Much excitement over the past few days over the ‘re-exposure’ of the very nice 4th century Roman mosaic from Lod. It was originally discovered back in 1996, then recovered because funds weren’t available at the time for its preservation. Now, however, the Leon Levy Foundation and the Jerome Levy Foundation are partnering up with the IAA to preserve this very impressive bit of flooring. It is destined to be removed from the site and given ‘proper’ conservation treatment, whence it will spend some time, apparently, at the Met.
The IAA has a zip file of some high resolution images which you might want to check out; seems to be an awful lot of animals-eating-other-animals in this mosaic.
A couple of items of interest relating to the worship of Mithras. First, remains of a Mithraeum have been found in Iraq’s Duhok province. Here’s the incipit of a piece (ultimately from Bloomberg, it turns out) in St. Louis Today:
A temple built by followers of Mithraism, a mystery cult that flourished throughout the Roman Empire from the second to third centuries A.D., has been discovered in Iraq’s northern Duhok province.
The temple, which consists of three parts, lies in the Badri Mountains in eastern Duhok, and includes a place for prayer facing the sun, the province’s antiquities director, Hassan Ahmed Qassim, said in a statement to the website of President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.
“This discovery is important in helping to understand and learn the region’s history, and the important stages it passed through,” Qassim was quoted by Aswat al-Iraq newspaper as telling a news conference at Duhok University.
The other big news regarding Mithras was the recovery, by Italian police, of a very impressive relief depicting the divinity. The incipit of the AdnKronos coverage:
An 2000-year-old marble monument featuring the pagan god Mithras has been found outside Rome by Italian police who believe it was to have been illegally sold abroad. The large marble bas-relief which dates from the 2nd century AD was recovered by authorities in a house north of the capital, according to a report in the Italian daily, Il Messaggero.
Police said the monument was to be sold to China or Japan and transported via the United Arab Emirates.
The relief, made of white Carrara marble and weighing 1,500 kilogrammes, comes from Vejo – a former Etruscan city that flourished in the 5th century BC – and shows the god Mithras slaying a bull.
Agents from the Italian tax police or Guardia di Finanza said the piece was recovered from an old house in the Roman countryside.
According to a statement by Italian tax police, the operation “allowed us to also discover an archaeological site previously unknown to authorities.”
Police said the tomb robbers were four Italians who planned to ship the piece to the UAE and then sell it on the Chinese or Japanese black market.
Oddly enough, the only decent photo of the relief is in a Finnish newspaper:
Most of the coverage of this one — both in Italian and English — is pretty much the same. The site is Rione Terra, which overlooks Pozzuoli. Here’s the coverage from AdnKronos:
Archaeologists have unearthed a number of ancient Roman treasures during excavation outside the southern Italian city of Naples. Twelve ancient statues, columns and fragments bearing inscriptions from what appear to be monuments from the Republican and Imperial periods of ancient Roman history have been uncovered.
A head of the Roman emperor Tiberius bearing a crown of laurel leaves, two other male heads and a fragment of a painting are among the objects from the late Republican period in the 3rd century BC discovered by a team of archeologists at the site in Rione Terra di Pozzuoli.
Two female heads were also uncovered. One may be the head of an Amazon warrior from the 2nd century AD, while the second is believed to be a Roman empress from the late Julio-Claudian dynasty.
The dig also unearthed part of a sculpture of a horse and an antefix, a giant mask depicting a Gorgon or mythological beast dating from the 2nd century AD.
Other finds include four busts, a statue of a robed woman, another of a woman wearing a toga, and a frieze portraying two human figures.
The area is located on a hill and archaeologists believe it contained public buildings and houses overlooking the sea. Only part of the site has so far been excavated.
The archaeologists are working under the supervision of the Italian culture ministry’s archaeological department for Naples and Pompeii.
… it would appear that the “Tiberius” mentioned up there should actually be Titus. Here’s a photo of the head:
from Cultural News
This is possibly a photo of the ’empress’ mentioned:
from Cultural News
A photo of the ‘Gorgon’ (I think) accompanies Rossella Lorenzi’s report for Discovery News. There may be a video report there as well, but I can’t seem to find it.
In the Caska Bay on the Island of Pag, near Novalja, an ancient sewn ship over 2,000 years old was found. This is the result of research done by the city of Novalja and the Zadar University, in cooperation with the French institute for scientific research (CNRS-CCJ University in Marseille) and numerous other foreign associates.
Archaeologists have found a ancient sewn ship more than 2000 years old in Pag’s Caska Bay, reports ezadar.hr.
The research, which was organized by the City of Novalja in cooperation with the Zadar University in cooperation with the French national institute for scientific research, was led by professor Zdenko Brusic from the Zadar University.
“In Roman times, Novalja was known for its port accommodation and was located on the old sea route from Greece to northern Italy and central Europe. The ships would wait in Novalja for suitable winds and because of that a town developed there that had various suitable servces. Today there are numerous remains of Roman architecture under the whole region, like water supply lines, well equipped basilicas, graves” said Brusic for ezadar.hr.
At the bottom of the bay there is the sunken Roman town named “Kissa” (Cissa), whose remains are being researched, and the discovery of the sewn ancient ship was the result of the joint work of around 20 Croatian and French archaeologists, added the professor.
“That ship was literally sewn with the help of rope that was pulled through holes, and was used by the people of Liburnia” said Irena Radic Rossi from the Croatian restoration institute. She added that the exact age of the ship will be determined in the research, even though it is already known that it is over 2,000 years old.
Possibly apropos, Aulus Gellius (17.3.4) quotes Varro on the method of these Liburnian boats’ manufacture:
One of the biggest ancient cities of the Mediterranean, Efes (Ephesus), is now undergoing important restoration. The marble hall of the palace-like house in which the city’s Roman consul lived in A.D. 275 has begun to be restored, putting back together 350-square-meter walls that are now broken into 120,000 pieces.
The deputy supervisor of the ongoing excavations in Efes, Sabine Ladstatter, said this method was used in Italy once before, but with such a large-scale assembly will be the first in history. Excavations have been ongoing in this city for 138 years. The hillside houses where the richest people lived are seen as the most exciting sites for excavation and restoration.
Considered to be the most important of the hillside houses, the palatial house of Gaius Flavius Furius Aptus, the city consul, is drawing attention as a focus of excavation and restoration projects. Its magnificent 178-square-meter salon, whose walls were clothed with marble, is witnessing a major restoration. The plan is to begin with the restoration of the salon’s walls.
The walls had sunk deep into the soil over time due to numerous earthquakes. The pieces of the walls have been found through the extensive excavations, which have been going on for years. Presently the there are about 120,000 pieces that are going to be used for the restoration, funded by Borusan Holding. Ladstatter said they believe those pieces constitute 90 percent of the walls. She added that they are going to use laser screening to find the proper piece to put into the proper place in the wall. “What we are going to do here now is an effort to complete a puzzle composed of 120,000 pieces,” Ladstatter summarized. The restoration is expected to cost $300,000.
I’ve been trying to figure out whether this is the so-called ‘Hillside House’ which was opened to the public some five years ago (I think it is). It was identified as belonging to a Furius Aptus, but he was apparently identified as a priest of Dionysus (not that he couldn’t also be consul, of course).
rogueclassicism 