campaigns for Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor from 161 AD to 180 AD. He became part of the Emperor’s inner circle and one of his favorites, serving as proconsul in Asia.

In ‘Gladiator’, directed by Ridley Scott, he becomes Maximus Decimus Meridius, also a general and a favourite of Marcus Aurelius – with the twist that, after the murder of the emperor by his ambitious son Commodus (a fictional event), Maximus falls from grace and ends up in exile in North Africa. He later returns to Rome as a hardened gladiator to take revenge for the murder of his family and of Marcus Aurelius. Russell Crowe won an Oscar for the role.

There are believed to be plans to reconstruct the tomb as the centerpiece of a ‘Via Flaminia Archeological Park’, which would also include the House of Empress Livia, the wife of Emperor Augustus, at Prima Porta nearby.

The character of Maximus also draws on accounts by Roman historians of a wrestler named Narcissus, who murdered the Emperor Commodus by strangling him.

An AP image of the tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus under excavation is below:

Tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus

Sep

New Discoveries on the Via Marmorata

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology

New Discoveries on Rome's Via Marmorata

Despite all odds, rome’s public transportation system works pretty well. Certainly it’s over-crowded and under-organized — there’s no crowd control and the schedules on which buses run is barely discernable — but, if you know the basics, it’s quite easy to get around.

What can be tricky about the system is determining the most efficient way to move from place to place. Most often, the process of getting from point A to point B is done more quickly if one is willing to ride three or four buses rather than holding out for the single direct line. This is especially true if one is trying to get from one end of the city to another, say from the Gallery of Modern Art on the north side of Villa Borghese to Viale Trastevere or vice versa.

In theory, there’s a tram that runs this route — the number 3. But, it’s route is so long and circuitous that it takes almost a lifetime to get from one end of the line to another. Residents of Rome joke that one should take a picnic on the line 3 as you’re likely to get hungry in route. We also think of the number 3 as the ultimate tour tram as it takes riders past the Circus Maximus, around the Colosseum, past St. John Lateran and Porta Maggiore, through the ugly underbelly of the city in the area around Stazione Tiburtina, before snaking its way through the Parioli neighborhood — and all at a snail’s pace. Ride the number 3 and you’ve seen it all.

If, that is, the number three is running. Which, it hasn’t for years. At least not in its tram form. For many many months now, it’s been transformed into a bus, which is a bit of a relief, because the bus moves more quickly than the tram. We haven’t known why magic number 3 tram disappeared, and have assumed it’s due to roadworks and modifications to the tram tracks.

Archaeological Discoveries under Rome's Via Marmorata

Today, however, we’ve awakened to discover one of the reasons for the tram’s long absence. It seems that in the process of installing an layer of anti-vibration material below and around the tracks in the Testaccio neighborhood, archaeologists and road workers discovered an entire city laying just below street level.

The newspaper La Repubblica reports the discovery of a myriad of materials: walls dating to the imperial period as well a later wall that may have been built in the 5th century AD; tombs containing skeletal remains that may be of the high medieval period; warehouse pavements; buildings for grain storage that were originally connected to the nearby Roman port; deposits of amphorae; and pieces of a mosaic pavement that seem to have embellished an ancient Roman house.

The amazing thing about these discoveries is that they were made only inches below the surface of the modern day road (see top photo). Did anyone know they were there? There were clues. Alessandra Capodiferro, head of archaeology in the Aventine area, says that photographs taken in at the turn of the century, show that in the early 20th century, houses in the area incorporated the remains of ancient Roman buildings into their fabric. Later development in the area rendered all such remains invisible, however.

Furthermore, from the 1800s to the present day, the road now under excavation has been an important thoroughfare, hosting first a horse-drawn omnibus and later cars, buses, and the number 3 tram. Thus, for more than a century, the newly uncovered remains have been sealed under a layer of pavement and forgotten.

The superintendency of archaeology plans to continue excavations, digging under one tram track at a time in order that public transportation can continue to pass along the road. They’re hoping that the dig will shed light on the ancient and early Medieval city, for, as archaeologist Paola Quaranta explained to La Repubblica, “This street along the slopes of the Aventine was one of the most ancient, one of the first in Rome to run to the sea and to the salt basins at Ostia. It retained its importance in the Imperial period, when warehouses and offices connected with the Tiber port grew up in the area. And, even into the 5th and 6th centuries, this road was important because it led to the basilica of San Paolo.”

Archaeological Discoveries in Rome's Via Marmorata

Aug

Photo Friday: the Nostoi Exhibit

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology, Museums, Photo Friday and Photography

Photo of the Nostoi Exhibit in Rome by Susan Sanders

Photo Friday! This week Susan Sanders brings us images of an extraordinary exhibit called Nostoi that’s being held at the Palazzo Poli, near the Trevi Fountain. The exhibit showcases archaeological artifacts returned (or recovered by Carabinieri) to Italy from museums in the United States and elsewhere after being illegally excavated, exported, and sold. (The exhibit was formerly hosted in the Palazzo Quirinale – it’s now moved.)

Among the artifacts on exhibit (and shown here in Susan’s photos) is the stunning Euphronius krater, a 2500 year old Greek red-figure vessel, which Italy regained after signing a deal with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Euphronius krater — a large vase painted with scenes related to Homer’s epic poems “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” — is regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind, a fact that was immediately recognized by the (then) director of the Met, Thomas Hoving, when he fell in love with the calyx krater at first sight in 1972. He effused about the vase in his 1993 book, Making the Mummies Dance:

The Euphronios krate is everything I revere in a work of art. It is flawless in technique, is a grand work of architecture, has several levels of heroic subject matter, and keeps on revealing something new at every glance. To love it, you only have to look once. To adore it, you must read Homer and know that the drawing is perhaps the summit of fine art. Truly, the calyx krater is one of those rare pieces that is legitimately the perfect object of adoration for botht he neophyte and the art snob.

What was not so legitimate about the vase was the way in which it was excavated and the way in which Thomas Hoving went about purchasing it in the early 1970s. The vase was probably looted from an Etruscan tomb in Cerveteri, an archaeological site just to the north of Rome. It seems then to have been smuggled out of Italy before Hoving agreed to pay a million dollars for the antiquity, bending and break rules and laws in the process.

After years of negotiation with the Met, the museum agreed to return the vase to Italy. The deal that was eventually sealed with the New York museum in February 2006 called for the return of the vase by mid-January 2008. The museum also agreed to return 20 other antiquities.

In the meantime, American art dealer Robert Hecht — who sold the vase to Hoving in 1972 — has been put on trial in Rome, charged with knowingly acquiring allegedly looted ancient artifacts. He denies wrongdoing.

The vase and other returned antiquities are on show in the Palazzo Poli, at Via Poli 54, until 7 September, after which the exhibit will move to Athens, Greece.

For more photographs by Susan Sanders, visit her photo blog: Rome With A View.

The Euphronius Krater in the Nostoi Exhibit in Rome. Photo by Susan Sanders

Aug

Caesar’s Loose Change

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology and Ides of March

For archaeologists and museum professionals, the last decade will probably be known as the “cultural property period,” a time in which the ethics of buying, selling, and even owning antiquities has been called into question.

For many institutions, including those who have scrupulously followed international law in the acquisition of antiquities, heightened awareness about cultural property protocol has led to a greater transparency – some museums and universities, the best solution to such problems is to provide the general public with access to their rich collection. Here at the eCool Compound, we consider this to be a very good thing indeed.

And so, we were both excited and impressed when we discovered Macquarie University’s Coins of Julius Caesar website. Artfully crafted by the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies, the site showcases part of an impressive collection of ancient coins acquired by Dr W. L. and Mrs J. Gale and bequeathed to the university.

This is not just your everyday catalog, however, with lists of facts in such a manner so as to be only accessible to classics geeks. Instead, the scholars at Macquarie have gotten a bit creative and designed a beautiful website that will teach almost anyone about the life of Julius Caesar.

Because coins were political tools in the late Roman Republic, and because Caesar and those around him artfully made use of the Empire’s loose change as a way of promoting their ambitions and interests, much of Caesar’s biography can be traced through a study of coins.

We leave it to you to click on over and take a look at this interesting site. The images of the coins are beautiful (if you’ve never looked closely at Roman coins, this is the place to do it) and the site’s clear design makes it easy to follow Caesar’s life from his early career to his assassination and beyond.

Jul

An Epic Building Project at Sperlonga

By idcrome 0 Comments

Categories: Archaeology, Architecture, Everything Else and Outside Rome

The Villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga

Dispatch from Sperlonga: Early 1st Century AD

The trials and tribulations of ruling a vast Empire are fraying the delicate nerves of our luxury-loving emperor, Tiberius. In a desperate attempt to find (yet another) place to get away from it all, our esteemed ruler is in the process of constructing a swanky seaside villa on a particularly idyllic stretch of the Tyrrhenian coast, some 70 miles south of Rome, where rocky cliffs riddled with caves or speluncae overlooking broad sandy beaches and a crystal clear sea once sailed by Odysseus.

Though the area is a well-established Roman resort, royalty watchers are shocked that the Emperor should choose to further expand his portfolio of luxury real estate with a villa in this locale, for his strained architects are already working around the clock to construct the twelve villas he’s scattering across the toney island of Capri. Countering arguments that the Emperor chose the location because of the quality of the local eels, an anonymous source close to the ruler reports that the site was chosen both for its natural beauty and for its proximity to important sites that affirm the heroic origins of Tiberius and his Julio-Claudian ancestors.

The Coast at Sperlonga

Always eager to keep our readers apprised of the latest in imperial architecture, the eCool blog is happy to report that we’ve been given exclusive access to plans for the royal retreat. Our preliminary study of those plans – as well as interviews with unnamed sources close to the Emperor – suggest that the new villa will provide the frazzled sovereign with state-of-the-art luxuries like hypocaust-heated rooms, inlaid marble or opus sectile floors, and a twelve-chariot garage.

Well-positioned to take in spectacular seaside views, the villa complex will also include a dining room unlike any other known in the Roman world. At this very moment, an unusually large cave at the water’s edge is being retro-fitted with fish-breeding pools and stylish banqueting couches. Decoration of the dining cave will follow a mythological theme, with artworks created by the most esteemed sculptors of our era.

Rumor has it that the centerpiece of the triclinium will be a colossal sculpture carved by the Rhodian wonderboys, Athanadoros, Polydorus, & Hagesandros of Rhodes (the super-sculptors that earned so much acclaim for their representation of the Laocoon, now on display in Rome). We are told that the artists have been asked to render an over-life-size image of the blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemus, a story known to us all from our childhood study of Homer’s Odyssey.

Blinding of the Cyclops, a Sculpture at Sperlonga

Though the artists will not confirm the report, they do suggest that such a theme would be in keeping with their long-standing interest in depicting dramatic and even shocking subjects. They also hint that if asked to undertake this task, they would likely depict the very moment that the hulking Cyclops, collapsed in a drunken stupor, has his eye gouged out by Odysseus and his men. “It would be such a challenge to represent a one-eyed creature without making him look utterly repulsive,” said Athanadoros during our recent interview. “Yes, and I’d love an opportunity to carve Odysseus in such a way as to convey his courage, tenacity, and cleverness,” added Polydorus while Hagesandros nodded and winked slyly.

Rumor also suggests that Cyclops will not be alone in the cave, but that he will be part of a larger decorative ensemble that includes another colossal sculpture, this time of valiant Odysseus and his brave men battling Scylla. Life-size representations of Odysseus with the body of Achilles and Odysseus and of Diomedes with the Paladium, the sacred image of Athena stolen from the city of Troy are also planned.

Why the relentless Homeric rehash? While the great Augustus, stepfather of Tiberius, bored us to tears with endless references to his magical, mystical ancestors, Aeneas and Romulus, our current monarch focuses on another line of his family tree. Those readers who were attentive in their high school Roman Civics courses will recall that Tiberius, as well as the other members of the Claudii family, claim descent from Telegonus, a son born to Odysseus during his fling with the sorceress Circe.

The Cave / Triclinium at Sperlonga

Which, dear readers, explains everything. Imagine that you have been invited to feast with Tiberius in his glorious dining cave. Torches line the walls. As the flames flicker, the Odyssean sculptures that surround your dining couch seem almost to come to life Before your very eyes, the wily and daring Odysseus performs the superhuman feats that generations have celebrated. Is it the light? Is it the wine? Or have you entered the realm of gods and heroes?

Outside the cave, the waves lap the sandy shore, making a rhythmic noise that reminds you that in his long bout with post-Trojanic stress, Odysseus’s ship ploughed that very sea, stopping just a few miles away on Monte Circeo where the hero took up residence with Circe, an enchantress whose pharmaceutical powers caused Odysseus to forget his home and family temporarily and to live happily as her consort. From their union sprang a family so powerful as to now lead the Roman Empire.

Will it end here? Will the villa at Sperlonga (along with the 12 on Capri) satiate our Emperor’s desire for luxury settings? Or will Tiberius be lured away by the song of the sirens?

The Museum at Sperlonga