maggietrainor23

A beige pottery with two handles and a narrow neck, decorated with intricate dark brown patterns depicting a stylized octopus. The vessel is displayed on a white pedestal in a museum setting.

We all need a timeline cleanse right now, so let's start the day with this lovely jug with an octopus motif, dating ca 1200-1100 BC.

On display at National Museum Copenhagen.

A lovely weekend to all of you!

📷 me

🏺
#archaeology

Elements from Egyptian and Greek mythology are combined in this delicate figure. The view taken here is that Anubis is represented, wearing military costume and breastplate that signify his role as a fighter against the enemies of Osiris. He holds a staff topped by a cone-shaped object - the thyrsus carried by followers of Dionysus with whom the Greeks equated Osiris. In his other hand he carries a falcon. On the other hand, the snout and ears appear short for Anubis and more like those of a cat, and the short dress can be worn by Artemis who is associated with Bastet. The identity of the figure is, therefore, not certain. Roman, from Egypt, 2nd-3rd century CE. Height: 1 15/16 in. (4.9 cm) Met Museum, New York (67.190)

This l’il fella is a gold amulet from Roman Egypt, possibly representing the Egyptian god Anubis as a defender of Osiris-Dionysus. He wears a military tunic and breastplate, signifying him as a defender of Osiris; he also holds a thyrsus of Dionysus, equated with Osiris. 🏺 1/

📸 me #MetMuseum

Information panel - The Roman Eifel Aqueduct The aqueduct from the Eifel region to Cologne is the largest ancient engineering structure north of the Alps. As one of the most popular archaeological monuments in the Rhineland, it can still be experienced in many ways along the Roman Aqueduct Trail. From the 1st to the 3rd centuries AD, the 95.4 km long aqueduct ensured the water supply of the Lower Germanic provincial capital Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Cologne) for at least 190 years. It replaced the foothill aqueducts that had existed since 30 AD and supplied the city daily with 20 million litres of the finest drinking water from the "Sötenich Limestone Basin" near Kall. The planning, route design, and construction are masterpieces of ancient engineering. Along its route, the aqueduct overcame an elevation difference of approximately 350 m as well as all natural obstacles. As a gravity sewer, its route was adapted to the terrain and featured a varying gradient between 0.1% and 4.5%..

Information panel Construction of the Aqueduct The so-called Roman aqueduct, constructed of solia stone and cast masonry, was lined internally with a sealing red water-repellent plaster. Its hydraulic properties were achieved through the addition of brick dust instead of volcanic ash, as used in other Roman aqueducts. A layer of blackish-gray wood ash, whose function was described by the Roman engineer Vitruvius in the 1st century AD, served to seal the finest hairline cracks. The largely accessible, U-shaped aqueduct was covered with a vault and featured inspection shafts that allowed access for cleaning, inspection, and repairs. Construction likely took less than five years, as work was carried out simultaneously on several sections.

Roman Eifel Aqueduct, Köln, Germany

This section, with sediment, was erected near the Cologne Roman city wall in 2020

Discovered 2016 in Hürth-Hermülheim, Rhein-Erft district.

At 95.4 km (c. 60 miles) it carried water to the city from the Eifel region.

More detail in ALT text

#RomanSiteSaturday

Our #ObjectoftheWeek: A shallow faience bowl from New Kingdom Egypt—decorated with a double-sistrum with Hathor heads and blue lotus flowers—dated to ca. 1539-1292 BCE. Credit: Museo Egizio, Turin, Cat. 3368. CC0 1.0.
#Archaeology #Egypt #Hathor

Two gold hoop earrings with sculptural details - each has Eros riding a dove, a bird sacred to Aphrodite. The birds' wings, tail feathers and the down on their heads, as well as the wings of the Erotes are accentuated with beaded wire arranged in circles and long loops. Greek, Hellenistic, 3rd century BCE. Met Museum, New York (1995.539.9a, b)

These delicate, highly detailed gold hoop earrings depict winged Erotes riding doves. The dove, of course, was a sacred bird of Aphrodite (mother of Eros), symbolizing love, beauty, and fertility. 🏺 #ancientbluesky 1/

Greek, 3rd c. BCE. #MetMuseum
📸 me

My photo shows a Roman fresco of a brown rabbit with long ears, curled on the ground, with a rounded, soft-looking body. Its head is lowered as if nibbling at three figs placed in front of it. The figs are small and round with short stems, painted in dark reddish and bluish tones. From Pompeii. Now on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Here’s a charming Roman fresco of a little rabbit eating figs 🐰❤️

From Pompeii, 45-79 AD.

Now at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. 📷 by me

#FrescoFriday
#Archaeology

A carved stone head in a glass. Are with reeds and a green background to either side

A carved stone face with eyes nose and mouth visible. The mouth has a hole in the upper right lip (as we look) perhaps for offerings

#findsfriday the astonishing, enigmatic Hendy Head from Anglesey now in Oriel Môn - found in a ploughed field overlooking the Menai straits and thought to be Late Iron Age. Did this Celtic god oversee the a Roman attack on the Druids and an end of the old ways? #celts #ironage #druids #anglesey

Large quantities of roofing tile and brick were produced by the #legion for use at the fortress.
From about AD 100, many were stamped with the legions title, official use only. The kilns were probably located near the River Usk. 📸 My own.

#FindsFriday #History #Caerleon #RomanBritain

🪨Neolithic small pointed end flint axehead/elongate chisel tool 80mmx51mm. In the style of the Michelsberg Culture most probably used for small scale wood working. The earliest farmers would have been wealthy people, trading their knowledge & tools #FindsFriday #FlintFriday #Archaeology #Wirral

A museum case containing four red pottery vessels, in front small piles of nuts, seeds and shells.

Evidence for the diet of the Roman soldiers who guarded the Antonine Wall in Scotland - including Samian pottery, shellfish, nuts and seeds - found at various sites along the frontier, now in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.
#FindsFriday

Detail of a pale clay medieval jug, decorated with a green bird and a heraldic shield

Today we're sharing this delightful detail of a Saintonge polychrome jug, which was found at a medieval tenement site in #Winchelsea, E Sussex.

This type of ceramic was imported from SW France during the late 13th-early 14th centuries & is associated with wine trading.
#MedievalMarch
#FindsFriday 🏺

Pelican feeding its young in the nest, with dragon/devil like creatures to left & right.

Cathedral of St Nicholas,
Newcastle, Tyne & Wear

“Pelican in its piety”, with devil/dragon like creatures.

Choir stalls & misericords by cathedral architect R J Johnson & carved by Ralph Hadley -1882.

#Woodensday
#WoodcarvingWednesday

The image shows a rectangular Roman dice tower (turricula) made of four copper alloy (bronze) plates with punched cut-out Latin letters and cut-out decorative patterns. At the bottom front is a stepped exit chute with small bronze bells attached to the opening. The tower is a Roman anti-cheating device. It has an open top and is hollow inside except for three staggered, downward-sloping plates, designed to randomize dice as they fall, ensuring unpredictable dice rolls. When the dice rolled out of the exit chute they rang the bells! There is a decorative dolphin either side of the stepped exit chute. The top of the front plate has two decorative pine cone finials. Height 25 cm. There is a single die shown next to the stepped base to illustrate how it was used. The front inscription reads: PICTOS VICTOS HOSTIS DELETA LVDITE SECVRI Translated as: ‘The Picts defeated, the enemy has been destroyed, play in safety’. Around the top of the three remaining sides, a second inscription made with cut out letters reads: ‘UTERI/FELIX/VIVAS’ translated as ‘Use happily; may you live well’. Found at a Roman villa at Froitzheim in Germany in 1985.

Roman anti-cheating gaming accessory!

This Roman ‘turricula’ (dice tower) was used to ensure a fair roll of the dice! 🎲🎲🎲

Dice dropped into the top, tumbled over sloping internal levels, and appeared randomly below.

From Froitzheim, Germany, AD 300-400

📷 LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn

#Archaeology

Detail of a Roman tomb wall with a semicircular painted lunette showing faded red and blue figures on a white background.

New discovery: A large burial ground dating from the Early Imperial Age to Late Antiquity has been uncovered in Rome’s Ostiense Necropolis during pre-construction works.

cultura.gov.it/comunicato/2...

Päijälä hillfort in Kuhmoinen, Finland, lies on an isthmus between Lakes Linnajärvi and Saaresjärvi in a forest wilderness. The hill rises 40 m higher than its environs and the top is c. 100 m in diameter on two levels. The defenses are in the west. The C14 dating is 1026–1281 CE #HillfortsWednesday

Description from the Art Institute of Chicago: “Female temple attendants, whose costumes and hairstyles recall fashions worn at least 200 years earlier by the Greek occupants of southern Italy and Sicily, kneel before a tall incense burner, upon which they place an offering. The scene is bordered by an egg-and-dart pattern above and a lotus pattern below. The presence of four nailholes indicates that these panels were likely affixed to a wall.”

✨Relief plaque of temple attendants✨

This #ReliefWednesday we are enjoying this beautiful terracotta relief thought to date from the C1st CE but emulating the style of southern Italy and the influences of Magna Graecia.

Aphrodite riding on a goose, or Leda abducted by Zeus transformed as a swan? That is a question!
Probably rather Aphrodite, though recently I am studing Leda's iconography.

Greek terracotta from Hellenistic period, circa 2nd c. BC

#AncientBluesky 🏺 #Mythology #Aphrodite #Iconography

Fragments of sweet wrappers.

Four pieces of plastic cutlery.

Plastic drinking straws and straw wrappers.

Enjoying a treat this #NationalSnackDay? Don't forget to dispose of your waste! Archaeological survey at the Iron Age hillfort of Castell Henllys found lots of plastic waste from modern visits, suggesting we now live in the 'Plastic Age'.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

#HillfortsWednesday🏺#Archaeology

Two attendants from a banqueting scene from the South West Palace at Nineveh. The panel dates from 700-692 BC, and is part of the collections at the British Museum. 📸 My own. #ReliefWednesday

#TilesOnTuesday #ChichesterMuseum

Medieval floor tiles at Winchester Cathedral — vast pavements of tiles with many different designs.

📷 from a visit on 2022

#TilesOnTuesday #medieval

Mobile artifacts with geometric signs of the Swabian Aurignacian. Plaquette with hybrid creature (so-called “Adorant”), ivory, from Geissenklösterle (gkl0025). Mammoth figurine, ivory, from Vogelherd (vhc0145). CREDIT: Landesmuseum Württemberg, Hendrik Zweitasch/ University of Tübingen, Juraj Lipták.

40,000 years ago, humans in Europe carved over 3,000 geometric signs—symbols we still can’t decode. A new study finds their complexity rivals the earliest protocuneiform tablets of ancient Mesopotamia. Read more in PNAS: https://ow.ly/fUFH50Yoa6T

The picture shows two dolls with movable shoulders, elbows, hips and knee joints. The legs of both dolls are partially broken off. One doll's arm is almost completely missing. The limbs and torso are very long, the breasts small. The faces are largely destroyed. The hair is combed back behind the ears, reaching down to the shoulders at the nape. The ivory, which is actually white, has turned brown over time.

Beloved #toys: a pair of #Roman ivory #dolls with articulated arms and legs found in a tomb of a little #girl from a wealthy family in Emona, Ljubljana/Slovenia.

The majority of the dolls in Roman times were made of less valuable materials such as clay, wood or linen. 🧵1/2

🏺 #archaeology

Terracotta model of a chair - or rather throne - decorated with sculptural pieces and polychrome. The back, seat and legs have overall white decoration, in zig zag around the base of the seat where blue is also applied. The front feet are lions' paws. The arms rest on women's heads with white faces/necks and red hair and lips. The back has two crosses in open panels, with a long element along the top ending in roundels, and featuring two birds facing outwards.

#TerracottaTuesday
A terracotta 'thronos' w blue/white/red polychrome.
From C4 BC burial in Taranto, then a part of Magna Graecia, where a rich funerary culture was developing again.
Decorated w women's heads on armrests, front legs resting on lion paws and birds on the back.
In MArTa 🏺

Medieval floor tiles from the Hospital of St. Cross at Winchester in Hampshire. 📸 My own. #TilesOnTuesday

⚡️🔨 Two Viking Age Thor's hammer pendants from Birka's 'Black Earth'.

One Mjǫllnir is iron and the other amber, with the latter likely only half finished.

It seems they were popularised as a symbol due to Viking Age Scandinavians encountering cross-wearing Christians ✝️

My 📷 Historiska museet

Three connected cups from Roman Aldborough in Yorkshire (Isurium Brigantum). Dating to the second century AD, the cups were possibly used as part of a religious ceremony. 📸 My own. #RomanBritain #Aldborough

🏛 Spectacular mosaics have been uncovered in a large villa located in the Roman town of Carsulae, Umbria.

💥 📰 Read more in the latest A Whole Lot of History ⤵️

open.substack.com/pub/historyh...

#MosaicMonday

#Roman mosaic from a villa in East Coker (southwest England). The object dates to the 4th century CE. On the mosaic, we see two hunters carrying a hunted deer and a hunting dog.
#History #artwork
#Archaeology #RomanBritain

The Roman priesthood of the Salii, devoted to Mars, celebrated the beginning and end of the war season, in March and October. In the opening of the war season the sacred shields of the city of Rome were carried in procession and beat with sticks. End of 2nd/beginning of 3rd c AD #MosaicMonday