A lengthy item from the BBC is sure to generate a lot of interest; here’s a bit in medias res:
The leader of the project, Dr Norbert Zimmerman of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, was behind the idea to use laser scanners to record every part of the Catacombs.
His scanner, which looks like a cylinder on a tripod, stands a metre or so high and is a piece of kit you usually find in the construction industry.
Gone are the days when archaeologists just used shovels, brushes and sieves to unearth the past.
The scanner has been placed in hundreds of different locations in the Catacombs.
It turns slowly, sending out millions of light pulses that bounce off every surface they come into contact with. The light pulses rebound back into the scanner and are recorded on a computer as a series of white dots, known as a “point cloud”.
Gradually, every wall, ceiling, and floor is bombarded with the dots, enabling the computer to build up a picture of each room.
Eventually, the computer completes a 360-degree, three-dimensional, moving image of that room, with every surface looking like it is made up of small white dots.
At the same time a camera on the scanner takes a picture of each surface. That information is also fed into the computer enabling colour to be added to “fill in” the dots.
‘Real data’
When the process is finished, it looks like an actual film of the particular room in question.
In all, four billion dots were recorded, enabling practically the whole catacomb to be documented in this way. Only a handful of small spaces were left out because it simply was not possible to get the scanner in.
… there are all sorts of photos at the site; in theory, I’ve embedded a relevant bbc video below:
As a sort of followup to all the hype about this program, I thought it might be useful to provide a reviewish sort of thing of this program since it has appeared in pieces on YouTube. So I’ll intro each section, and perhaps give you some things to look for.
In part one we get the basic background to the tomb claimed to belong to Arsinoe. Outside of the host’s (Neil Oliver) penchant for carrying around a kerosene lamp (which I find to be very distracting; who does he think he is … a latter day Diogenes?), we should note here the discovery of the tomb in the 1920s. The bones are said to have been found in a sarcophagus full of water. When the archaeologists left, they “resealed” the sarcophagus. When Hilke Thur reentered the tomb much, much later (date not given, but obviously not “nearly a century later”), she tells us she found the bones ‘partly in one niche’ and ‘partly in the other niche’ of the barrel-vaulted tomb. The rest of the segment deals with the initial identification of the occupant as being Arsinoe, Rome’s growing interest in Egypt, and some Ptolemaic genealogy:
Part II opens with Cleo being sent into exile by her brother, then seeking Roman help to regain her position. We then get Fabian Kanz (UVienna) talking about the skeleton. There’s good forensic stuff going on here but I can’t help but wonder about the carbon dating now that we know that the bones were disturbed at some point (I honestly don’t know if this is an issue). I’m not sure it’s really relevant that the bones being of a ‘slender’ person is a significant tie to Cleopatra, but it is used as a segue to the story of Cleo smuggling herself back into the palace.
Part III returns to Ephesus and Fabian Kanz returning to the tomb “last summer” in the hopes of finding more bones which belong to the skeleton, which he did (amazingly enough). Still no skull, though. Then we hear of Dr Thur tracing the skull to Germany in the 1920s and subsequently disappearing during WWII –but some archaeologist had made measurements of the skull. He is said to have mentioned that the skull reminded him of skulls he had seen from Egypt. Whatever the case, the much-hyped reconstruction was made according to this archaeologist’s notes, photos, and measurements. Some important things to note here … the reconstruction is based on ‘remapping’ a similar skull of similar gender and ‘ethnicity’ (we are told, but it isn’t really explained); it’s not even a complete skull, the jaw is missing. Again, the beauty of the erstwhile owner of the skull is used as a link to Cleopatra and provide a segue to the little ‘war’ between adherents of Cleopatra and adherents of Ptolemy. The segue leads to the Pharos of Alexandria and eventually to Arsinoe’s proclamation as queen by the “rebels”.
Part IV opens back at the octagonal tomb in Ephesus and the question of the identity of its owner. The archaeologists back in the 1920s had taken some objects from the tomb back to Vienna, including an interesting ‘column’ torch holder thing which is clearly designed to look like a bundle of papyrus (suggesting, of course, an Egyptian owner). Meanwhile, Hilke Thur and a some engineers have been trying to track down bits of the tomb and are doing a virtual reconstruction of it (this is very interesting!). Eventually, we see that the connection is made between the Pharos of Alexandria (as a symbol of the Ptolemies) and the tomb as being belonged to Arsinoe. That’s the segue clue back to the events at the Pharos, with Caesar ultimately swimming for his life. And so, the Pharos becomes a symbol of Arsinoe’s victory. The ensuing political events are then related … culminating in Arsinoe being paraded (in front of a Pharos) in Caesar’s triumph back in Rome.
Part V opens with Caesar’s sparing of Arsinoe’s life and banishing her to Ephesus, specifically, to the Temple of Artemis. We then get a segment on the Temple, of course, including its popularity as a place for asylum. There follows the political events following the death of Julius Caesar, including Mark Antony’s partying in Ephesus and his eventual liaison with Cleo. It culminates with Cleopatra planning to get rid of Arsinoe.
The final segment returns to the present and the bones purported to belong to Arsinoe. Fabian Kanz notes that the bones belonged to a person who appeared to be healthy, had an easy life, and died young. Then, of course, we cut back to the ancient narrative and the murder of Arsinoe on Cleopatra’s request and Antony’s orders. It is characterized as “the biggest crime of this period” to violate the sanctuary of the Artemesion. We are then told that:
… this skeleton is the first forensic evidence of Cleopatra’s family ever found. The shape of the tomb, its similarity to the Pharos — these are all parts of a code and the whole of it comes together to make a complete picture. At last we can solve the mystery beyond doubt of who the skeleton actually is. None other than Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe …
We then have to find out what she looked like and we get the ‘rebuilding’ of the skull. After Drs. Kanz and Thur marvel at the skull, we get the ‘big announcement’ that the skull is elongated but also has European features, and so indicates mixed ancestry. Oliver then announces:
Our revelation backs up the controversial theory that the princess, and therefore her sister Cleopatra, also had African blood.
Then comes the suicide of Cleopatra and the political results thereof. The program ends with a facial reconstruction of “what she might have looked like” (interestingly, the only use of speculative language in the program).
Unfortunately, the YouTube version doesn’t preserve the credits, so I can’t give any more detail on researchers etc. (if, as, and when I do get this info, I’ll add it). I can note that the woman playing Cleopatra (fwiw) actually matches my own conception of what Cleo probably looked like; the Caesar and Antony aren’t even close. It’s interesting to have the tale of Cleo narrated by the same guy who was the herald in HBO’s Rome series, but other than that, there was nothing in this program to change my mind from things already said. The most serious is that it ignores the fact that we do not know who Cleopatra’s mother was, but you can revisit my previous posts for the full picture.
A ROMAN skeleton which was found in Kingsholm is being investigated by archeologists who are keen to trace his origins.
The male skeleton was discovered in 1972, north of Kingsholm Square and ever since experts have wondered where he came from. Now, the Gloucester City Museum has had funding for the analysis of the skeleton using new technology to work out where he originated. Member and former president of The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Carolyn Heighway, said: “We believe he was a special person in the late Roman period in Gloucester, judging by his grand belt and buckles and that sort of thing.
“Subsequently it was judged by academics that he could have been of eastern European origin and was probably part of the Roman army.”
The body had been placed in the floor of a mausoleum and the man, aged between 25 and 30 years old, was wearing distinctive military gear which included a silver belt buckle, shoe buckles and strap end, and a knife with a strip of silver set into the handle.
It was found by city archaeologist Henry Hurst and was thought to date from the late 4th century, or the early years of the 5th.
Okay … this is a claim I’ve come across several times over the past few years, most recently in the Morning Call:
‘Biscotti are cheap to make and last a long time,” Anselmo says of the cookies, which were staples of the Roman legions and moved Pliny to remark that he thought they lasted forever.”
Typing ‘pliny’ and ‘biscotti’ into Google will bring up a pile of results, all of which say almost the exact same thing (sometimes ‘forever’ is replaced by ‘centuries’). In addition to the Roman legion connection, sometimes the biscotti are made analogous to “Parthian Bread”. Taking my cue from that, the only thing I can find about Parthian Bread in Pliny comes from Book 18.27 … here’s the version at Google Books:
rogueclassicism 