Antiquities and Ancient Art

Israel Museum Unveils Rare Marble Statue of Venus with Original Paint

The Israel Museum yesterday unveiled a rare marble statue of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, discovered a decade ago in excavations of the ancient city of Beit She'an.

According to curators, the statue is unique because of the original coat of paint that can still be seen on it. The museum hopes the "Beit She'an Venus" will become one of the most famous statues of its kind.

The statue, dated to the second century C.E., was found during the excavation of the eastern bathhouse at Beit She'an by professors Gideon Foerster and Yoram Tzafrir of the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology....

Read more and see a photo of the famous statue.

"Jenkins Venus" Owner Commissioned High-Tech Replica Prior to Sale to Sheikh Al-Thani

In the category of "gone, but not forgotten," comes this news tidbit from the UK concerning the famous Jenkins Venus. 

In June 2002, one of the most important classical statues ever to appear at auction, The Jenkins Venus, also known as the Barberini Venus, was sold at Christie’s London for £7,926,650, (approximately $13.0M) a world record price for any antiquity ever sold at auction.  The statue was purchased by legendary Sheikh Saud Al-Thani (see also news item March 13) whose plan to move the masterpiece to Qatar eventually succeeded after initial protests by the UK government. 

The seductive Roman marble statue of Venus has been part of one of the most significant private English collections of ancient sculpture to be found at Newby Hall, near Ripon in North Yorkshire, since the 18th century. Newby Hall is one of the Historic Houses Association's most successful houses open to the public, however, the opening business does not generate enough revenue to fund major restoration works.

According to recent reports, Richard Compton, owner of Newby Hall, spent a six-figure sum to commission a precise, high-tech replica of the statue carved from material out of the same 2,000 year old marble quarry as the original!  The statue was put on public display for the first time on Good Friday, March 25, 2005.

To achieve the copy, Mr. Compton had experts from the National Museums Liverpool create a three-dimensional laser scan of the original before it left the Hall.  The scan was then sent to an Italian company, Scienzia Machinale, which used a robot diamond cutter to produce an exact polyurethane model of the Jenkins Venus, which was passed on to a sculptor, Roberto Pedrini.

Mr Pedrini, one of Italy's leading sculptors, and a team of helpers then spent six months producing a copy of the Venus using marble from the Michelangelo quarry in Carrera, from which the stone for the original was taken almost 2,000 years previously.

"It is the same size and they have reproduced it so exactly that where the arms had been jointed on the original and the nose had cracked, that has been replicated in the copy," said Mr Compton.

Click to read the full article.

Rolling Stones' Bill Wyman Finds Metal Detecting for Artifacts 'More Interesting than the Next Rolling Stones Record'

"Metal detecting is more interesting to me than the new Rolling Stones record."  This is what Bill Wyman told a Japanese newspaper reporter in October 1991, shortly after he bought his first metal detector. Since then the hobby has ecome a passion for the former member of the greatest rock and roll band in the world and along the way he has become Britain’s most unexpected historian.

In a new book called Bill Wyman's Treasure Islands to be released this month, which Bill has spent almost a decade researching, he and his co-author Richard Havers celebrate the treasures that have been found in the British islands and reveal some of what they tell us about ancient British history.Bill Wyman’s Treasure Islands is a journey around Britain to many of the sites where all kinds of artefacts, coins, gold, silver, jewellery and what would have once been items in everyday use have been found. The book is the who, what, when, where, why and how of historical treasures found in Great Britain and Ireland. Much of what has been unearthed is of little or no monetary value but every find is a part of the treasury that is our past.

Since people first lived on British shores literally millions of objects have been lost, buried or simply thrown away. To date, just a fraction of them have been rediscovered. Lavishly illustrated,

The book is sure to be enjoyed by anyone interested in reading about the often exciting discoveries made by both amateur and professional archaeologists, as well as accidental finds by ordinary people going about their everyday lives.

"Metal detecting has revitalized my childhood interest in history, and taught me countless new things," said Wyman.

An indepth article on the book along with pictures of Wyman in the fields with his metal detector and a display case of some of his finds can be found at ThisisLondon.co.uk.

Ancient Art is a 'Window of Opportunity' According to Art & Auction

In case you missed it, the February 2005 issue of Art and Auction magazine ran an article by savvy art market observer Souren Melikian in which he talked of 'windows of opportunity' for art buyers. One area he focused on was the antiquities market. A few snippets:

"Inflation is spreading like a brushfire in the art market. In the field of objects, from pre-Columbian artifacts to Roman sculptures to 18th-century European porcelin, a race to the finish is sending prices shooting to previously unheard-of-heights for anything that is perceived to be of museum quality by virtue of its unique character, its historical importance or its dazzling beauty. As in painting, there is a feeling that every major opportunity is a last chance, not to be missed."

"Despite the unprecedented prices for the rarest objects, collectors with knowledge and an eye can still make smart buys -- but its getting harder."

Sheikh Saud Al-Thani, Renowned for his Aggressive Art and Antiquities Purchases, Reportedly Under House Arrest in Qatar

For those following the antiquities market closely, the name Sheikh Saud Al-Thani of Qatar has become synonomous with "paying whatever it takes" to acquire any object that caught his eye. The second cousin of the ruling Emir of Qatar, one of the richest of all arab oil-producing countries, Al-Thani has been a force in the art market for the past several years as he went about his task of ambitiously buying inventory for a five new museums being contructed in Doha. He reportedly had a budget of $2-billion to acquire art.

He bought in many areas of art, but seemed to have a fondness for antiquities, especially Egyptian objects -- much to the dismay of dealers and collectors who tried to compete against him.  In June, 2002, he bought The Jenkins Venus, a Roman marble statue from Newby Hall near Ripon, North Yorkshire, for £7,926,650 - the highest price paid at auction for any antiquity. A few months later, he was rumoured to be the man behind Paddle #64 who bought all but five of the first 141 lots of Egyptian antiquities at a London auction. His presence was felt at auctions and art events in New York, London, and throughout Europe.  Now he reportedly sits under house arrest, for allegedly misuing public funds.

The Art Newspaper was among the first outlets to break the news which is sending waves through the art world.  Click for The Art Newspaper story and The New York Times (registration may be required) article.

Rockefeller Museum in Israel Suffers from Derth of Visitors

Built in 1938, the Palestine Archaeological Museum, more commonly known as the Rockefeller Museum, houses one of the most comprehensive collections of artifacts from the Levant. 

The Rockefeller has many things going for it: striking architecture, convenient location just outside Jerusalen's Old City walls, and a permanent exhibition -- established by the first curator, John H. Iliffe -- that displays artifacts in chronological order form the Stone Age (about two million years ago) until 1700 CE.  What's missing?  Visitors.  These days, two dozen or more people wandering the museum is considered a busy day.  Click to read the full story in the Jerusalem Post.

Discovery Channel Reports Discovery in Cyprus of Oldest Known Perfumery

What may be the world's oldest known perfumery, set atop a Cyprus hillside with sweeping views of the Mediterranean, has just been excavated by a team of archaeologists from the Italian Institute of Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage, according to The Discovery Channel citing recent news reports.

Remains at the Pyrgos-Mavroraki site near Nicosia include clay perfume bottle fragments that contain 14 perfumes of varied fragrances and ten odor essences. Archaeologists also found an olive oil press next to the perfume factory.

Maria Rosario Belgiorno, director of the excavation, said she believed the perfumery was 4,000 years old and represented the oldest known perfumery.  Click here for the full story on the Discovery Channel.

King Tut's CAT Scan Results Revealed by Egyptian Team

Since his tomb's discovery by Howard Carter, controversy has swirled around the potential cause of death of King Tutankhamun at the tender age of just 19. Some 3,330 years after his death, King Tut received his first CAT Scan in an effort to shed light on the true cause of death. A team of Egyptian scientists and medical technicians took and analyzed more than 17,000 CAT Scan of the dismembered Tut mummy.  Results, announced March 6, suggest that Tut was well fed, in good general health, and had not suffered from any childhood malnutrition or maladies. He was slight in build, had an overbite and crooked lower front teeth, and had an impacted wisdom tooth at the time of his death (but no signs of infection which has ruled this out as a possible cause of his demise).  In answer to theories that Tutankhamun was murdered, the team found no evidence for a blow to the back of the head, and no other indication of foul play.

They also found it extremely unlikely that he suffered an accident in which he crushed his chest.  Some team members interpret a fracture in the left thighbone as evidence for the possibility that Tutankhamun broke his leg badly just before he died. However, this injury alone could not have directly caused the king’s death.  Click here for more details and an interesting report of the forensics.

'Images of Women from the Classical World' Exhibit in Houston Features Objects from the Gilbert Collection

The recently opened exhibition From Myth to Life: Images of Women from the Classical Word focuses on varied depictions of women of antiquity. The 44 ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan, and Phoenician objects were especially chosen from the Celia and Walter Gilbert Collection for their representation of women or for their use by women in the classical world. The vases, statuettes, jewelry, and household objects, which range in style, origin, and age, are on view until July 31 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) in the Alice Pratt Gallery and Garden of the Caroline Weiss Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street.

Chronicling the development and transition of women in antiquity, the objects in the exhibition span 1,500 years, from Bronze Age Greece to Imperial Rome. They are the products of Etruscan and Phoenician, as well as Greek and Roman, manufacture. Of the various cultures represented, however, it is Greece that predominates, with vases, terracotta figurines, and metalwork from Greek sites of South Italy and Sicily as well as from the powerful mainland cities of Corinth and Athens.

The representations of the female form range from romantic, to powerful, to iconic; from terracotta figurines of elegant simplicity to intricately carved gold ornaments, from the timeless silhouette of a woman´s head on an archaic perfume bottle to a complex narrative scene showing one woman´s place at the center of her family, as tragedy strikes. Idolized bronze statuettes depict the female form and numerous goddesses, including a winged Victory, a crowned Nemesis, and Isis-Fortuna. A terracotta statuette depicts a little girl dressed and dancing like a bear — presumably she is a follower of Artemis, goddess of wild beasts and the hunt. The collectors, Celia and Walter Gilbert describe their experiences with art in this way, "Holding a paper-thin vase from antiquity gave us the intoxicating feeling of reaching backwards through time to encounter those complex and ambitious men and women of the ancient world."

Australian Archaeologists Uncover Mummies in Nearly Perfect State of Preservation

Reports this evening that a team of archaeologists from Australia's Macquarie University have uncovered a group of mummies in the Egyptian desert, two of which have been called some of the best preserved ever, according to the news site news.au.com.

The three mummies, found in an ancient cemetery near the Saqqara pyramid complex, date to the 26th Dynasty (664-525 BC).  Two were males; one was female. All were found in richly painted, cedar wood coffins. The males were depicted as bearded officials wearing elaborate collars and arms crossed on their chests.

Read the full story.