Romanesque architecture (dating from about 1050 on) is my favorite style of them all. Romanesque buildings are rare, their interiors are shadowed and their stone heaviness is evocative and mysterious, and the sculptures are whimsical. The latter quality is clearly evident in a tiny church from the 13th century Ardeche village of Chambonas. This church,
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At first glance, these small statuettes seem to have little in common with each other. The one on the left is an Ancient Roman copy of Poseidon from the first or second century, originally made by the Greek artist Lysippos in the 3rd century BCE. The one on the right is a sandstone carving of
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The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art has a fantastic exhibition on the color of Ancient Greek statues right now. When we look at the statues of the Ancient Mediterranean today, we are familiar with the unadorned stone or bronze, like the sphinx from about 530 BCE featured here. However, a team of art
The Italian Renaissance produced some of the greatest artwork of all time, but its glassware doesn’t get the spotlight that it should. It was valued throughout Europe and beyond from the late Middle Ages into the Early Modern period for its beauty and unique qualities. After the fall of the Roman Empire, glassmaking went into
Potential happy post-extinction post! The drawing you see here is artist Nirupa Rao’s rendition of a plant that some believe to be an extremely rare survivor of Silphium (also known as silphion), an Ancient Mediterranean species so valued that it was hunted to extinction — but maybe, believe some plant historians, it’s been rediscovered. I
The Temple of Dendur is a must-see in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Hundreds of tourists check out this Ancient Roman-era Egyptian building every day, where it stands in an enormous glass-walled room, surrounded by a huge moat of water evocative of the Nile River from whence it originally came. The
Behold the Lycurgus cup, from the 4th c. Late Roman Empire. It is the most exquisite example of a glass-making technique used the the Romans to produce a color-changing effect. Viewed straight-on, the cup is green, but viewed with backlighting it appears red – the technique involved blending the glass with extremely fine-ground particles of
This is the Pont du Guard, an aqueduct bridge made in the first century by Romans who used it to supply a colony where the modern French city Nîmes now exists. Think about the most recent modern cement structures that you have seen which have cracks and crumbles, and it will drive home just how
This is a medieval rendition of Porphyry of Tyre, a philosopher who lived in the late Roman Empire (c 234-305 CE), and one of the most articulate advocates of vegetarianism from Ancient world. Porphyry was renowned for many philosophical contributions, including writing the standard textbook on logic that lasted for over a thousand years, as
The ruins of Suso Monastery in San Millán de la Cogolla look eerily beautiful in this image, evocative of a distant past whose details are lost to us now. Situated in northern Spain, they are some of the last surviving remains of the Visigothic Kingdom that ruled the Iberian peninsula from the late fifth century
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“PetThe political intrigues and love affair of Mark Antony and Cleopatra have captured the imaginations of generations, even before the famous couple’s deaths in 30 BCE in their war against the future Emperor Augustus of Rome. This statue is the only known image of their twin children, Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios. At least, that’s
Cleopatra’s Twins by Mark Antony Identified Read More »
Roman swords (here shown is a type called Gladius Hispaniensis). One ancient writer described Ancient Roman training so difficult as to be “bloodless battles” and actual warfare as “bloody trainings.”
The most famous meal in Ancient Roman history might be one described in _The Satyricon_ by Gaius Petronius Arbiter. Perhaps a send-up of the excessesses of Nero’s court, the book discusses an over-the-top umpteen-course meal where silver bowls are swept away with the trash, the meat dishes are each sculpted to look like something else,
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A page from the _Etymologiae_ by the 6th-century scholar Isidore of Seville. In the Middle Ages, this was considered one of the most important books written. Isidore tried to cram in every bit of knowledge he thought was important. Although this book preserved a lot of Ancient Roman and Greek knowledge, the book’s popularity ironically
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This is the famous “SATOR AREPO” square, thought to have had magical talisman power by people all over the Ancient Roman world. It works as a palindrome in so many ways it is called a “2D” palindrome. It was eventually used by early Christians, who scrambled up the letters to make it spell “Pater Noster”
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Dear readers, did we want to know much about the multitude of penis graffiti from the Ancient Roman British military fort at Vindolanda and the discovery of the potential first surviving Ancient Roman dildo, or no? Ahem. Depending on your druthers, read on. In a hot-off-the interweb virtual publication from the Cambridge University Press journal
This is the _Medusa Rondanini_, an Ancient Roman copy of a Classical Greek. It is one of the most famous ancient sculptures to show Medusa as lovely — before the 5th century BCE, artists depicted her as horrifying. Regardless, her image was often used to ward off ill fortune.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced this month (3/23) that archaeologists have recently discovered a small Sphinx statue dating to the Roman period with unusual features. Its facial expression has a slight smile, and some experts believe that its head might be a representation of the Roman Emperor Claudius, who ruled from 41-54
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These are shoes from Roman Britain. Not a lot of support in the soles, eh? (Even considering the decay over centuries.)
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