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| Bronze head and torso of a statue of Hadrian found at Tell Shalem, a Roman fort 5km south of Beth Shean, Israel; H. 83cm. On loan from the Israel Museum. |
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| Jerome M. Eisenberg, Ph.D., and Dr Sean Kingsley |
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Gay icon, pacifist, and culture vulture is hardly how you would expect the man who gave Britain a ‘security fence’ to keep Romans away from tribal Scottish trouble-makers to be described. Yet this is the 21st-century Hadrian who will be dusted down for the British Museum’s next blockbuster from 24 July to 26 October. This Spanish foreigner may be infamous as the brains behind Hadrian’s Wall, but one of his first acts as emperor (r. AD 117-38) was to withdraw Roman troops from Mesopotamia - modern Iraq. As Neil MacGregeor, the British Museum’s director pointed out when announcing the show, this awareness of imperial overreach has a telling present-day resonance.
‘Hadrian: Empire and Conflict’ will bring together 180 loans from 31 countries - three-quarters of the show’s objects come from abroad - to display dramatic sculpture, exquisite bronzes, and architecture, many objects travelling to the UK for the first time. As with ‘The First Emperor’, the exhibition will be housed in the museum’s Reading Room, itself an architectural replica of Hadrian’s Pantheon in Rome.
The show will open by focussing on Hadrian’s Spanish roots and humble olive oil - the crude oil of the day - which bought him the wealth to stride the political stage. The theme of war is examined at home and away, not least through the dramatic artefacts abandoned in caves along the Dead Sea by Jewish warriors and refugees - including poignant bronze keys from the front doors of opulent Jerusalem villas, never to be opened again by their owners. Other sections of the exhibition look into Hadrian’s architectural legacy, his love for Antinous, and his complex mausoleum on the backs of the Tiber. As well as making dead stones speak, the rich and varied letters from Vindolanda will allow many everyday voices of the era to rise from the grave.
Highly evocative masterworks and more humble finds to be displayed will include the tombstone of the emperor’s wet nurse, a life-size bronze head and cuirass from Israel, a 2m-long gilded bronze peacock that once protected the entrance to Hadrian’s Mausoleum (now in the Vatican Museums), and a silver bowl from Georgia, adorned in the tondo with a relief of Antinous, no doubt a diplomatic gift as well as a hugely public expression of Hadrian’s devotion. Far smaller, but equally revealing of the psychology and extent of Hadrian’s battle for imperial control, is a Judaean coin of Bar Kokhba from Israel, which overstruck and obliterated an imperial issue of the emperor during the Second Jewish Revolt (AD 132-5).
As a precursor to the British Museum’s next blockbuster, a stunning one and a quarter life-size bronze head of Hadrian, dredged up from the River Thames in 1834, will leave London for the first time. After going on show at Tullie House, Carlisle (8 February to 13 April) it will move to Segedunum Roman Fort and Museum at Wallsens (16 April to 8 June). The public’s appetite will be suitably whetted.
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| Funerary terracotta model of a house. Found in 1984 in the village of Mazuocun, city of Jiaozuo. Han dynasty, 2nd century AD; 148 x 76 x 59cm. Photo: Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels. |
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| Dr Filippo Salviati, University of Rome, ‘La Sapienza’ |
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Wood has been used in China as the traditional building material since prehistoric times. As a result, very few buildings have survived the passage of time, and in the modern era what is left of ancient Chinese architecture does not pre-date - with very few notable exceptions - the 16th century. Visitors to Chinese cities and historical sites should therefore not expect to find anything comparable to the ancient monumental ruins standing in cities like Rome. To compound matters, the rapid modernisation which started in the early 1990s has completely reshaped the majority of Chinese urban spaces: the few surviving ancient buildings are dwarfed by skyscrapers.
What is known through the work of archaeologists of the architecture of the past in China is limited to a few scattered remains: the foundations of pounded earth on which palatial structures were erected, stone bases for wooden columns insertions, and in terracotta or glazed tiles which once adorned and protected roofs. Secondary sources, such as descriptions in ancient texts, but mostly murals, low-reliefs, and ceramic architectural models discovered in tombs help to give a better idea of how the dwellings of the Chinese peoples might have looked over the centuries.
To provide an overview of ancient Chinese architecture by illustrating it through such secondary sources is precisely the scope of an unusual and challenging exhibition organised in Brussels at the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire and on view until 20 April. Curated by Nicole De Bisscop, ‘La Chine Sous Toit’ (China Under the Roof), is an important and visually fascinating exhibition that brings together 177 artefacts from the rich storage rooms of the Henan Provincial Museum and discovered in tombs and sites in this Chinese province over the last 50 years.
Although the exhibition claims to cover 2000 years of architectural history, from the Han (206 BC - AD 220) to the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), two-thirds of the objects displayed belong to the Han dynasty. Some of the artefacts of the later dynasties are truly outstanding, such as the Ming-period roof ornament in glazed ceramic, superbly decorated with the image in relief of a dragon among lotuses. Interestingly, visitors are more intrigued by the spectacular Han-period ceramic models, especially the tall buildings which represent a unique interruption of the modular, horizontal spread of traditional Chinese architecture. Scholars are still debating whether these models represent actual buildings or imaginary abodes for the afterlife of the deceased. Indeed, less speculation surrounds the models of farmhouses, granaries, duck-ponds, and houses which, together with the lively terracotta figurines depicting humans and animals, bring to life the everyday existence of the Chinese peoples of centuries ago.
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| Geophysical plots of the town of Venta Icenorum, Caistor, England, in the Roman period. Photo: David Bescoby, University of East Anglia. |
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| Reconstruction of a Romano-British temple and public buildings at Venta Icenorum, modern Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk. Photo: Danny Voisey. |
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| Dr Will Bowden, University of Nottingham |
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A new geophysical survey sponsored by the British Academy has produced a complete plan of the walled Roman town of Venta Icenorum, modern Caistor St Edmund in Norfolk. Although Caistor is one of only three major Roman towns in Britain that does not lie directly under a modern town, relatively little is known about the site. It was founded in the territory of the Iceni in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt (AD 60/1), although the circumstances of its foundation remain obscure. The site is now owned by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust and remains a quiet and picturesque spot, the tranquillity of which is only disturbed by the passing Norwich to London trains, from which the walls of the town are clearly visible.
Prior to the new project, knowledge of the town was based mainly on aerial photographs. A particularly stunning view was captured by the RAF in the dry summer of 1928 that showed the streets of the town and some of its buildings. This excited considerable interest, leading to excavations between 1929 and 1935. Unfortunately, these were never fully published, although more than 3000 artefacts (excluding pottery) lie in the stores of Norwich Castle Museum.
The new geophysical survey, carried out by David Bescoby of the University of East Anglia, is part of the Caistor Roman Town Project directed by Dr Will Bowden of the University of Nottingham, working in partnership with the Norfolk Archaeological Trust, South Norfolk Council, Norfolk Museums Service, and Norfolk Landscape Archaeology. Through a combination of geophysics, excavation, field survey, and environmental archaeology, as well as a full study of the finds from the earlier excavations, the project will examine Caistor’s role within the changing landscapes of Iron Age, Roman, and Saxon Norfolk.
The new geophysical survey has demonstrated the potential of the site. One of the more important discoveries was the identification of a number of circular and sub-circular features, including gullies and ring ditches, pointing to a significant pre-Roman presence on the site. Although this had been previously indicated by chance finds of late Iron Age coins and metal work, Iron Age Caistor now appears to have been more extensive than previously thought.
The new survey also suggests that the Roman town and its road system were much more irregular than previously published plans suggest. It seems that the streets were rebuilt and altered over time, with streets in the central areas in particular producing stronger signals that suggest successive resurfacing. Drainage channels in the streets also showed up clearly, as did a long line of probable iron collars that would have joined wooden pipes.
The public buildings excavated in the 1930s (two temples, forum-basilica, and bath-house) were clearly visible on the survey but, in addition, a possible new theatre was noted. This was indicated by two concentric semi-circular anomalies directly to the east of two temples (a characteristic location for a theatre in a Romano-British context). With the exception of the insula containing the forum, and the small insula containing the temples, all the insulae appeared to have significant open areas, and large parts of the walled area (particularly in the north-west quarter) were apparently sparsely occupied during the Roman period.
The survey also revealed possible post-Roman occupation in the form of a large sub-rectangular enclosure that clearly cuts the metalling of the Roman street in the north-west corner of the site. Possible structures are visible within this enclosure. The earlier discovery of middle Saxon coins and metalwork outside the west wall of the site, combined with the presence of two early Saxon cemeteries in the vicinity, suggest that these enclosures may be associated with post-Roman occupation of the walled town.
The strong indications of Iron Age and Saxon occupation phases suggest that Caistor provides a unique opportunity to study the development of a regional centre from the late Iron Age (or earlier) until the 9th century, before the site was ultimately superseded by medieval Norwich. The project therefore holds the potential to contribute to the study of settlement development in Europe, addressing issues of regional, national, and international significance. The project is now seeking funding to test the results of the survey through excavation.
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A Roman wood and ivory throne found in the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, showing Attis next to a sacred pine tree collecting a pine cone.
Photo: Reuters/Archaeology Superintendent of Pompeii. |
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In 1750 the Swiss engineer Karl Jakob Weber discovered a coloured marble floor at the bottom of a well on the property of Charles VII, the Bourbon King of Naples and Sicily, at Portici - ancient Herculaneum. The magnitude of his discovery was unclear until his plan of an extraordinarily large suburban villa was published over 150 years later. The size of this villa is thus far unprecedented, covering an area of 20,000m square, and the scale of the finds unearthed is of an equal magnitude: over 1000 carbonised papyrus rolls of Hellenistic prose, which give this complex its name - the Villa of the Papyri - and more than 80 large-scale marbles and bronzes in excellent condition. In an earlier phase, the villa belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. And now an Italian team of archaeologists directed by Maria Paola Guidobaldi, archaeological superintendent for Pompeii, has made the extraordinary discovery of an elaborately decorated wood and ivory throne.
The throne, discovered in several pieces and presently undergoing careful restoration, is not the first example of wooden furniture discovered in the Bay of Naples.
Although examples are known from Pompeii, they are all low status items and lack the elaborate decoration of the Herculaneum example. Unusually, the throne is carved with scenes depicting the mystery cult of Attis, which spread to Rome from Turkey via Greece during the reign of Claudius (AD 41-54). Essentially, historical texts indicate that this cult was concerned with the life, death, and resurrection of the goddess, and involved several key stages enacted in March: the procession of the reed-bearers and flute-blowers; the entrance of the sacred pine tree; the burial of the effigy of Attis strapped to a stake; mourning, sacrifice, and bloodletting; and the resurrection of Attis. The best-preserved scene on the throne shows the deity collecting a pine cone next to a sacred pine tree. Other carvings are fashioned into leaves and flowers, suggesting that the theme of the throne is spring and fertility.
Despite the relative obscurity of this cult, artistic media excavated from the volcanic mud of Herculaneum indicate that it flourished here in the decades leading up to the cataclysmic destruction of the city by Vesuvius in AD 79. In a twist of irony, many of the wall paintings buried in this tragic human episode depict thrones similar in character to the Herculaneum example, and thus provide an invaluable template for the reconstruction of this unique object. In the meantime we cannot help but wonder what remarkable objects await discovery as the remaining 2500m square of the villa await excavation in the coming months and years.
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