Antiquities and Ancient Art

Temple of Acharnes Hailed as Exceptional Find in Athens

News coming out of Athens claims that an important Greek theater -- the Temple of Acharnes -- has been discovered about 6 miles from the ancient Athenian Agora. Despite decades of searching by scholars, remains of the theater came to light as the result of construction work in the area of Menidi. (Photo at right shows the well preserved Greek theater at Delphi.)

The Theatre of Acharnes is one of ancient Athens' most important venues. The works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and other poets were performed here before thousands more than 2,500 years ago.

So far, 13 rows of limestone seats which were part of the open air theater have been discovered some 2 yards below the surface. The structure appears to extend under part of a modern road and adjacent buildings.

A Greek Culture Minister speaking to reporters this week declared the site an "exception find."   

Getty Museum Walks Out of Talks with Italian Government on Return of Antquities

Three cheers for the Getty Museum which has finally decided enough is enough when it comes to the Italian government's increasing game of cultural extortion.

Using the gullible press as a PR tool and leveraging recent victories over the Metropolitan Museum in NY and the Boston MFA, the Italian government kept up an increasing effort to claw back more and more antiquities from the Getty's collection.

After months of prolonged negotiations, the Getty Museum based in Malibu, CA, walked out of talks this week effectively drawing a line in the sand with the Italians.   

According to the UK's Independent newspaper, Michael Brand, the director of the Getty, has sent a closely argued, six-page letter to Francesco Rutelli, the Minister of Culture, saying he is "deeply saddened" by the failure to reach agreement after more than a year of talks, and announcing the end of "these present negotiations". Mr Rutelli's office said the letter had been received "with surprise and disappointment".

At the center of the dispute, as reported in the Independent, is an enormous marble and limestone statue of the goddess Aphrodite, sold to the Getty for $18m (£10m) by a British antiquities dealer who was jailed last year. The statue, one of the glories of the Malibu museum, is claimed by the Italians to have been dug up by grave robbers in Morgantina, Sicily, and illegally exported to Switzerland, where the British dealer Robin Symes sold it on to the Americans. But the statue is just one item on a list of objects the Italian government has been demanding be returned.

The Getty, which thoroughly researched the provenance prior to the purchase, traced ownership to a Sicilian man named Renzo Canavesi who stated the statue had been in his family since 1939. Some scholars who have closely examined the statue, including one who is an authority on the archaeology of Morgantina, say there is no evidence that the Aphrodite came from that area.

The actions by the Getty, one of the richest and most philanthropic museums in the world (which grants tens of millions of dollars for archaeological and conservation projects in Italy!), indicate a possible sea change in the seeming one-sided battle over cultural patrimony that has been waged by the Italian government since 2001. It is good to finally see an American museum take a firm stand with reagrds to its collection and resist the urge to simply roll over in the hope of averting negative press headlines.

Lost Archimedes' Ancient Writings Revealed with New Technology

"Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers," according to reports from the Associated Press today.

"Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works."

"The X-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, cause tiny amounts of iron left by the original ink to glow without harming the delicate goatskin parchment. It takes about 12 hours to scan one page using an X-ray beam about the size of a human hair, and researchers expect to decipher up to 15 pages that resisted modern imaging techniques. After each new page is decoded, it is posted online for the public to see, according to the AP."  Click here for the full story.

A dedicated website has been set up for scholars and interested parties can see each of the new pages as it is revealed by the particle accelerator.

Visit to Mycenae, Corinth and the Peloponnese Yields Treasures Large and Small

While in Athens, even if time is short, a day trip to the Peloponnese is recommended. The highway runs west out of Athens and past the ancient site of Eleusis. Once an important Greek religious center with a sanctuary to Demeter and her daughters, Eleusis is today an industrial town overcome with shipping ports, oil refineries, smog, and the persistent waft of diesel fuel.  In the distance is the island of Salamis (photo), famed for the Greek naval defeat of the Persians in 480 BC.

Athens sent her 300 ships cleverly trapping and destroying an enemy navy three times its size, thus marking the beginning of a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity, now known as the Classical Period of Athens.

The motorway passes over the impressive Corinth canal (photo).  The canal cuts through a small neck of land joining the Peloponnese to mainland Greece.  It frustrated sailors since ancient times because it forced them to make long and perilous trips around the coast of the Peloponnese. Despite the efforts of everyone from Alexander the Greek to Nero and Caligula to dig a canal, the 4-mile water passage was not successfully cut through the deep rock until French engineers dynamited their way through in 1893.

A short journey from the canal comes Acrocorinth, a towering rock citadel 1,883 feet high that was the strongest natural fortification in ancient Greece. From its top, on a clear day, one can see the Acropolis of Athens 80km to the East! In Archaic times, the site was topped with a Temple to Athena.

The plains of the Peloponnese are fertile and remain an important source of agriculture for the Greeks including tobacco and citrus farming (Photo).

An hour from the canal, one approaches the placid site of the Palace of Mycenae (photo).  Located in a desolate yet picturesque area, this ancient city was made famous when unearthed by Heinrich Schliemann in 1874 as he searched for the ancient temple of Agamennon using details from Homer’s Illiad. 

The site is nestled on a plateau protected by two towering mountains, offering an endless view to the valley and sea below (photo). 

Schliemann's Mycenae and the Palace of Agamemnon

The path to the archaeological site takes one through the famed Lion Gate (photo) dating to 1250 BC and past the famous Grave Circle A (photo), which contained royal tombs dating back to the 16^th century BC. These tombs contained an enormously rich burial of pottery, weapons and gold, including the famed Gold Mask of Agemnenon, most of which is now in the Athens National Museum.

The area is rich in ancient mystery and awe, as well as natural modern beauty with wild flowers and reptiles peacefully at home (photo).

The museum on site contains a trove of amazing Mycenaean Greek artifacts  including one of the world’s great collections of terracotta Phi figures (photo) and 16^th – 12^th Century BC pottery (photo). 

Objects from this era occasionally come to market and are highly sought after, especially by collectors with a fondness for Homer and the Trojan War. 

Stunning masterpieces such as the 13^th Century BC painted figure with upraised arms found at Mycenae are found throughout the small but efficient museum. 

 

A short distance from the Palace at Mycenae, is the famous tholos (or ‘beehive tomb’) known both as the Treasury of Atreus and The Tomb of Agemnennon (photo). This splendid architectural monument cut into the side of a hill was built contemporaneously with the Lion Gate (1250 BC).

The circular chamber inside is constructed from stone blocks creating a space approximately 35 feet in diameter and height, with a doorway to the north side of the chamber leading to a small, square chamber.  No ornamentation survives and judging from the finds at Mycenae, the grave goods (removed in antiquity) would surely have been impressive.

Just beyond the entrance to the Treasury of Atreus, one can view the remains of Schliemann's Mycenae (photo).  The view leaves a final visual imprint of just awe-inspiring this area must have been 3,200 years ago.

Browsing the Cycladic Museum is a Must for Antiquities Collectors

The Museum of Cycladic Art is a must-see for any antiquities collector. It is an easy stroll from the Syntagma Metro, just five minutes up the posh Vasilissis Sofias. The museum is arranged on four floors, the first two being dedicated to the Goulandris family collection, dominated by one of the world’s greatest collections of more than 50 complete Cycladic figures plus hundreds of fragments.

These Cycladic Idols date from the Early Bronze Age (3200-2000 BC) and are the product of a distinctive civilization that flourished in the Greek Cycladic Islands and was active in trade with the early Helladic Greek mainland, Minoan Crete and the North Aegean. The figures were worked with stone, and later bronze tools then polished with emery or pumice.

The appearance of the figures was no accident. They were laid out according to a canon of prescribed proportions that evolved over time and varied slightly between the main centers of production. Still, the repertoire of figures that survive display a primal harmony and symmetry that seems timeless; at once ancient and ultra-modern. 

One of the most striking idols, the so-called “Modigliani” Figure (inspiration for several works of the 20^th century painter) greets visitors in the center of the first room (see photo at left). Technically known as a Dokathismata Variety and attributed to the Ashmoleon Museum Master, this slender female figure dates to the Keros-Syros Culture (2800-2300 BC).

In the main gallery, one finds a large and very unusual Cycladic figure in the form of a male with obvious genitalia. This large statue is considered the work of the “Goulandris Master” and also dates to the Syros period of 2800-2300 BC. It is a unique representation in monumental dimensions (the fragment alone is more than 2 feet). A most unusual feature, visible in the photo at right, is that unlike other figures the crossed arms do not touch.

A few display cases away, another interesting variant is the so-called Kapsala variety. Here, the figure has distinctively bent legs, almost as if intended to be seated.

Two other masterpieces in the main gallery demand attention. First is the “Cup-Bearer,” a figure with almond-shaped head almost perpendicular to the neck. There are no sexual characteristics evident. The free projection of the outstretched right arm with no support is an extremely rare feature in Cycladic sculpting.

Last but not least is a monumental female figure nearly five feet tall, one of only two complete examples of this size known (the other is in the National Museum at Athens). It is thought the figure came from Amorgos, Keros or Herakleia. (The photo on the left gives a sense of proportion compared to unidentified person on left. The photo on the right provides a close-up from one side.)

The Cycladic Museum is also rich in other objects, including Cycladic vessels and related objects from the Cycladic Period. But the museum also offers a fine collection of objects from the Glory of Athens through the period of Rome.

Examining Objects beyond the Cycladic Figures

One gets an idea of the variety of objects from the photo at left showing Bronze Age terracottas in the foreground and Classical Greek vases and Roman marble statuary in the further room. 

One case worth noting is a wonderful display of ancient bronzes including two small solid bronze Greek weights each decorated with a dolphin. Located not far away is a case of Greek vases that includes a jovial Corinthian kylix decorated with the humorous caricature of a young athletic man who possibly worked in the same workshop.

The 3^rd floor contains the Thanos Zintilis collection (photos right) featuring a superb selection of Cypriot pottery and terracottas. The layout of the objects provides an excellent chronology of the evolution of Cypriot pottery.  Zintilis collected mostly in the 1950s and 1960s.

Finally, the 4^th floor houses the Greek-born, American-bred Charles Politis collection. Politis founded the largest plastics company in Greece and in the process formed an outstanding collection of ancient Greek works of various periods. The photo at the left shows objects including Greek terracotta pigs and small Attic lekythoi.

The museum is closed Tuesdays and Thursdays, so be sure to plan your trip to include a visit. The collections can be comfortably seen in 2-3 hours.   

Antiquities Collector's Guide to Visiting Greece - Day 1: Delphi

Join me for a quick jaunt through Greece. Starting in Athens, the city of the goddess of wisdom, where I arrived at 1:30am this morning, I waste little precious time. At 8:00 am, I begin my 3-hour trek north to Delphi. Taking the motorway to Thessaloniki (Greece’s second largest city), I notice immediately the landscape change once outside Athens from urban crush to irregularly plotted fertile fields rolling to the feet of numerous imposing mountains.

Less than 30 minutes beyond Athens, I drive by Mount Pentali home of the famed creamy-yellow Pentalic marble used for the buildings of the Acropolis and many Greek statues. The Mountain is cloaked in thick white clouds. In the distance, luxurious country apartments are significantly more expensive than similarly sized flats in Athens. I also pass the fairly non-descript plain of Marathon, where the Greek victory over the Persians in 490 BC was a defining moment for Western culture.

An hour down the road is ancient Thebes – the Greek, not the Egyptian, Thebes. Thebes, the most powerful Greek city-state for a short period, was also home to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex who fruitlessly tried to deny his fate but nonetheless killed his father and married his mother as the Delphic Oracle foretold. Traveling deeper and further into the mountains toward Delphi, I look down upon the spot thought to be the fated crossroads where Oedipus slew a paternal father he never knew in a fit of rage because his chariot was not allowed to pass first.

Heading higher and deeper, I pass by Mount Parnausis, to my right stretching to the heavens, and to my left stretches what’s known as a “sea of olives” – Europe’s largest olive grove.

Delphi itself is a magical experience. The layout invites one through the onsite archaeological museum which houses a remarkable collection of objects ranging from dozens of Phi and Pi figures, geometric bronze quadrapeds, awe-inspiring archaic marble figures, and spectacular frieze fragments from the Temple of Apollo including some with traces of original red paint! In addition, two iconic Delphic objects are not to be missed – the great archaic marble Sphinx which once was perched high along the Sacred Way leading to the Apollo’s Temple; and the life-sized Severe-style classical Greek bronze statue of the Delphic charioteer.

Leaving the museum, one browses through sacred grounds lined with the remains of marble “treasuries” – votive shrines that housed gifts to the god Apollo – dedicated by a variety of Greek city-states. The base of the impressive Siphion treasury suggests its ancient grandeur. In ancient days replaced marble columns with more lavish Karyatids to thank Apollo for the city-state’s good fortune in discovering gold and silver mines. The wonderfully reconstructed Athenian treasury with its Doric columns gives the visitor pause.          

The Temple of Apollo, home of the Delphic Oracle, sits above the Sacred Way, majestically hovering high above the site. The impressive floor plan is evident and several columns standing upright easily suggest the immense size and beauty of this important ancient site. Behind the Temple sits an imposing theatre.  Here, audiences would sit and watch performances with the Temple backdrop declaring the deities' supreme and immortal power as if nature, represented by the breathtaking valley below, is seemingly kneeling before Apollo’s temple in reverent reflection. 

For the adventurous visitor, there is still more. A few hundred meters further up the mountain is a massive stadium dedicated to Apollo. The stadium and theatre are totally appropriate on a sacred site as the Greeks believed that both sport and ritual acting was in itself a quest for perfection; mortal man’s purest quest for becoming god-like.

For the first time visitor to Delphi, both the trip through the countryside and the sacred site itself allow one to experience another type of perfection 2,500 years later.

Along the way, tiny ancient inscriptions are carved into countless sacred stones along the way. These inscriptions – on the walls of monuments, the walls and benches of the stoa (porticoed resting area), and even the front stalls of the large theatre on the site -- are timeless echoes from the many ancient Greek pilgrims who visited here. Every inscription is neatly carved, not by the pilgrims themselves, but by skilled artisans who did so for a fee.

It's Official: The Met Announces the Return of Some Greek Antiquities to Italy

The Metropolitan Museum of Art today signed an agreement in Rome that formalizes the transfer of title to six antiquities—including a group of 16 Hellenistic silver pieces—to Italy.

In exchange, the Italian Culture Ministry has officially agreed that the Metropolitan may keep on view the 2,500-year-old Attic krater by the potter Euxitheos and the painter Euphronios until January 2008, some nine months after the scheduled April 2007 opening of the Museum's new galleries for Etruscan, Hellenistic, and Roman art. The collection of Hellenistic silver will remain at the Metropolitan until 2010 in a newly designed treasury.

The remaining objects—which, as in the case of the krater and silver, the agreement stipulates were acquired by the Museum in good faith—will be returned to Italy as expeditiously as possible. The Ministry has agreed to provide the Metropolitan with long-term future loans—of up to four years each, as Italian law allows—of works of art of equivalent beauty and importance to the objects being returned. The loans will be chosen from a list of objects submitted by the Metropolitan or by others, with joint approval.

The agreement was signed today by Philippe de Montebello, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and, for Italy: Giuseppe Proietti, representing the Ministry of Culture; Francesco Sicilia, also representing the ministry; and Alessandro Pagano, representing the Culture Ministry of Sicily.

The works of art covered in the agreement are:

• Euphronios krater, ca. 515 B.C. (MMA accession number 1972.11.10)
• Hellenistic silver collection, 3rd century B.C. (1981.11.15-22; 1982.7-13; 1984.11.3)
• Laconian kylix, 6th century B.C. (1999.527)
• Red-figured Apulian Dinos, 340-320 B.C. (1984.11.7)
• Red-figured psykter decorated with horsemen, ca. 520 B.C. (1996.250)
• Red-figured Attic amphora by the Berlin painter, ca. 490 B.C. (1985.11.5)

Commented Mr. de Montebello: "It is with a recognition of its institutional responsibility—coupled with the highest hopes for continued, mutually beneficial relationships with our many colleagues in Italy—that the Metropolitan has concluded these negotiations, which affirm a solution that it first proposed in Rome in November. This is the appropriate solution to a complex problem, which redresses past improprieties in the acquisitions process through a highly equitable arrangement.

"The Met is particularly gratified that, through this agreement, its millions of annual visitors will continue to see comparably great works of ancient art on long-term loan from Italy to this institution."

2,400 Year Old Thracian Golden Wreath Unearthed by Archaeologists

Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,400-year old golden treasure in an ancient Thracian tomb in eastern Bulgaria, the director of the country's History Museum said Monday according to report by teh Associated Press.

The gold-rich burial was discovered late on Saturday by a team of archaeologists, working on excavations near the village of Zlatinitsa, some 290 kilometers (180 miles) east of the capital, Sofia.

The most impressive finds included a golden ring and wreath, finely crafted silver rhytons, or horn-shaped drinking vessels, and many golden and silver pieces of armor and horse trappings, Prof. Bozhidar Dimitrov told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.  Click for full story and photo.

600 Ancient Greek Antiquities on Display at Catanzaro Museum, Italy

Having just recently returned from a trip to Sicily, I can tell you that Italian museums (during the few hours they are open in the morning) are the antiquities collector's version of dying and going to heaven. I spent a total of 10 hours in the Archaeological museum in Palermo (pictured) over two days. A wonderful treat. 

For those fortunate to be traveling in Italy this summer, add one more stop on your list...especially if you will be in the Calabria region. At the Catanzaro museum there is a special exhibition: Complesso Monumentale di San Giovanni: Magna Grecia, Archaeology of Wisdom.  More than 600 finds from Ancient Greek civilization in Italy, including terracotta and marble statues, pottery, chalices and jewellery; are displayed until October 30.

Russians Puzzled Over Hoard Discovery Containing Hebrew, Ancient Greek and Latin Inscriptions

Archaeologists in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad have uncovered 16th Century jewellery which they say is unlike any found in the area before.

They were found in a 10cm round box during an excavation at the site of a medieval castle in the city.  It contained 11 items made of gold, silver, tin and hematite, covered with hieroglyphs and inscriptions in Hebrew, ancient Greek and Latin.

Archaeologists think the rings and amulets might have belonged to a counsellor of Albrecht, Duke of Prussia, who had an interest both in astrology and black magic.  Read more from the BBC.