In: Collecting and Collectors from Antiquity to Modernity, edited by Alexandra Carpino, Tiziana D’Angelo, Maya Muratov, and David Saunders. Selected Papers on Ancient Art and Architecture, vol. 4. Series Editor Mireille M. Lee. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America, 2018
A Cambridge don with particular interests in classical literature and minerals, Charles W. King d... more A Cambridge don with particular interests in classical literature and minerals, Charles W. King devoted most of his life to the study and collecting of antique gems. This essay attempts to shed light on the development of a new concept of artistic authenticity in the latter half of the 19th century. While for other collectibles forgeries were in part responsible for the growing appreciation of the original objects, King condemned this “fraudulent ingenuity” and identified it as one of the main causes of the crisis of gem collecting in his time. His papers, bequeathed to Trinity College upon his death, offer valuable insights into the nature and characteristics of 19th-century gem forgeries. In spite of his expertise, King’s collection of Greek and Roman engraved gems, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1881, counts a number of modern imitations, which will help explore the criteria and methodology he adopted in the evaluation of antique gems. By focusing on Charles W. King, this essay aims to reassess the impact of modern forgeries and interpolations of classical engraved gems in the 19th century, thus reaching a better understanding of a transitional and critical phase in the history of gem collecting.
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Contributi di:
Monica Baggio, Angela Ciancio, Adriana De Tullio, Mario De Tullio, Martine Denoyelle, Federica Giacobello, Giuseppe Maiellaro, Maria Emilia Masci, Stefania Montanaro, Maya Muratov, Claude Pouzadoux, Carmela Roscino, Clement Salviani, Aldo Siciliano
a cura di Giuseppe Maiellaro
Claudio Grenzi Editore
Papers by Maya Muratov
Talks by Maya Muratov
Tamgas appear in the area in the first century AD. They are found as graffiti in tomb chambers and on gravestones, and perhaps as symbols of magic power on bronze belt buckles and mirrors. However, several tamgas have been convincingly identified as personal emblems of the Bosporan rulers. This paper explores the contexts and meaning of these royal tamgas found on public monuments of the Bosporan Kingdom. At first, they seem to be incorporated into the public inscriptions as signs of authority of a current ruler. It will be argued that by the late 2nd century AD the royal tamgas take on an additional role as images that were in fact used as substitutes for portraits of the local rulers. As such they became part of the Bosporan pictorial language easily understood by the Kingdom’s inhabitants.
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Contributi di:
Monica Baggio, Angela Ciancio, Adriana De Tullio, Mario De Tullio, Martine Denoyelle, Federica Giacobello, Giuseppe Maiellaro, Maria Emilia Masci, Stefania Montanaro, Maya Muratov, Claude Pouzadoux, Carmela Roscino, Clement Salviani, Aldo Siciliano
a cura di Giuseppe Maiellaro
Claudio Grenzi Editore
Tamgas appear in the area in the first century AD. They are found as graffiti in tomb chambers and on gravestones, and perhaps as symbols of magic power on bronze belt buckles and mirrors. However, several tamgas have been convincingly identified as personal emblems of the Bosporan rulers. This paper explores the contexts and meaning of these royal tamgas found on public monuments of the Bosporan Kingdom. At first, they seem to be incorporated into the public inscriptions as signs of authority of a current ruler. It will be argued that by the late 2nd century AD the royal tamgas take on an additional role as images that were in fact used as substitutes for portraits of the local rulers. As such they became part of the Bosporan pictorial language easily understood by the Kingdom’s inhabitants.
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Very little is known about the earliest history of Pantikapaion. It is believed that in its early stage, it was a predominantly Greek city, an assumption supported by archaeological material. Although it is generally assumed that there was no Scythian presence in Pantikapaion, the Greek colonists must have had some economic relations with the tribes that roamed in close proximity to the city. It is also believed that in the 6th and early 5th centuries BC some of these interactions were not always peaceful – as testified by the burned destruction layers containing arrowheads of Scythian type, that have been excavated in Pantikapaion and in several other Bosporan cities. In fact, Scythian invasions are considered the most likely cause for the creation of the Bosporan Kingdom.
During the archaeological season of 2010 the team of the Bosporan Archaeological Expedition working in the area that has been traditionally identified as the temenos of Pantikapaion, stumbled upon a well-preserved burned stratum dating from the late 6th – early 5th century BC. In this layer traces of a curious ritual – either sacrificial or magical – have been discovered. Remains of a beheaded horse that had been cut in half with its spine removed were carefully placed on a pavement. Bronze roundels from a harness (of Scythian animal style – the first Scythian objects ever discovered in Pantikapaion) were found on that partial skeleton, a fact that indicates that skin has not been removed from the mutilated horse at the time of its placement on the ground. Underneath that headless half-horse three upper parts of Aeolian amphorae were arranged in a triangular formation. All components date from no later than the 1st quarter of the 5th century BC.
This paper will attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events of that unique ritual and to examine it against the known Greek and Scythian sacrificial and magical practices. It will be suggested that the excavated remains pertain to a magical ritual directly related to a military conflict between the Pantikapaion Greeks and the Scythians and might have been performed either in order to influence the outcome of that conflict or in order to signify its culmination.
Keeping in mind that to a certain degree the concept of mass (popular) or elite entertainment is an analytical construct and is not an actual reality, the notion of ‘popular entertainment’ is defined here as follows: it is part of the every-day culture of the lower social strata, of the uneducated rather than of the educated (that is not to say that the educated would not occasionally indulge in this type of amusement); on some level popular entertainment is also part of an alternative culture that “opposed that of the elite one which proclaimed civilization, morality and decency; therefore, it was often immoral and indecent.” It is also understood that in the Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman societies, with an existing extraordinarily wide array of types of entertainment the dividing lines between what one would refer to as ‘popular’ entertainment and otherwise were rather blurred.
Articulated figures that can be moved by pulling the attached strings, are often mentioned in the Greek and Latin texts. For this reason, it is generally assumed that this particular type of popular entertainment was well known to the ancient writers and their readers. However, about 90 percent of the ancient texts that mention what are believed to be the marionettes, use the term metaphorically in order to illustrate the point that humans are always controlled by superior forces that pull the invisible strings. There also exists some confusion in terminology as there is a discrepancy between the words in modern languages and those used in the Greek and Latin texts. Another significant issue is that to this day no object has been universally recognized as an ancient puppet. In this paper I will bring together and re-examine the relevant textual (both literary and epigraphic) sources, will address the terminology problem, and will present several types of existing objects that I believe functioned as ancient marionettes. Based on the analysis of the texts and of the material evidence I will investigate the social and cultural place of the puppet theater in the ancient world.
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