Antiquities and Ancient Art

Classical Art Field Mourns the Loss of a Giant with Thanksgiving Day Passing of Cornelius Vermeule

It is with deep sadness that we report the passing of Cornelius C. Vermeule, 82, who we lost on Thanksgiving Day in Cambridge, MA. 

Cornelius was born August 10, 1925, in New Jersey. From 1953 to 1955 he taught fine arts at the University of Michigan. From there he moved to Bryn Mawr College as Professor of archaeology until 1957 when he was appointed curator of classical collections for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  He married a Bryn Mawr student, Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule that same year.  While at the Museum, he also lectured at Smith College.

Cornelius assumed the directorship of the Museum of Fine Arts in the 1970s. His term as curator was marked by purchase of two large vases portraying the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, a Roman portrait of an old man, and a Minoan gold double ax. He trained several curators including Marion True formerly of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Carlos Picon of the Metropolitan.

"During his forty years as Curator of Classical Art at the MFA, no one did more to promote appreciation of Classical culture than he, or did so in such a lively and engaging way,” said J. Michael Padgett, Curator of Ancient Art at Princeton University Art Museum who worked under Cornelius at the MFA from 1986-1990.

Even in retirement, Cornelius remained extremely active as an author of a detailed series of articles in ancient numismatics for The Celator and occasional articles for Minerva. But for those who knew him, some of his most popular writings were the postcard notes he was fond of sending to friends, former colleagues and ex-students. 

Over the years, I received a number of such postcards, each documenting his generous blend of encyclopedic expertise and irrepressible humor and wit.  Once, in an exchange of letters we were having regarding an important object we had just acquired, I made a number of observations about the Prima Porta Augustus statue in the Vatican and drew parallels to our acquisition.  In his next postcard, Cornelius humbly joked that I knew a lot more about the Prima Porta than he did, then proceeded to make several insightful comments that could only come from someone of his intellect and span of knowledge.  I kept this postcard and every postcard from Cornelius.

Read the obituary in the Boston Globe.

 

The Google-ization of Ancient Rome

In case you missed it, users of Google Earth can experience an elaborate 3-D representation of ancient Rome circa 320 AD, during the reign of Constantine the Great. For the first time, users can soar above the streets of ancient Rome, soar above the Forum or Palatine Hill, or swoop into the Colosseum for a view of the arena and stands.

Ancient Rome 3D, as the new feature is known, is a digital elaboration of some 7,000 buildings recreating Rome circa A.D. 320, at the height of Constantine’s empire, when more than a million inhabitants lived within the city’s Aurelian walls, according to the New York Times. 

For more on Ancient Rome 3D, check out the following new reports:
BBC
New York Times

Antiquities Catalog Offers Early Christian Artifacts from Important Boston Collection

Fragments of Time, Inc., a leading international dealer in museum-quality ancient art, today released its latest catalog, Ancient Art XLIV, containing more than 50 antiquities all of which come from the collection of renowned Byzantine scholar Carroll F. Wales (1918-2007) of Boston.  Fragments of Time acquired the antiquities collection in its entirety directly from the estate, and is pleased to offer these objects to the market for the first time since they were collected by Wales several decades ago.

All of the objects highlighted in Ancient Art XLIV are related to a single theme—the art of Early Christianity—and offer collectors a unique opportunity to acquire objects of impeccable quality and provenance at prices starting at less than $200.

“Many antiquities collectors of antiquities focus on one or more of the “big three” cultures -- Egyptian, Greek and Roman. Until recently, art from the late Roman, Coptic and Byzantine periods was sometimes relegated to second class status,” said John Ambrose, founder and director of Fragments of Time. “This has changed with a blossoming of scholarship and important museum exhibitions over the past two decades. Objects from these periods, are enjoying renewed popularity and intense collecting interest.”

Such interest, though belated, is certainly justified. Byzantium was a cultural crossroads. It is where the classical age converged with the Enlightenment of Western Europe. It was the bridge between eastern culture and classicism. And it was the cradle of modern European civilization.

Highlights from the Wales collection featured in the catalog include:

• Processional Cross featuring images and inscriptions for St. George, St. John, St. Stephen, and St. Nicholas

• Unopened reliquary cross inscribed for St. George and Michael

• Ornately incised Reliquary cross depicting a crucified Christ with small crosses place where nails pierced his outstretched arms

• Reliquary cross with Mary surrounded by the four Gospel authors – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

All of the objects features in Ancient Art XLIV were collected by Wales, a distinguished Harvard-educated scholar and conservator, over two decades from 1952-1970. Wales traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He spent the 1950s restoring Byzantine frescoes in Istanbul under grants from the Dumbarton Oaks Museum, and is also known for his restoration of the famous Roman mosaic panel from Antioch at the Worcester (MA) Art Museum.

He enjoyed an enduring friendship with archaeologist Max Mallowan and his wife, Agatha Christie, and conserved ivories for Mallowan during excavations at Nimrud, Iraq.

While his collection spanned an 800-year timeframe and includes sculpture, pottery, bronzes, fine oil lamps, and jewelry, the heart of the Wales collection is a fine concentration of objects from the dawn of Christianity. Chief among these is a remarkable collection of bronze enkolpia engraved with a rich variation of saints, angels, Apostles, Mary, and Jesus Christ.

For more than fourteen years, company founder John Ambrose, who had previously spent 15 years as a private collector in Europe and the USA, has been one of the few American antiquities dealers publishing quarterly, fully researched and illustrated, fixed-price catalogues dedicated to fine antiquities.  With a fixed price catalog the price listed in the catalog is the price – no hidden fees or costly premiums that now run an additional 25% at major auction houses. Fragments of Time enjoys an international reputation for quality antiquities, scholarly expertise, competitive prices, and unrivalled service.  The catalogs span more than 6,000 years of ancient history and feature objects in price ranges from $100 - $10,000+. 

Fragments of Time quarterly catalogues are consistently rated among the best in the antiquities field and are used by collectors, scholars and museums as reference works. A complimentary catalogue is available upon request at www.fragmentsoftime.com or by calling (508) 359-0090. An annual subscription is just $15 in the continental US and is free to clients who make at least one purchase per year.

Mummified Exhibition Opens at Walters Museum in Baltimore

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, will offer visitors a rare opportunity to examine the ancient Egyptians’ fascination with human and animal mummies in the focus show Mummified, on view Nov. 15, 2008 to Nov. 8, 2009. During Mummified, visitors can view a virtual autopsy of one of the museum’s mummies. The University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Diagnostic Radiology and the Walters performed a CT scan on the mummy in Spring 2008. An interactive computer program at several museum locations will allow visitors to learn about the virtual autopsy and “see inside” the mummy, as well as learn more about ancient Egyptian mummies. The exhibition will also present 21 ancient Egyptian objects, showing images of mummified persons, animals and deities, including Osiris and Ptah, while explaining the resurrection symbolism of ancient Egyptian mummiform. Visitors may also see a variety of human, animal and counterfeit ritual mummies in the museum’s Egyptian galleries and its Chamber of Wonders.

“While other cultures sought to preserve the bodies of the cherished dead, a practice that continues even in the present day through taxidermy and embalming, mummification was uniquely central to Egyptian religion and ritual practices from the beginnings of Egypt’s history,” said Regine Schulz, director of international curatorial relations and curator of ancient art. “The exhibition examines the role of mummification in Egyptian culture as well as the art it inspired.”

The centerpiece of Mummified is a mummy excavated between 1930 and 1931 in Deir el-Bahari, Western Thebes by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian expedition. It entered the Walters’ collection in 1941 by exchange with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has remained a mystery due to a lack of identifying inscriptions. CT scanning enabled scholars and scientists to learn, noninvasively and in a respectful manner, more about the subject. The results indicate that the mummy, encased in an elaborately decorated linen and plaster case, was a woman who was between 50 and 60 years old when she died.  She was quite small, even by the standards of her time, measuring only 57 3/8 inches. She suffered from severe dental problems, including at least sixteen abscesses, and one tooth had a dental prosthesis probably made from resin. Ancient dentists could not cure such dental problems so her death was possibly the result of septicemia caused by the abscesses.

By studying the excavation history and decoration of her cartonnage case (the linen or papyrus material used to make funerary masks) scholars know she lived between 850 and 750 BC in Thebes, belonged to the middle class and might have been the mother or wife of a priest, scribe or craftsman. In the absence of an inscription or other identification that has not been preserved, she has been nicknamed Mery, meaning “the beloved” in ancient Egyptian.

The show also will present ibis, cat and falcon mummies with their X-ray images, as well as statuettes of mummiformed men, women and deities. These statuettes pose the intriguing question of why the Egyptians chose to represent their creator and fertility gods as mummies. Particularly impressive in this collection is an ibis mummy still resting in its ceramic funerary urn, which is on loan from the Archaeological Collection of the Johns Hopkins University, and bronze figures of falcons that served as mysterious receptacles for mummified raptors.

Metal Detectorist in Holland Finds Important Celtic Coin Cache

Word today of a metal detectorist in the Dutch city of Maastricht discovering an important cache of Celtic gold and silver coins in a cornfield.

According to reports, the trove had 39 gold and 70 silver coins dating from the mid-1st Century BC. The coins may have been hidden originally for safety as troops under Julius Caesar campaigned against Celtic tribes in that area as part of Rome's westward expansion.

The coins were minted by the Celtic Eburones tribe, which Caesar claimed in 53 BC to have wiped out after they led a surprise attach that killed 6,000 Romans. 

The coin cache have been preliminarly valued at roughly $225,000. 

Read the article here.

Roman Gold Earring with Pearls and Emeralds Found in Jerusalem Excavation

A 2,000 year old Roman gold earring inlaid with pearls and precious stones was discovered in excavations that the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting in the Giv‘ati car park at the City of David, in the “Walls around Jerusalem National Park”.

The earring, which is made of a coiled gold hoop, has a large inlaid pearl in its center. Connected to the hoop are two identical gold pendants, each of which is adorned with one emerald and pearl. The emerald is held by a kind of gold cap that connects it to the main hoop by means of a small hoop that is also fashioned from gold. Another pearl that is relatively smaller than the one inlaid in the upper hoop is attached to the other side of the emerald. The pearl is fastened to the emerald by means of a gold finding, which passes through a tiny hole that was drilled in it.

According to Dr. Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, directors of the excavation at the site on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The earring was astonishingly well preserved, so much so that it seems it was manufactured only yesterday. The data we have available today about jewelry and the manufacture of jewels in the ancient world indicate that the earring, which was discovered in the ruins of a building which dates to the Byzantine period (fourth-fifth centuries CE), was apparently originally produced during the course of the Roman period (between the first century BCE and the beginning of the fourth century CE). Gold jewelry inlaid with precious stones and pearls were used throughout the Roman Empire – from the Roman provinces in the east to Britain in the west.

One of the most detailed and impressive sources of information we have that were preserved from this period are the Fayum portraits that were discovered in Egypt. These drawings, which decorated the tombs of the mummies at Fayum, present an entire gallery of the deceased images dressed in their best attire and wearing expensive jewelry. It is interesting to note that in the portraits of the women from Fayum they are wearing gold earrings and necklaces that in most cases are inlaid with pearls and emeralds. These earrings are surprisingly reminiscent of the earring from the City of David, and it seems that they were fashioned in a similar technique.”

A year ago a large impressive edifice that dates to the end of the Second Temple period was exposed in the excavations in the Giv‘ati car park. Based on evidence from the writings of Josephus Flavius, the building that was uncovered was probably erected by the Hadyab family. The most famous member of that family was Queen Heleni, who converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem, where she was buried.

Plans Announced to Rebuild Turkey's Temple of Artemis

Plans have surfaced in the press regarding ambitious plans for the rebuilding of the Temple of Artemis - one of the original seven wonders of the world at Selçuk, near the port at Izmir, in Turkey.

 

The Temple of Artemis, or Artemision in Greek, recalled in both Greek and Byzantine anthologies for its magnificence, was once one of the Seven Wonders of the World. After decades of vandalism, religious conflict and decay it is finally to be rebuilt at a cost of $150 million. 

According to Altinkum's Voices newspaper, Dr. Atılay İleri, the founder of the Selçuk Artemis Culture, Arts and Education Foundation, met with Dr. Anton Bammer of the archaeology institute at the University of Vienna, Austria, a decade ago while Dr Bammer was leading a series of excavations in the area. During this period, experts searched for the techniques on how to rebuild Artemis.

The original Temple of Artemis had 120 columns. Thirty-six of them were placed on cubic circles. If completed, the new temple of Artemis will be the third Temple of Artemis constructed in history.

Its size will be the same as the original. A total of 25,000 cubic meters of solid marble, the original construction material of Artemis, will be used in the construction of the third temple. Sixty of the 120 columns of the new temple will have base plates.

Erected at the expense of the Lydian king, Karun, at Ephesus (modern-day Turkey) in the seventh century B.C., the Temple of Artemis was dedicated to the goddess Artemis, or Artemis of Ephesus, the daughter of Zeus and twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests, hills, virginity and fertility.

 

30+ Ancient Ships and Other Artifacts Found at Constantinople's First Port

Reports out of Turkey indicate that archaeologists may have uncovered the first Byzantine port of the ancient city of Constantinople.

A rich cache of ancient objects have been found in shallow waters off Yenikapi in modern Istambul with the potential to re-write the history books regarding life in the time of Theodosius I.  Pottery, coins, Stone Age skeletons, amphorae and even a basket full of ancient cherries has been surfaced so far. More than 30 timber ship frames have also been discovered.

According to a report in The National newspaper, researchers at the affiliated institutes of nautical archaeology at Texas A&M University and at Bodrum in Turkey have stressed the importance of the finds, saying they are unique because of their sheer number and ability to shed light on ancient building techniques. Nautical gear, such as stone anchors with wooden poles and ropes, have been perfectly preserved in the depths of the murky water, while entire merchant vessels from various centuries have been uncovered, some filled with ancient merchandise, such as oil and wine amphorae. Fifteen ships thought to have sunk in a strong storm in 1,000 AD were discovered at the eastern end of the harbor, revealing a high-traffic port that connected the ancient granaries of Alexandria to the vineyards of northern Greece.

Read a full report here.

Justice Ministry Asked to Decide Fate of 'Jesus Ossuary' After Israeli Antiquities Authority Case Fails After Two Years

The Justice Ministry has been given six months to decide how to proceed in the trial of an antiquities dealer suspected of forging a purported reference to Jesus on an ancient burial box and a stone tablet with biblical passages, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.

Both items were hailed as major archaeological finds but subsequently claimed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority to be clever forgeries.

The ministry has been forced to reevaluate the case after the Jerusalem District Court judge in the case advised the prosecution to reassess its position in the three-year-old trial because it failed to prove that the key suspect, Tel Aviv antiquities collector Oded Golan, had indeed faked the biblical-era artifacts, according to the Post.

The burial box, or ossuary, bears the inscription, "James, son of Joseph brother of Jesus," leading some scholars to believe it was used to store the remains of James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. The 15-line inscription on the tablet was thought to have described First Temple "house repairs."

Read the full article here.