New light on ancient sites The evil behind the legend Treasures ...

January/February 2011 Volume 22 Number 1YourCHANCE TO WinA holiday tohistoric Turkeyworth over £6000See page 51<strong>New</strong> <strong>light</strong> onancient sitesJMW Turner’svision of antiquityHunters andthe huntedPatterns of meaningin the Lod MosaicMonument tothe Dark AgesExploring the enigmaticPillar of ElisegTreasuresfrom KuwaitPriceless Islamic arton display in MilanSpells forthe afterlifeThe Book of the Deadat the British MuseumDraculaThe evil behind the legend£4.50ISSN 0957-7718019 770957771049

Australian heritage1 2Patricia Anderson examines theextraordinary prehistoric rock art ofWestern Australia3The world’soldestpalimpsestThe Burrup Peninsula inWestern Australia, knownto the Aboriginal people asMurujuga, is a Stone Agesite which, together with the islandsof the Dampier Archipelago, containsone of the greatest concentrations ofrock carvings found anywhere in theworld. It is believed the oldest petroglyphsat the Burrup site date back30,000 years. If this is correct, thensome of the carvings are contemporarywith the painted images in the cavesof Chauvet (Ardèche, France) andAltamira (Cantabria, Spain), and predatethe famous artwork at the LascauxCave (Dordogne, France) by about12,000 years.However, the 240 square kilometrearea has increasingly been thecause of tension between large multinationalmining companies seekingto exploit the rich mineral depositsfound in the area, and conservationgroups attempting to preserve theunique engravings and paintings. In2003 the World Monuments Fund,a body that draws the public’s attentionto culturally irreplaceable sitesthreatened by neglect, vandalism andFig 1. Upended carvingof a kangaroo fromthe Burrup site.Photo: Robin Chapple.Fig 2. Water bird andcrab carving from theBurrup site.Photo: Robin Chapple.Fig 3. Thylacine(Tasmanian tiger)which had becomeextinct on theAustralian mainlandby at least AD 1000.Carved at the Burrupsite. Photo: RobinChapple.Fig 4. Fish carvingfrom the Burrup site.Photo: Robin Chapple.other depredations, placed the BurrupPeninsula on its register of ‘100 MostEndangered Sites’ – the first Australianarchaeological site to be included.Despite the area’s petroglyphs beingnominated for the National HeritageList by Robert Bednarik (President ofthe International Federation of RockArt Organizations), many of the prehistoricartworks, which number inthe hundreds of thousands, have beendamaged or destroyed.The Burrup petroglyphs are apalimpsest of the spiritual and theritualised; they can take the form of4hopeful talismans for the hunt (Fig 8),or represent prehistoric graffiti. Thereare carvings of the now extinct thylacine(Tasmanian tiger) (Fig 3), goannas(monitor lizards), ancient speciesof fat-tailed kangaroo (Fig 1), eagles,emus, marine creatures (Fig 4) and seabirds(Fig 2). Mysterious symbols associatedwith Aboriginal ceremonies andearth creation stories are also depictedin many of the carvings and paintings.The Burrup Organisation has notedthat, ‘Many motifs and some stone featuresare connected to the beliefs andceremonial practices of Aboriginalpeople in the Pilbara region today. Theentire Archipelago is a continuous culturallandscape providing a detailedrecord of both sacred and secular lifereaching from the present back intothe past, perhaps to the first settlementof Australia.’ Friends of AustralianRock Art (FARA) have also speculatedthat the site may have the oldest representationof the human face (Fig 6). Inaddition to the petroglyphs at Burrup,the site has a great layering of archaeologicallyinteresting objects includingcampsites, standing stones, quarriesand shell middens (Fig 5).12Minerva January/February 2011

Australian heritage5 67The geologist Mike Donaldson, whohas explored mineral resources inAustralia and elsewhere in the world,recently released Burrup Rock Art:Ancient Aboriginal rock art of BurrupPeninsula and Dampier Archipelago(Wildrock Publications, 2010).Donaldson developed a keen interestin those remote areas of northwestAustralia, replete with the earliestpresence of humans on the continent,and set about documenting the petroglyphsof the Burrup Peninsula and theKimberley region of Western Australia.He sought the advice and approvalof some of the traditional Aboriginalowners of the Burrup Peninsula beforepublishing his book and, as a result,some of the images were removedbecause they were considered culturallysensitive. Nonetheless, the volumestill includes 600 photographs of thepetroglyphs.Despite its undoubted archaeologicalimportance, the Burrup site has themisfortune to be located near a naturalgas field, and the Northwest Shelfliquefied natural gas (LNG) industryhas been a presence in the areafor some 50 years (Fig 7). In the essayFig 5. Petroglyph siteat Burrup. Photo:Mike Donaldson.Fig 6. Arch face carvingfrom the Burrup site.Photo: Robin Chapple.Fig 7. Naturalgas zone at Burrup.Photo: Robin Chapple.Fig 8. Carvingsdepicting emu tracksfrom the Burrup site.Photo: Robin Chapple.‘Culture Clash’, which appeared inThe Australian newspaper (14 March,2009), respected journalist NicholasRothwell provided an account of thedepredations that have taken place onthe Burrup Peninsula over the last 50years. In the late 1960s, a rail line foriron ore was constructed, and a portand town were built on Burrup’s seawardedge. At this time a causewaywas also constructed across the narrowstrait, connecting Burrup with the restof Australia for the first time in 8500years. In the early 1980s Woodside’sNorth West Shelf Project also commencedand, as Rothwell notes: ‘Thefate of Burrup’s rock art was not a bigfactor in those first chapters of theregion’s transformation, even thoughthe extent of the peninsula’s spectacularengravings was known early on.’The debate therefore currentlyrevolves around what can best be doneto preserve the remaining petroglyphsand other archaeological features of theBurrup Peninsula. The large multinationalmining group Rio Tinto, whichholds leases over part of the peninsula,has become increasingly involved withheritage concerns and has staff andadvisers, including archaeologist KenMulvaney, President of the AustralianRock Art Research Association, to8negotiate with indigenous people.Woodside, a large Australian oil andgas exploration company, has agreedto consult closely with the indigenouscommunities and work aroundthe archaeology whenever possible.Where this is deemed impractical,Woodside will relocate rocks decoratedwith petroglyphs. However, it hasbeen argued that moving any of thepetroglyphs diminishes their significance,since they were designed to beobserved and appreciated within specificparts of the Burrup landscape andthe rock art constituted part of a web ofstories and ceremonies that was understoodand celebrated by the Aboriginalcommunities over centuries and evenmillennia.In July 2008 the World ArchaeologyCongress, held in Dublin and attendedby 1800 archaeologists, called on theAustralian Government to protectpetroglyphs threatened by a naturalgas production facility proposed byWoodside and the West AustralianGovernment. It was argued that theindustrial development would diminishthe sites against the wishes of itscustodians.In addition to destruction arisingfrom industrial enterprises, the Burrupsite is also vulnerable to vandals,although it could be argued that thosewho scratch their own designs and initialsinto the rock surfaces are merelyadding to the oldest palimpsest in theworld. Some good news emerged whena short article ‘All clear for rock art’,which appeared in The Sydney MorningHerald (26 March, 2009) reported thata four-year monitoring project hadfound no evidence that industrialemissions were harming the rock art.Perhaps if these carvings survived theclimate fluctuations associated withthe last Ice Age, they can also survivethe multinationals. nMinerva January/February 201113

4Fig 4. Funerarypapyrus of QueenNodjmet. The mainscene shows her inthe form of Amun-Ra-Horakhty and Osiris.The text contains Bookof the Dead spellswith extracts from theBook of Caverns. 21 stdynasty. EA 10490/1.the burials of more well-to-do individuals.Workshops could make multiplecopies of the book by using thework of different scribes and pastingthem together. There can be variationin handwriting, column width, drawingand painting (Fig 1). In many ofthese texts it appears that the illustrationswere more important than thetext, as the latter was often crammedinto spaces left after the illustrationshad already been added. Misspelled oromitted words are encountered, whileoccasionally images do not correspondwith the correct place in the text. Thisindicates a clear division between specialistsin drawing the hieroglyphs andthose concerned with illustrations.Nevertheless, it is clear from the textsthat both the spoken and written wordswere thought to have great power. Forexample, in the Memphite theologythe god Ptah first conceives things inhis mind, and then makes them real byspeaking their names. The dead mustknow the names of gods and demonsthat may be encountered during theirjourney. The phrase ‘I know you andI know your names’ is repeated oftenin the Book of the Dead. In knowingthe names of deities it was thought thatthe spirit of the deceased could acquiresome of the power of the god. This isone reason why the text could occur ina variety of contexts.The Book also changed over timeand place. The so-called Pyramid Textsof the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC)were wholly concerned with the preservationof royalty. Dating to the 5 th(2494–2345 BC) and 6 th (2345–2181BC) dynasties, the texts were not illustrated.They dealt specifically with reunitingthe king and his father Ra.The texts were carved on the wallsof tombs or sarcophagi and are wellknown from the graves at Saqarra.By the 6 th dynasty, the queen was alsoincluded in the remit of the texts.Beginning with the First IntermediatePeriod (2181–2040 BC), spells derivedfrom the Pyramid Texts were used, butthey are of a different character. Theyare termed the Coffin Texts, and theyreflect the fact that by this time nonroyalscould also be buried in coffinsand expect an afterlife (Fig 5). Ithas been suggested that this changewas the result of a breakdown of centralcontrol. Despite the name ‘CoffinTexts’, the spells could be rendered ona variety of surfaces, often in an abbreviatedform. At the same time, theearlier Pyramid Texts continued tobe written on coffins throughout theMiddle Kingdom. While the Pyramid5Fig 5. Inner coffin ofSeni (12 th dynasty 1850BC) El-Bersa, probablytomb 11. The texts onthe interior coffin areliterally Coffin Textsand are derived fromthe earlier Pyramidtexts. Although manycoffins survive fromthe period, few areinscribed with theCoffin Texts. Seniwas the chiefphysician of thegovernor of theHare province inUpper Egypt.EA 30842.Figs 6a and 6b. Theseillustrations showjust how complicatedancient Egyptianreligion was. The sungod Ra-Horakhty(Ra-Horus of theHorizon) is on the left,while Sokar-Osiris is afusion of the king ofthe Netherworld andSokar, the funerarygod of Memphis.Details from thePapyrus of Nodjmet,early 21 st dynasty(c 1050 BC).EA 10541.6bTexts were focused on the heavens,the Coffin Texts were concerned withthe subterranean world of Osiris. Thecentral theme is judgement, accordingto deeds in life: a clear indication of achange in Egyptian theology duringthe Middle Kingdom (2040–1782 BC).In the <strong>New</strong> Kingdom, during whichtime Thebes appears to have been thecentre of redaction of the text, therewas even greater emphasis on the individual.While some spells are clearlytaken from the Coffin Texts, manynew ones were added to the corpus.The earliest occurrence of Book of the6aMinerva January/February 2011 15

The organisation of the Book ofthe Dead was relatively straightforward.The titles of the spells, importantwords or titles, and the postscriptsof spells, could be written in red ink.Red would also be used when namingdangerous beings. The colour was alsoused to correct places in the text wherethe first scribe had made an error, or tocolour supplementary text that wouldexplain difficult passages.During the late 1 st century BC (thelate Ptolemaic period), copies of theBook of the Dead made in the city ofAkhmim deliberately looked to thepast for inspiration. The form of writingis termed ‘retrograde’ because thefigures faced right instead of left (whichwas the beginning of the text). Thismay have had some magical significance,but it may also be because thetexts were copied from hieratic originalswhere the signs always faced right.Whatever the case, retrograde writingis known from the <strong>New</strong> Kingdomand the Ptolemaic periods. In laterages, however, the scribes frequentlymade mistakes, indicating that manyof them did not fully understand thetext (Fig 9). The language of the Bookof the Dead may have been very differentfrom colloquial speech, in keepingwith the language of many religionstoday, which tends to be conservative.In some cases it appears that thedead may have played an active part inselecting the texts that would accompanythem into the afterlife. In othercases it appears that books were producedin a manner resembling anassembly line. In some books it appearsthat the name of the first patron hasbeen deliberately obscured so thatanother name could be inserted. Insuch cases political factors may haveplayed a role, while it is also possiblethat full payment was not received forthe book leading to it being sold toanother customer (Fig 7). In rare casesit has even been suggested that thebook has been illustrated by the owner(Fig 11).During the period of Macedonianand Ptolemaic rule (332–30 BC) theBook of the Dead was replaced byother texts, but echoes of the past survivedinto the Roman period (Fig 10).Considering that the Book of the Dead,in various guises, was in use from theOld Kingdom through to the Romanperiod (c. 2686 BC–AD 395), it cansafely be said that it is one of the mostsignificant religious texts of all time.It was first brought to the attention1110Fig 10. A scene from aRoman period shroud(2 nd –3 rd century AD).Here the deceasedreceives liquid froma tree goddess (Bookof the Dead spell 59).Hildesheim,Pelizaeus-Museum,LH 3l.Fig 11. Papyrus ofNebseny from the 18 thdynasty. It is knownthat the owner wasa scribe and copyistin the Temple ofPtah. This is one ofthe longest and bestexecuted examples ofthe Book of the Deadfrom this period. It is,atypically, executedonly in red and blackink, and the drawingsare unusually fine.The man’s wife,parents, and childrenare named, and thechildren are depicted.In this scene the manand his wife receivean offering from theirson, and beneath hischair is a containerlabelled ‘holder forwriting’.of Europeans in the wake of the conquestsof Napoleon, and Champollionwas a translator of parts of the text.From the early 19 th century the Bookof the Dead also began to be comparedto the Bible, although it was apparentlynot appreciated as a fixed revelationfrom heaven, and did not expressthe tenets of a religion. It was rather abook of ritual that changed over time.For understanding ancient Egyptianculture it is absolutely essential and itis therefore not surprising that muchattention has been devoted to studyingthe Book of the Dead as literature.However, there has been relatively littleattention focusing on the art illustratingthe Book of the Dead. This is wherethe exhibition and accompanying catalogueat the British Museum fills animportant niche. While touring exhibitionsfilled with objects from Egyptattract large numbers of visitors, inorder to better understand the ancientcivilisation, an exhibition such as thatat the British Museum is more significant.The accompanying book to theshow, edited by John Taylor (who alsowrote much of the text) will also serveas an excellent volume of reference. n‘Journey to the afterlife: AncientEgyptian Book of the Dead’ runs atthe British Museum until 6 March.Entrance for adults is £12, discountsare available. For more information +44 (0)20 7323 8299;www.britishmuseum.org.Minerva January/February 2011 17

OrientalismNeverout of printPeter A. Clayton looks at the work ofEdward William Lane (1801–1876), pioneerEgyptologist and Orientalist1The classical world of Greeceand Rome might be said tohave had a love/hate relationshipwith ancient Egypt,especially after it became more accessiblefollowing the defeat of Cleopatraand Mark Antony at the battle ofActium in 31 BC. Ancient Egypt hadinfluenced Greek art, especially thestanding male kouros figures, and forthe Romans there was the intrigue ofdeath, magic and wisdom mixed withrevulsion at the ancient therianthropic(animal-headed) gods. With the Arabinvasion of Egypt in AD 640, Egypt wasessentially lost to the European world– although it continued as a place ofmystery, hiding secrets in its indecipherablehieroglyphs. Renaissancescholars, most notably AthanasiusKircher (1602–80), endeavoured to‘crack the code’ arriving at ridiculoustranslations. It was left to the shortlivedNapoleonic conquest of Egypt,1798–1801, to open the windows onthe ancient Pharaonic civilisation. Thepublication of the impressive 20 volumeDescription de l’Egypte, togetherwith the writings of the Baron VivantDenon, brought the long-lost monumentsof Egypt to European eyes. Thefloodgates truly opened in 1822 withthe decipherment of hieroglyphs byJean-François Champollion. InitialEuropean involvement in Egypt wasmore a race to collect antiquities, oftendriven by national pride. It was onlylater that dedicated scholars began toarrive. Principal amongst these wasEdward William Lane, a giant amongsthis contemporaries yet, until recently,largely overlooked.Lane was born in Hereford on 17September 1801, the fourth son ofhis clergyman father who was to diewhen Lane was only 12 years old. Afterattending grammar schools in Bathand Hereford, Lane began commerciallife as an engraver with his brotherin London, an occupation that was tostand him in good stead in later yearswhen he would turn his skilled hand toillustrating the monuments of Egypt.Despite his talents bad health forcedLane to leave that career. Meanwhile,the ‘Egyptomania’ that swept Britainduring the 1820s, a craze spurred onby published engravings of Egyptian2Fig 1. Lane’s clever‘birds-eye’ view ofthe Great Pyramid ofCheops from the topof the Second Pyramidof Chephren.Fig 2. Edward WilliamLane drawn by hisbrother Richard in1828 shortly afterreturning to England.monuments, and especially GiovanniBelzoni’s (1778–1823) exhibition inthe Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly during1820–21, captivated the youngLane and led him to develop a fascinationwith Egypt. He spent all hisspare time studying the country andresolved to visit its ancient sites. Hisinterest also turned to contemporaryEgypt; he was studying Arabic by theage of 21, and three years later hadbecome conversant with colloquialArabic. Advised that a warmer andmore congenial climate would prove tobe more congenial for his poor health,18Minerva January/February 2011

3 4Fig 3. While he sailedthe Nile on his hiredcanjiah, Lane made hisquarters into an idealoffice and bedroom.5Fig 4. Interior ofan undergroundtomb at Saqqara.The cartouches arethose of the pharaohPsammetichus I or IIof the 26 th Dynasty(664–610 or 595–589BC). Such tombsaverage at least 10min depth before theburial chamber isreached.Fig 5. One of theseveral stele carvedin the cliffs markingthe boundary ofAkhenaten’s newcapital, Akhetaten.This one is on the westbank of the Nile atTuna el Gebel.6which had further deteriorated followingan attack of typhoid, Lane bookedhis passage on board the brig Findlaybound for Egypt. How Lane managedto meet the financial costs for the journeyis still something of a mystery, buthe was nevertheless able to pay his fareof 30 guineas (£31.50), and sailed on18 July 1825, although a severe stormdelayed his arrival at Alexandria, viaMalta, and he only reached Egypt on19 September. He described feeling‘like an Eastern bridegroom, about tolift the veil of his bride, and to see, forthe first time, the features which wereFig 6. The great templeof the goddess Hathorat Dendera still largelyburied in sand butone of the two finestpreserved ancientEgyptian temples,although actually ofthe Ptolemaic period(305–31 BC).to charm, or disappoint…’ He wasindeed to ‘lift the veil’ on ancient andmodern Egypt in his later works.The teeming city of Cairo and itsmany Islamic monuments fascinatedLane. Within six days of his arrival inCairo, whilst waiting for his house tobe made ready, Lane paid a visit to thepyramids of Giza with a small groupof Europeans, staying overnight in anempty tomb. Bright moon<strong>light</strong> foundthem climbing the Great Pyramid towatch the sunrise (Fig 1). Lane wasalso fortunate to meet Osman Effendi,actually a former Scottish soldierWilliam Thomson, who had convertedto Islam after being captured by theMamluk rulers of Egypt during anill-fated British military campaign in1807. Thompson had been enslavedand, following an unsuccessful escapeattempt, faced execution unless hechose to embrace Islam, a decision thatsaved his life and changed his name.Osman was a well known figure andacted as Lane’s dragoman (guide),encouraging him to adopt Turkish(Arab) dress, which would generallyallow him to pass himself off as anelite Turk rather than a European (FigMinerva January/February 2011 19

Orientalismhe acted as one of the witnesses, butit gave him plenty of time to continueworking up his notes and sketches.Back in England, and living withhis brother Richard in Regent’s Park,Lane (like Belzoni 20 years before) waslionised by society, constantly receivinginvitations for dinner parties.Richard, an artist and sculptor, revelledin Edward Lane’s exotic Easterndress and produced the remarkableterracotta statue of his brother now inthe National Portrait Gallery, London.However, his health was still troublinghim and he found the adjustment backinto British society something of a cultureshock. Nevertheless, he set aboutassembling his notes and material forhis manuscript, Description of Egypt.Lane had begun the first draft for thebook in 1829, although by the time itreached its third and final draft, it wasfour times the original length. Basedon his research in Egypt between 1825and 1828, it ran to more than 300,000words, with 160 illustrations. WhileJohn Murray, the eminent publisher ofAlbemarle Street who had publishedBelzoni’s Narrative of Operations andRecent Discoveries in Egypt and Nubiain 1820, had agreed to publish Lane’smanuscript, the offer was withdrawnand Lane was unable to find anotherpublisher willing to take on so huge awork. Thus it was held in the BodleianLibrary in manuscript form for 160years, until it was finally edited andpublished in 2000 (Fig 11).Lane returned to Egypt in 1842 andlived in the country for another sevenyears, during which time he compiledhis great Arabic dictionary, publishedin eight volumes from 1863 to1893 (Fig 10). Lane was recognised asFig 10. Lane at workon his great Arabic-English Lexicon inHastings in 1850.Drawn by his nieceClara Sophia Lane.Fig 11. Lane’sDescription of Egypthas finally beenpublished 150 yearsafter he wrote it.Fig 12. At last Laneis truly recognisedin a magnificentbiography.Fig 13. Lane’s recordof the monumentsis particularlyvaluable in view ofthe changes, evendestruction, wroughtsince. The temple ofDakka was one ofthose saved in theflooding of Nubia inthe 1960s and movedto higher ground.10the leading Arabic scholar, and cameunder the patronage of the Duke ofNorthumberland. Although his primaryconcern was still the modernEgyptians, Lane nevertheless translatedand published The Thousandand One Nights (1838–40), and studiesfocused on other Arabic legendsand tales, as well as the Holy Qur’an.Lane was also closely associated withmany scholars of the Victorian period,including Hay and Sir John GardnerWilkinson (1797–1875), the latterhaving published his Manners andCustoms of the Ancient Egyptians inthree volumes (1837) and with manyeditions following.Lane’s collection of Egyptian antiquitieswas acquired by the BritishMuseum in 1842, and the bulk of hissurviving manuscripts are held in theBodleian Library, Oxford. He died atWorthing on 10 August 1876 and wasburied in West Norwood Cemetery,south London. His wife Anatasouladied on 16 November 1895, probably75 years old, and her will stipulated:‘I direct my trustees to pay to the131112authorities of the Norwood Cemeterysuch a sum of money as they requirefor insuring that the grave where I shallbe buried with my beloved husbandat Norwood Cemetery shall be keptdecently and in order.’ Unfortunately,the location of their grave is onlyroughly known as the grave markerwas 13 smashed and removed (along withthose of many other Victorian notables)in the early 1990s during a clearancecarried out by Lambeth BoroughCouncil ‘clearing away forgotten clutter’.But for all that, Lane’s name liveson in his work, recalling the ancientEgyptian prayer, ‘Speak my name thatI may live’ (Fig 12). nThis article is based on:Edward William Lane. The Life ofthe Pioneering Egyptologist andOrientalist. Jason Thompson.London, 2010. x + 747pp, 55 illus.Description of Egypt, Edward WilliamLane, edited by Jason Thompson.American University Press, Cairo,2000. xxxii + 588pp, 160 illus.Minerva January/February 2011 21

JMW Turner6foreground, and the city we survey isthe Rome that Turner knew.These two large canvases, Rome fromthe Vatican and Forum Romanum,for Mr Soane’s Museum (exhibited in1826) announced a preoccupation thatwas to endure for most of Turner’s lifetime.The two pictures of Ancient andModern Rome that we have alreadylooked at testify to the excitement hefelt as late as 1839, when they wereshown at the Academy; and they donot by any means constitute the onlyevidence of his concern with the cityand its history.In 1836 he had shown Rome fromMount Aventine, and in 1838 anotherpair, Ancient Italy – Ovid banished fromRome (Fig 9), and Modern Italy – thePifferari. The latter is a rural scene, setagainst the backdrop of an imaginaryTivoli; the former a grand harbourwith serried terraces of grand classicalbuildings – it might be the same settingas Agrippina – from which Ovid is hurriedaway surreptitiously at sunset. Thegreat poet who in his Metamorphosescollected the legends and folklore ofa rural population is contrasted withthe rustic music of the modern pifferari,the peasant pipers who haunt thecountryside – and at certain times ofthe year the cities too.Turner’s interest in the literary andmusical content of the landscapes thathe painted began early in his career.He was quoting from Milton’s ParadiseLost and Thomson’s Seasons, as wellFig 6. Dido buildingCarthage, 1815. Oilon canvas. H. 156.6cm,W. 231.8cm NationalGallery, London.Fig 7. Snow storm:Hannibal and hisarmy crossing theAlps, 1812. Oil oncanvas. H. 14.6cm,W. 23.7cm. Tate.7as several modern poets – Akenside,Gray or Mallet, for instance – as soonas the Academy’s rules allowed him tocite them in his catalogue entries. Helater quoted extensively from Scott,Byron and Rogers, and composed hisown verses to accompany many of hispictures. As a young man he acquired acompendium of the Works of the BritishPoets, published by Robert Andersonin 1795, and this included a largeamount of classical poetry in translation,including Hesiod, Theocritus,Sappho, Musaeus and Lucretius. Wetherefore need not be surprised thathe cites the Hymn of Callimachus whenexhibiting his Apollo and Python in1811, or the Iliad when illustratingChryses praying to the sun in a watercolourof the same year: he of coursepossessed Pope’s famous translation ofHomer, and Dryden’s of Virgil.His landscapes are indeed completeexpressions of the cultural life of theplaces they depict – they are, in animportant sense, always topographical;the imaginary scenes from antiquityare as vividly circumstantial as theviews of modern Rome, Tyneside orLondon. For his painting of Palestrina(shown in 1830) he composed versesthat specifically elaborate on the town’sheroic past, and association withHannibal:24Minerva January/February 2011

Military heritageMarching to theRoman beatMike Knowles takes Minerva inside The Ermine Street Guard,the society dedicated to replicating the arms and drills of theRoman imperial armySince its formation in 1972,the Ermine Street Guard hasbecome firmly established asthe leading society dedicatedto reconstructive research into theRoman Army as it existed around thetime of the conquest of Britain in AD43. A registered charity, with membersdrawn from a wide social andprofessional base, and an age rangerunning from 18 to 74, the Guard isfinanced through public events, educationalvisits and donations. It is bestknown for staging displays at majorRoman sites throughout Britain andEurope, in which the audience is givenan explanation of the roles of the officers,legionaries, auxiliaries and cavalrywho made up the Roman Army, aswell as demonstrating the constructionand use of military equipment from2000 years ago. The Guard’s highlyaccurate interpretation of the Romanmilitary has proved extremely popularwith the general public, as well aswith academics, who value the insightsinto lifestyle and equipment that it provides.Remarkably, some 90 percent ofthe equipment is made by Guard membersthemselves, to high standards ofFig 1. Bronze orbrass helmet of theWeisenau/NijmegenType, with a widelyflaring neck-guard andlong, heavily embossedeyebrows. 1 st centuryBC – 1 st century AD.H. 19cm (+21cm forcheekpieces). Weight1.3kg. Artefacts such asthis form the basis forthe exacting replicasproduced by theErmine Street Guard.Photo: courtesy of theMougins Museum ofClassical Art.Fig 3. On the move.Members of theErmine Street Guarddemonstrate Romanmarching procedure.Fig 4. The Ermine StreetGuard demonstratethe famous tortoise(testudo) formationin the Romanamphitheatre atCaerleon, south Wales.workmanship and accuracy, and is continuallybeing added to and upgradedas new information and funds becomeavailable. In fact, the only major pieceof equipment which has to be farmedout to a skilled armourer (and that toan associate member of the Guard) isthe basic unfinished helmet bowl, thebeating out of which is highly specialisedwork (Fig 1).The highly detailed and precisereconstructions of armour and equipmentused by the Guard are primarilybased on those in use during the latterhalf of the 1 st century AD, the periodwhen the legions steadily expandedthe province of Britannia in a series ofcampaigns against the Iron Age tribesthat inhabited the island. However,equipment and weaponry dating toother Roman periods is reproduced bythe Guard for both experimental anddisplay purposes. The reconstructedequipment is primarily based on theaccounts and treatises provided byancient writers which relate to Romanmilitary matters. Authors such asJulius Caesar, Tacitus, Suetonius, DioCassius and Vegetius all provide informationconcerning the weaponry andequipment utilised by Roman soldiers,and also how the soldiers were trainedand expected to organise and functionin battle. Unfortunately no originalRoman army drill manual exists,so the Guard has adapted commandsfrom drill manuals of early Englisharmies, although all orders are given inLatin. The Guard attempts to maintainhigh levels of accuracy when reproducingthe kit of the imperial RomanArmy. This is achieved through studyof artefacts and depictions of Romansoldiers which survive from antiquity,finds recently unearthed duringarchaeological excavations, andthrough maintaining excellent relationshipswith museums and the academiccommunity. The high level ofaccuracy demanded of the Guard’sequipment also allows the society tocarry out experimental archaeology.1 3Constructing and wearing the replicaarmour has high<strong>light</strong>ed the stresspoints where fittings are most likelyto suffer breakages, and mirror findsof armour recovered from Romanexcavations, with breakages in thesame locations. Such are the levels ofauthenticity in the Guard’s clothing,weapons and armour, that the Guardis also often commissioned to appearin film and television documentariesrequiring portrayals of Roman soldiers.Members also provide assistanceto schools, universities, and other educationalestablishments engaged inteaching aspects of Roman life.26Minerva January/February 2011

Military heritagesharp iron, eleven inches (279mm) or afoot long, and were called piles. Whenonce fixed in the shield it was impossibleto draw them out, and whenthrown with force and skill, they penetratedthe cuirass without difficulty.’The Legionary would then advancewith his shield up and short swords(gladii) pointed forwards. Instead ofbeing used as rather inefficient slashingweapons, which would expose thesoldier’s side to the enemy, the Romangladius was primarily intended for useas a stabbing weapon, rather like a bayonet(Fig 8).Artillery weapons used in Britain andother parts of the Empire were initiallyderived from Greek designs, which theRomans adapted and improved upon.Despite dating back some two millennia,these machines are still impressive:using experimental archaeology,the Guard has recreated some, and itregularly shoots these during displays,where they prove extremely popularto the watching public. The power forthese weapons was obtained by usingsinew, rope or hair in torsion, which,when released, could hurl projectilesover considerable distances.The onager (named after the wild ass,which kicks up stones to defend itself)could throw a large rock in a parabolahundreds of metres (Fig 6). Writingin the 4 th century AD, AmmianusMarcellinus provides a useful descriptionof the siege engine: ‘The onager’sframe is constructed from two beamsof oak, which curve into humps. Inthe middle they have large holes boredthrough them, in which strong sinewropes are stretched and twisted. A longarm is inserted between the bundle ofrope, with a pin and a pouch at the end.It strikes on a huge buffer with a sackstuffed with fine chaff and secured bytight binding. When it comes to combat,a round stone is placed in thepouch and the arm is winched down.The master artilleryman then strikesthe pin with a hammer, launching thestone towards its target.’6Fig 6. Members ofThe Ermine StreetGuard winch back thethrowing arm of anonager.Fig 7. the Romanarmy campaign campwith a hand stitchedcontubernium eightmantent to the rear.Fig 8. Roman ironshort swords (gladii)used for close combat.Date: 1 st –3 rd centuryAD. Dimensions (fromtop to bottom):L. 65cm; L. 57cm;L. 68cm; L. 65.5cm.Photo: courtesy ofMougins Museum ofClassical Art.87Other artillery pieces used by theRoman military included the ballista,which hurled stones with a flattertrajectory than the onager, whilstthe catapulta, similar to a crossbow,was capable of firing iron-tippedbolts with sufficient force to penetratearmour at long distances (Figs 6, 9).A bolt fired from a catapulta can beseen in Dorchester Museum, whereit remains embedded in the spine ofone of the defenders of the great hillfort of Maiden Castle, captured by soldiersof Legio II Augusta, commandedby the future emperor Vespasian duringthe Claudian conquest of Britain.Last summer, large numbers of heavyiron bolts were also unearthed byarchaeologists working near the townof Oldenrode in Saxony, at the siteof a 3 rd century battle fought againsthostile German tribes (See Minerva,November/December, 2010, p. 4).Roman tent leather found atVindolanda and Carlisle provided theimpetus for the Guard to reconstructan authentic tent intended for theeight soldiers of the contubernium. In1993, with information provided byProf Carol van Driel-Murray of theUniversity of Amsterdam, two societymembers completed the mammothtask of hand-sewing 70 goatskinstogether following the original waterproofstitching pattern found on thepreserved fragments of Roman tentleather, a process that took about 800hours to complete. A second goatskintent was made some four years later,using a larger team of workers. As faras is known, these remain the onlyaccurately hand stitched contubernia28Minerva January/February 2011

tents anywhere in the world, and theyare an important part of the staticdisplay for the Ermine Street Guard,forming the centrepiece of the Romanarmy campaign camp (Fig 7). Herefood is cooked over an open fire, andthe public can learn more about thediet and type of rations consumed byRoman soldiers. Other replicated toolsand artefacts help to explain the soldier’sdaily life, with a surgeon’s set offield medical instruments of particularinterest (Fig 9) A ‘touch table’ gives thepublic – especially enthusiastic children– the chance to handle armourand equipment (Fig 12).Over the past 38 years The ErmineStreet Guard has displayed at all themajor Roman sites in Britain, includingall those on Hadrian’s Wall,Richborough, Portchester, Fishbourne,Wroxeter and Caerleon, often workingclosely with institutions such as theEnglish Heritage Events Unit, whichusually requests the Guard appearat three or four of its Roman siteseach year. The Guard also makes frequentvisits to leading museums andhas also marched down the hallowedsteps of the Royal Military Academy,Sandhurst, although, rather surprisingly,it has yet to display in Italy.Members of the Guard have alsoappeared in many television documentaries,and have taken part in five ofthe highly popular Time Team archaeologicalprogrammes. During one ofthese, filmed at Cirencester, the newlyconstructed Roman crane (trispastos)lifted a half-tonne stone column on itsfirst trial. The Guard has also been usedby documentary film-makers for programmesrequiring Roman military,depicting events such as the Boudiccanrevolt of AD 60, the toughest challenge129 10the Roman Army had to face in Britainduring the 1 st century AD. While filminga battle scene at Butser AncientFarm in Hampshire, southern England,despite the careful battle choreography,blunted weapons and lack of aggressiveintent, three Celtic warriors werenevertheless accidentally injured, tworeceiving puncture wounds and theother suffering a concussion. Oneparticularly striking scene involved alegionary dragging a Celtic woman byher hair through the mud, aptly illustratingthe brutal discipline requiredof Roman soldiers and also emphasisingquite clearly the superior grip ofRoman hob-nailed sandals (caligae)over the footwear favoured by thewomen of the Iceni tribe, and indeedmost of their British opponents.However, far from being glamorous,filming is highly repetitive and cancause great discomfort while filming inthe rain leads to the drudgery of cleaningrusty equipment. In fact, the equipmentrusts very easily, with sweatyfinger marks the worst to remove. Tocompletely deep clean and furbish a setof Legionary armour and equipmentusually takes about six hours. To preventcorrosion on campaign the metalswould have been smeared with olive oilor beeswax. However, the Guard is primarilydedicated to display and we canbe fairly certain that the Roman fieldarmy would not have felt the need tomaintain such a high standard of polishand gloss.Now in its 40 th year, The ErmineStreet Guard is able to parade nearly 50Roman legionaries, auxiliaries andcavalry, all fitted out in armour andcarrying equipment and weaponryconstructed to exacting standards. TheGuard also publishes its own occasionalperiodical, Exercitus, whichcontains contributions from academicsand society members featuring diversearticles about topics relating to Romanlife, the army, military equipment and11Fig 9. In addition toweaponry used bythe Roman military,replicated tools andinstruments crucial tothe efficient operationof the army, such as asurgeon’s medical kit,are displayed by theGuard.Fig 10. Legionary ofthe 1 st century AD. TheErmine Street Guardtakes meticulous carein ensuring the armsand armour are asaccurate as possible.Fig 11. The ErmineStreet Guard on themarch.Fig 12. The ‘touchtable’ is a popularattraction, especialywith children,providing them witha chance to handleRoman armour andtools.specialist reconstruction methods used.To anyone interested in reconstructivearchaeology the Guard offers a uniqueand absorbing opportunity to relivethe life of a Roman soldier in a criticalperiod in the development of our way oflife. <strong>New</strong> members who share an interestin the aims of the society are alwayswelcome. Full members are suppliedwith armour at no cost to them and areencouraged to assist in the production ofGuard equipment. Associate membershipis available to those who are unableto play an active role but wish to keepupdated on the Roman army and supportthe work of the Society. Furtherinformation can be found online atwww.erminestreetguard.co.uk nMike KnowlesCornicularius, Ermine Street GuardThe author would like to thank ChrisHaines, Chairman and Centurionof The Ermine Street Guard, whoseeditorial in Exercitus vol. 3 no. 6provided information for this article.Minerva January/February 2011 29

Roman artelephant, a giraffe and a rhinoceros,all of which were rarely seen in lifeand equally rarely depicted in Romanart. Such animals were captured andbrought to Rome for games in thearena. The giraffe, for example, wasfirst seen during the triumphal gamesheld by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. The rhinocerosfirst appears on bronze coinsminted at Rome by Domitian (r. AD81–96), suggesting this was the earliestoccasion such a creature had been seenin the imperial capital.Below, and on the same axis as thecentral medallion, is a scene with twofemale panthers clinging like largezoomorphic handles to the sides ofa large vase or krater (Fig 11). Whileall the other large cats on the LodMosaic are engaged in activities thatcame naturally to them, these two arecertainly not. The strange positioningof the two animals may be the resultFig. 6. A large predatorabout to eat a smallerfish on the marine 6panel, Lod Mosaic.Fig. 7. The ketosflanked by a pair oflions on the octagonalmedallion in thecentral panel,Lod Mosaic.Fig. 8. Oceanus andketos on a Romanmarble sarcophagus,Severan, c. AD 190–200. The MetropolitanMuseum of Art, Gift ofJoseph V. Noble, 1956(56.145). Image © TheMetropolitan Museumof Art.7of the panther’s frequent associationwith Dionysus, which is illustrated byseveral objects in the MetropolitanMuseum’s permanent on-view collection.Indeed, the famous BadmintonSarcophagus, which features Dionysusriding in triumph on the back of afemale panther, is displayed in theShelby White and Leon Levy Court,immediately in front of the Lod Mosaic(Fig 9). The inclusion of the scene withthe large krater can therefore be seen asa reference to the world of Dionysiacbeliefs and to the prosperity and wellbeingthat it engendered.Finally, each corner of the mainsquare panel is decorated with twodolphins, facing each other to eitherside of a trident (Fig 12). They maysimply be generic motifs, but they doseem to underline the connection withthe sea, along with the ketos and thecargo ships. Perhaps it is not too farfetchedto suggest that the wealthyowner of the Lod Mosaic may havemade his money as a ship owner. Histrade: transporting valuable wild animalsfrom Africa and elsewhere for thespectacular animal hunting shows theRoman public enjoyed so much as partof the gladiatorial games. Why such aman should reside in a place like Lod,however, remains a mystery. As to thequestion of whether he was Jewish, thistoo cannot be answered conclusively,but it seems unlikely. If he had been,it would seem natural for him to havewished to include some overtly Jewishsymbols on his expensive floor mosaics.If, however, he was a pagan, he mayhave decided to exclude representationsof human figures in deference tohis Jewish neighbours, friends, and visitors.After all, he probably had to conductbusiness with many local Jews.The Lod Mosaic clearly provides theimpression that the patron who commissionedthe floor had bought into,prospered, and benefited from theRoman way of life. The very Romannature of the various motifs that adornthe mosaic is best illustrated by parallelsfound on terracotta oil lamps. These8ubiquitous and utilitarian objects weremass-produced in reusable mouldsand often had figures and other designson the central discus. A cursory surveyof any corpus of Roman lamps willturn up examples decorated with scallopshells, dolphins, birds perched onbranches, peacocks displaying theirtail feathers, hares eating grapes, bulls,lions attacking stags or mules, leopardsand panthers, elephants, andeven rhinoceroses. The last is highlyunusual but an example exists in theMetropolitan Museum’s own CesnolaCollection from Cyprus, and depicts arhinoceros attacking or, perhaps, eventossing a lion or another type of largecat (Fig 13). The reason for this aggressivebehaviour is explained by the smallcreature perched up in the tree behindthe rhinoceros. This may be taken,with artistic licence, to represent a32Minerva January/February 2011

Roman art109Fig. 9. Dionysusriding a pantheron the BadmintonSarcophagus, Roman,c. AD 260–270.The MetropolitanMuseum of Art,Purchase, JosephPulitzer Bequest, 1955(55.11.5). Image © TheMetropolitan Museumof Art.Fig. 10. The octagonalmedallion in thecentral panel, LodMosaic.Fig. 11. Krater withfemale panthers, LodMosaic.Fig. 12. Dolphins andtrident scene from oneof the corners of thecentral panel,Lod Mosaic.Fig. 13. Romanterracotta oil lampfrom Cyprus, first halfof 1 st century AD TheMetropolitan Museumof Art, The CesnolaCollection, Purchasedby subscription,1874–76 (74.51.2162).Image © TheMetropolitan Museumof Art.After the Metropolitan Museum, theLod Mosaic exhibition will travelto the Legion of Honor, Fine ArtsMuseums of San Francisco (April23–July 24, 2011), the Field Museum,Chicago, and the Columbus Museumof Art, Columbus, Ohio (dates tobe announced) before returningto Israel. There it will be housed inthe Shelby White and Leon LevyLod Mosaic Center, which willopen to the public in 2012/13. Foradditional information, includinga video about the discovery andconservation of the mosaic, see theMetropolitan Museum’s website(www.metmuseum.org/special/index.asp) and a dedicated website createdby the Israel Antiquities Authority(www.lodmosaic.org).Photographs courtesy of the IsraelAntiquities Authority and TheMetropolitan Museum of Art. Theauthor would like to especially thankMiriam Avissar and Jacques Neguer.Dr Chris Lightfoot is Curator,Department of Greek and Roman Art,The Metropolitan Museum of Art.11 12baby rhino that has fled there to escapethe lion. The appearance of such motifson objects as cheap and mundane asmould-made lamps demonstrates thatthere was a repertoire of popular subjectsshared throughout the empire, atalmost every level of society. The fortuitoussurvival of the Lod Mosaic, itscareful excavation and skilful conservation,and its present display to thepublic, allow us a new insight into thepervasiveness of Roman art. n13Minerva January/February 2011 33

British archaeologyMyth and memoryin the Welsh landscapeJuly 2010 saw the start of ‘Project Eliseg’, a new research programme that aims toexplore the famous and enigmatic Pillar of Eliseg. By Prof Howard Williams1image: By permission of Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru,The National Library of WalesIn a prominent location near theruins of the medieval abbey ofValle Crucis, near Llangollen innorth-east Wales, on a moundof unknown date, stands a fragmentof a 9 th -century AD cross-shaft (Figs1, 3). This unique monument is oneof the most important sites for the historyof early medieval Wales and theBorders, for two reasons. First, it is arare example of part of an early medievalstone sculpture that is still situatedat, or very close to, its original placeof erection. Second, although nowbarely visible, until the 17 th century itbore a long Latin inscription explainingwho erected it and why. Althoughfragmentary, the Latin inscription wastranscribed accurately by the famousWelsh antiquary Edward Lhwyd(1660–1709). It says that the cross waserected by Concenn (otherwise knownas Cyngen), the last king of early medievalPowys, who died in AD 854. The2text also states that the cross commemoratesConcenn’s great grandfatherEliseg, who it claims had driven out theEnglish from the area ‘with his sword byfire’. Eliseg may have been a contemporaryof the great Mercian king Offa (r.757–796) whose famous linear earthwork(Offa’s Dyke) runs only 9.5km tothe east of the Pillar. Hostile relationsbetween Powys and Mercia may haveprompted the Dyke’s construction. Theinscription also traces back the originsof the kingdom to Eliseg’s ancestors,who (according to the text) includedthe Roman emperor Magnus Maximus(r. c. AD 383–388) and the legendaryDark Age ruler Vortigern. Concennwas therefore not only associating hiskingship with the military successes ofhis great-grandfather; through this texthe was portraying himself as heir to thekingdom of Britain (including all thoselands lost to the English) and to theimperial purple.The cross had fallen in the 17 th century,although it was re-erected in 1779by a local squire, who also dug themound and reputedly found a stonecist with a skeleton interred with a silvercoin (Fig 2). However, the report isunreliable and the bones and artefactshave not survived, and the monumenthas subsequently received no furtherarchaeological research. Today, thesite is a tourist attraction, yet little isknown about the archaeological contextof the Latin inscription. It has beenspeculated that the mound was a prehistoricmonument, or perhaps eventhe tomb of Eliseg himself.Recently, as part of her research intothe early medieval inscribed stonesand stone sculpture from Wales, ProfNancy Edwards has reinterpretedthe text and the monument as politicalpropaganda by the kings of Powys,at a time when their rule was underthreat by their Anglo-Saxon and Welshneighbours. She even suggests that thetext, reading like a legal document andusing an antiquated script and phraseology,and with its focus on the myths,legends and genealogy of Powys’ ruler,was concerned with legitimising landclaimsand territory. She suggests thatthe cross and mound may have beenthe focal point of an early medievalassembly site, and, drawing on analogieswith Scottish and Irish sites, tentativelyspeculates that it could havebeen the royal inauguration site for thekings of Powys. If so, the monumentnever fulfilled this role, owing to thedeath of Concenn, the rise to powerof the rival kingdom of Gwynedd, andFig 1. The Pillar ofEliseg and its mound,viewed from the west.Fig 2. The Pillar ofElisig near ValleCrucis, by ThomasRowlandson, penciland watercolour onpaper, c. 1797. This isthe earliest depictionof the monument andcame soon afterthe Pillar had beenre-erected.334

4the chaos that ensued with the arrivalof the Vikings in the 9 th century.Project Eliseg aims to test thishypothesis through new fieldwork,focusing on revealing more about themound and its immediate context. Tothis end, the Universities of Chesterand Durham carried out geophysicaland ground survey work in 2008, andthis hinted at extensive features in thearea round the mound. The 2010 seasonof Project Eliseg aimed to investigatethe mound and the immediatearea as well as to prepare for conservationwork to the mound to consolidate6 7areas damaged by visitors and livestock(Fig 4).So what was found? Most of themound is formed by a stone cairn surroundedby a fine kerb of large slateslabs and rounded boulders (Figs 5, 6,7). In the virtual absence of finds, andwithout proof from digging the mounditself, this looks like a well preservedEarly Bronze Age monument. The areaof the 18 th -century trench has beententatively identified, and it is hopedthat next year we can re-excavate it soas to look at the make-up of the moundand date its construction.The advantage of research excavationof this type is that the work can proceedslowly and Cadw, the historic environmentservice of the Welsh AssemblyGovernment, has been very supportive,granting the project permission toexcavate this scheduled ancient monumentand reveal the mound, but not to5Fig 3. The Pillar ofEliseg showing tracesof the 18 th centuryinscription added tocommemorate itsre-erection by squireTrevor Lloyd.Fig 4. BangorUniversity studentsand local volunteersexcavating the areaof the 18 th -centuryinvestigations.Fig 5. Aerial view ofthe 2010 excavations.Fig 6. University ofChester doctoralstudent JoanneKirton planning thecomposition of themound.Fig 7. The excavationviewed from thenorth-west, showingthe composition of themound and kerb.Fig 8. Open dayvisitors receive a talkby project co-directorHoward Williams.Fig 9. Re-enactmentgroup Cwmwd Iâl atthe Pillar during theopen day.dig into it. More answers might emergefrom next year’s work, but the first seasonof Project Eliseg suggests that thecross was located to mirror the lengthygenealogy of its Latin text. Eliseg’smemory was enshrined with the auraof hallowed antiquity by placing thecross on a prominent mound alreadythousands of years old.The 2010 field season was successfulin offering field experience toarchaeology students from Bangorand Chester and the open day at theend of the dig attracted over 300 visitors(Figs 8, 9). The aim is to returnto the Pillar for further excavations in2011. nProject Eliseg is co-directed byProf Nancy Edwards and Dr GaryRobinson of Bangor University,together with Professors Dai MorganEvans and Howard Williams ofthe University of Chester. Moreinformation about the project andthe 2010 excavations can be foundat www.projecteliseg.org and onthe excavation blog on LlangollenMuseum’s Facebook page. ProjectEliseg is grateful to Cadw, theUniversity of Wales, the Universityof Chester and Bangor Universityfor financial assistance and to Cadwand Abbey Farm for permission toexcavate on the site.Photo: Birdseyelens (birdseyelens@googlemail.com)8 9

Islamic artCollectionfromKuwaitDalu Jones reviews Sheikh al-Sabah’sextensive collection of Islamic art that iscurrently on display in Milan1Visitors to Milan’s PalazzoReale have the opportunityto admire masterpieces ofIslamic art that have notbeen on display for 16 years. ‘Al-Fann:Arte della Civiltà Islamica’ (‘Al-Fann:The Arts of Islam’) includes a selectionof magnificent objects from theal-Sabah collection of Islamic art, partof which was last displayed in 1994 inFlorence, at Palazzo Vecchio.The original al-Sabah collectionwas first unveiled to the public on23 February 1983 (Kuwait’s NationalDay), with a lavish opening ceremonyattended by more than 300 leadingscholars, collectors and dealers in thefields of Islamic art. The consensus ofopinion was that Kuwait had acquireda collection of Islamic art comparableto – and in some respects even surpassing– older collections such as thoseof the Victoria and Albert Museumin London, the Louvre in Paris, theMetropolitan in <strong>New</strong> York, the IslamicMuseum in Cairo and the DavidCollection in Copenhagen.Florence was one of the venues for‘Islamic Art and Patronage. Treasuresfrom Kuwait’, a travelling exhibitionthat opened in 1990 at the StateHermitage Museum in Saint Petersburgtwo days after the Iraqi invasion ofKuwait. The exhibition included treasuresfrom the original al-Sabah collection,on permanent loan to theKuwait National Museum, and 107 ofthe collection’s most important objectswere thus saved from the lootingthat accompanied the Iraqi invasion.Over the next 13 years the exhibitionwas staged at more than 23 museumsaround the world, during which timea number of the stolen objects wererecovered and returned to their lawfulKuwaiti owners. Others were identifiedwhen they were offered on auction andalso returned. However, 57 objects,mainly gems – one a large and preciousMughal carved emerald regarded asFig 1. Cylindricalivory box carvedwith unicorns, birdsand plants. Spain,beginning of the 11 thcentury AD. 10 x 7.5cm.Fig 2a. Gold necklacewith diamonds,precious stones,enamel and anemerald pendantin the kundantechnique. 2b Detailof the back of thenecklace in which thepolychrome enamelchamplevé backs thediamonds Late 18 thcentury. India, Deccan,Hyderabad. H.39cm;pendant, 4cm.Fig 3. Frontispiece of amanuscript, probablya Qu’ran, decoratedwith a geometricpattern initiated bya six pointed star.Ink, gilding andpolychromy on paper.Probably Egypt 14 thcentury AD.32.2 x 23.6cm.2a 2b 3one of the most important in the worldfor its scale, scope and quality – are stillmissing. ‘Al Fann: The arts of Islam’allows the general public to see some350 outstanding objects, and providesa foretaste of the core of the collectionof the new museum in KuwaitCity, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah (DAI;‘House of Islamic antiquities’), scheduledto be completed in 2012. Thecollection will rival those currentlyon display in the museums of Islamicart inaugurated in recent years in theQatari capital of Doha, and in SharjahMuseum of Islamic Civilization in theUnited Arab Emirates.Collecting begun in the 1960s,when Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmedal-Sabah was a student in Jerusalem.There he developed an appreciation forthe work of Muslim craftsmen over thecenturies, and what began as a privatehobby with a first important piece – asplendid Mamluk enamelled glass bottleof the 14 th century AD, acquired in36Minerva January/February 2011

Islamic art4 5 61975 in London – grew to encompassall aspects of the arts of the Islamicworld. The collection now includespieces in all media, from wood toceramics, from manuscripts to metalworkand numismatics, covering allperiods and geographical areas. Thecollection comprises more than 20,000objects, and additions are continuallymade with the help of Sheikh Nasser’swife Sheikha Hussah Sabah Salem al-Sabah, a scholar in Islamic art in herown right and Director of the DAIfrom its inception.The collection was built up duringvisits to the historic cities of the worldof Islam, with Sheikha Hussah noting:‘…we travelled the world togetherwith this passion, sometimes findingMamluk cooking pots in the suq, as wedid in Yemen, or Syrian candlesticks inDelhi that turned out to be invaluableonce we wiped away the grime and sawtheir special stamps and inscriptions.The items talked to us. There was aFig 4. Ceramic bowldecorated with blackand cobalt blue motifs.Iran, Kashan, 12 th –13 thcentury AD. H. 7cm,Diam.16.4cm.Fig 5. Ceramic bowldecorated withsymmetrical designsand palmettes. EasternIran, Nishapur, 10 thcentury A.D.H.4.8 cm,Diam. 13.8cm.Fig 6. Blue glass withwhite patterning.Egypt or Syria, 8 th –9 thcentury AD. H. 6.5,Diam. 7cm.Fig 7. Enamelledglass base decoratedwith lotus flowersand phoenixes andthe coat of arms of abunduqdar (Keeperof the bow). Egyptor Syria, end of the13 th or beginning ofthe 14 th century AD.H.19cm, Diam.18.5cmconstant dialogue between me and theobjects. And you should see my husband– he talks to them, too. He evengives them names!’Sheikh Nasser’s enthusiasm is notlimited to Islamic art – he collectsancient artefacts which provide artisticantecedents for the development ofthe arts in the countries of the Muslimworld, and has a keen interest in thearchaeology of his country, particularlythat of Failaka island (ancientIkaros, referred to in the Geographyof Strabo written at the beginning ofthe 1st century AD). The island lies26km to the east of Kuwait City andhas a history that stretches back to thebeginning of the 2nd millennium BC.Excavations have been carried out herealmost every year since the mid 1950sand have revealed Dilmun, Hellenistic,Nestorian and Islamic sites. Anotherline of research Sheikh Nasser shareswith his wife is the charting of ancientmaritime routes from Kuwait, which7 8 9Fig 8. Glass jug. Iran,10 th –11 th century ADH.18.5cm, W. 12.7cm.Fig 9. Enamelled glasscup decorated withtwo men huntingbirds by a river. Egyptor Syria. Second halfof the 13 th century. H.11.6cm, Diam. 8cm.led down the Arabian Gulf and out intothe Indian Ocean, with ancient andmedieval sailors able to traverse theIndian ocean on the monsoon winds,reaching the east coast of Africa, aswell as trading cities on the shores ofIndia and as far as Indonesia.The exhibition in Milan is arrangedchronologically and thematically, andsections are devoted to calligraphy,geometry, a spectacular display of jewellery(Fig 2), and arabesque artworkwith its intricate patterns. Also onshow are wonderful examples of figurativeart, exemplified by manuscriptillustrations of the very highest quality,as well as paintings on glass andceramics, clearly demonstrating thatnon-religious figurative art has existedin Islam throughout its history. Thisexhibition is focused not only on thegeneral public, but also aims to providea complete overview of Islamic art asa whole. It includes artefacts of manytypes, originating from all over theMinerva January/February 201137

Islamic art3810Islamic world, from Spain to China,produced over a period of 1500 years,from the early Umayyad dynasty in theNear East and in Spain (Fig 1), to thegreat Ottoman, Safavid and Mughalempires in Turkey, Persia and India.Alongside the striking artefacts on display,others are included to illustratethe lesser-known aspects of a multifacetedculture, particularly aspectsof scientific knowledge and technicalskills which, for many centuries, werewell in advance of the understandingof the contemporary West. An astrolabe,made in Baghdad by Muhammadibn ’Abdallah (known in the West asMaster Nastulus), is the oldest datedsuch instrument (AD 927–8). Thereare also related treatises on the makingand use of astrolabes of the 11–13 thcenturies, from Turkey and Iran, aswell as pages of manuscripts concerningastrology and medicine, for examplea page from De Materia Medica,the medical treatise originally writtenin Greek by Dioscorides during the 1 stcentury AD. The text is translated intoArabic and provided with lavish illustrations(Baghdad, 13 th century AD).Further proof of the technical masteryof Muslim craftsmen are the beautifullydecorated ceramics, enamelledglass and inlaid metalwork. (Figs4–10). Rock crystal was carved tofashion elegant objects for daily useat court, including chess sets, a royalgame imported from the East intoEurope (Figs 11a, 11b). Ivory wasmuch sought after in Muslim Spainand Sicily where it was carved withbeautiful lace-like patterns and sometimespainted (Fig 1).Afghanistan was a cultural hub wellFig 10. Enamelledglass vase decoratedin polychromy withtwo phoenixes in theChinese style. Largeinscription in thuluthscript: ‘Glory to ourLord, the King, theSage’. Syria or Egypt,first half of the 14 thcentury AD. H. 27.5cm.Figs 11a, 11b. Rockcrystal chess piecesfrom two differentsets. 11a is a faras(knight), from Iraq,probably Basra, c. 9 thcentury AD, H. 5.4cm.11b is the Shah (king).From eastern Iran, c.9 th century AD.H. 6.8cm.Fig 12. Large bronzeewer with a longspout and a filterdecorated withpierced arabesquemotifs with aninscription in theKufic script bearinggood wishes and thesignature of the artistAhmad ibn al-HasanEastern Iran. 11 th –12 thcentury AD. H. 52.5cm.11aFurther proof of the technical mastery ofMuslim craftsmen are the beautifully decoratedceramics, enamelled glass and inlaid metalworkbefore the conquests of Alexander theGreat. The extraordinary quality of theobjects produced in this geographicalarea is evidenced by many objects onview, among them a metal ewer 50cmhigh, pierced, engraved and signed(Fig 12). It is unfortunate that theItalian excavations at the Islamic siteof Ghazni, eastern Afghanistan, carriedout more than 50 years ago, havenot as yet been properly published. TheMuseum of Oriental art in Rome alsohas only a handful of the large collectionof 10 th -century marbles excavatedat the site on display.In the introduction to the museumcatalogue, it is stressed by the curator,Prof Giovanni Curatola, that an importantaspect of this exhibition was toattempt to kindle interest and a respectfor Islamic culture among the Italianpublic at a time of increasing tensionbetween local and immigrant communitieswithin the country. The influenceof Islamic culture was also feltin medieval Sicily, flourishing duringalmost three centuries of Muslim rule,while under Norman control (whichbegan to be exerted in 1060 and lastedthrough until 1194) unique works ofart were produced in a cosmopolitanenvironment that meshed Westernand Eastern influences. Furthermore,Italy has an extraordinary number ofneglected Islamic objects with impeccablepedigrees in its museums andchurch treasuries which warrantcloser study and proper conservationand display. Prof Curatola is also theauthor of the essays in the catalogue,which weave discussions of the objectson display into the framework of adetailed history of Islamic art and the11bculture that produced it. Thus the catalogueserves as an accurate and readableintroduction to the diversity andunity of the arts of Islam, both for specialistsand the general public. nAfter Milan the exhibition will moveto Vienna in March and later in theyear to Korea, Canada and possiblyJapan.Catalogue: Al Fann.Arti delle CiviltàIslamiche, edited by GiovanniCuratola, Skira, Milan, 2010. 336pp,400 colour and b&w illus. €54.12Minerva January/February 2011

Asian art1The wonderfulthing abouttigersA new exhibitioncelebrates thismagnificent, deadlyand imperilledcreature throughdepictions from3000 years ofAsian art. BySophie MackenzieOnly around 3200 tigerscurrently survive in thewild, and conservationistshave asked: when thenext Chinese Year of the Tiger comesaround in 2022, will there be anytigers left? In November 2010, RussianPrime Minister Vladimir Putin hostedthe International Tiger ConservationForum in St Petersburg, which wasattended by representatives from the13 tiger range countries (Bangladesh,Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India,Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia,Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand andVietnam) and high-level representativesfrom other nations. The summitcapped a year-long process led by thetiger range countries to agree on howto double the number of wild tigersby 2022. As part of this global driveto save the highly endangered species,Asia House is hosting a major newexhibition, ‘The Tiger in Asian Art’,which runs until 12 February.Through the exhibition, factual displaysand a series of informative events,Asia House aims to galvanise publicsupport and motivate people to takeaction to save the tiger. Featuring stunninginterpretations of this endangeredspecies through the ages, The Tiger inAsian Art connects fine and contemporaryart spanning the last 3000 years2Fig 1. Tiger of theWest, silver, China,Tang/Liao period (9th– 10th century AD).Courtesy of Eskenazi,London.Fig 2. Palanquinpole ends. Thesesilver-gilt finials arethought to be fromthe poles supportinga palanquin (coveredsedan chair or litter)or howdah (coveredseat carried on theback of an elephant)belonging to TipuSultan (r. AD 1782-1799) the Muslim rulerof Mysore in SouthIndia. Courtesy ofthe Victoria & AlbertMuseum.with an urgent environmental issue.The exhibition includes loans from TheBritish Museum and the Victoria andAlbert Museum (Fig 2), as well as severalprivate collections, and includesrare Asian paintings, sculptures, textilesand photographs, many previouslyunseen.The exhibition’s curators, KatrianaHazell and Zara Fleming, have assembledworks dating from the 1 st centuryBC to the modern and contemporaryperiods, with exhibits originatingfrom China, Japan, Korea, Tibet,India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma andthe Mongolian steppes. Focusing onthe cultural and spiritual significanceof the tiger to these diverse cultures,‘The Tiger in Asian Art’ high<strong>light</strong>s theimportant role this creature has played,and continues to play, in the humanpsyche.The tiger is important as a symbolof power and protection throughoutAsia. The exhibition reveals the way in40Minerva January/February 2011

Asian art563which the tiger is feared, revered andused as a vital and enduring symbol.The tiger’s significance is explored infive themes: as a protector, a spiritualpower, a material power, a hunted animaland a species in decline.For the people of Asia, the tiger is anenduring and powerful symbol of culturalidentity. During the Han Dynasty(206 BC – AD 220), the Chinesebelieved the tiger to be the king ofbeasts. According to legend, the tiger’stail would turn white when it reachedthe age of 500 years. The white tigerwould only appear when the emperorruled with absolute virtue, or if therewas peace throughout the world. InChinese belief, the colour white alsorepresented the west; the White Tigertherefore became a mythologicalguardian of the West, correspondingwith the Green Dragon of the East, theVermilion Bird of the South, and theBlack Warrior ‘Tortoise and Snake’ ofthe North. The exhibition includes anexquisite silver appliqué tiger (Fig 2),part of a set comprising the animals ofthe four compass points and a Taoistfigure. These were probably originallypinned to the sides and lid of a box.The appliqué, which was made duringthe Liao dynasty (AD 907–1125),founded by the semi-nomadic Khitantribe who originated from the areanorth of China, would have been anobject of high status, possibly playinga protective role in a tomb.Several other ancient artefactsincluded in the exhibition relate to thetiger’s role as a protector. During thefirst millennium BC, nomadic craftsmenin the Ordos area of north westernChina made decorative plaquesto adorn garments and horse harness4Fig 3. Bronze tigerplaque, Ordos area,1 st century BC – 2 ndcentury AD. Courtesyof The British Museum.Fig 4. Bronze belthook, Eastern Zhouperiod (770–221 BC).Courtesy ofThe British Museum.Fig 5. Tiger tally,bronze, China, HanDynasty (206 BC – AD220). Courtesy ofThe British Museum,bequeathed by BrendaZara Seligman.Fig 6. Tiger pillow,stoneware, China,Song dynasty (AD960–1279). Courtesy ofthe Victoria & AlbertMuseum.Fig 7. Tiger box, giltbronze, China, EasternHan Dynasty (1 st – 2 ndcentury AD). Courtesyof Carson Kohle.that invariably featured animal decoration.A bronze example depicting atiger with elegant incised wings (Fig3) would have served to protect thewearer and his flocks from danger.Belt hooks have been found in Chinesetombs dating to as early as the EasternZhou period (770–221 BC). Beltswould have been needed to hold uptrousers or long robes when on horseback,and a bronze belt hook in theform of a spirited tiger (Fig 4) wouldhave had an additional symbolic function:to protect the wearer from harm.The incised features of the tiger’s fur aretypical of the 1 st century Han dynasty,when chased ornamentation replacedthe richly inlaid and gilded bronzes ofthe Western Han.In ancient China, a tally (fu) was apractical and ceremonial object madeof two matching parts. It was assignedto an important person as a representationof authority or identification. Onepart was held in a certain location and7the other was matched against it whenverification was necessary. Tiger tallies(hufu) made of bronze, like the exampleincluded here (Fig 5), which datesto 206 BC – 220 AD, were used by thehighest ranking military officers andhad the added benefit of protection.During the Han Dynasty, protectivetigers adorned weapons, funerary jarsand numerous everyday objects suchas bronze boxes (Fig 7), which wouldhave contained trinkets, sweetmeatsor precious possessions, and wouldhave been used both during the lifeof the owner and in the tomb. Otherobjects used during life accompaniedtheir owner after death, where theywould continue to provide protectionfrom evil spirits, and it is difficult notto form the opinion that ceramic pillowsused as neck supports, such asthe Cizhou stoneware example in theshape of a tiger (Fig 6), would havegranted more comfortable rest to thedead than to the living.The Chinese character (wáng),which means ‘king’, resembles themarkings on the forehead of a tiger,and many cartoon depictions of tigersin China and Korea are drawn withon their forehead. In Buddhism, thetiger is also one of the Three SenselessCreatures, symbolising anger; themonkey represents greed, and the deerlovesickness. As one of the spirits thatMinerva January/February 201141

Asian artCourtesy of The British Museum.presided over the four ‘quadrants’ of theuniverse to ward off evil, the tiger alsocorresponded with a season – autumn,and a specific ‘element’ – metal. Underthe system of geomancy or feng shui,which translates as ‘wind water’, theuniverse is controlled by the two complementaryyet opposing forces ofwind and water, also known as yin andyang. The tiger represents the dark,feminine yin, whilst its counterpartthe dragon symbolises the <strong>light</strong>, masculineyang (see Minerva, November/December 2010, pp. 42–45). Variousartworks depict a dragon and tigerfighting an epic battle, whilst somedepictions fuse the two creatures intoa beast of unparalleled power (Fig 9).A common Chinese idiom, often usedto describe rivals in sporting contests,is ‘Dragon versus Tiger’, whist in martialarts, ‘dragon style’ is used to describestyles of fighting based more on understandingmovement, while ‘tiger style’ isbased on brute strength and memorisationof techniques.Tigers were revered and mythologisedelsewhere in Asia. The Tungusicpeople considered the Siberian tiger anear-deity and often referred to it as‘Grandfather’ or ‘Old man’; The Udegeand Nanai called it ‘Amba’. The Sanskritfor tiger is vyaghra – a word that hasbeen irretrievably adopted by the marketeersof the pharmaceutical giantPfizer. The widely worshiped Hindugoddess Durga, an aspect of Devi-Parvati, is a ten-armed warrior whorides the tigress (or lioness) Damoninto battle. In southern India the godAyyappan was associated with a tiger.The weretiger replaces the werewolf inshapeshifting folklore in Asia; in Indiathey were often depicted as evil sorcerers,while in Indonesia and Malaysiathey were somewhat more benign.In ancient India, the sealing was anessential tool of state administration,acting as a mark of authentication,like a signature, whilst also serving asa passport, talisman, amulet and votiveoffering. A seal impression on a claydisc (Fig 11), dating from the Guptadynasty, 4 th – 6 th century AD, depictsan armed warrior with a tiger or lion. Itis inscribed Bharatasya, meaning ‘fromIndia’, in the Gupta Brahmi script.11Fig 8. Tiger in aSnowstorm, Hokusai(1760–1849), paintingon silk, Japan, 1849.The painting is dated‘Month of the Tiger,Year of the Cock,1849’ and is inscribed‘Old man mad aboutpainting, ninety yearsof age’.Private collection.Fig 9. Military banner,brocaded silk satin,Ming dynasty (AD1368–1644), China.This fragment of abanner depicts a tigerwith bat-like wingssurrounded by flameand clouds. It wouldhave originally beentriangular in shape,with an identicalimage stitched on thereverse, to frightenthe approachingarmy and to generatebravery amongstthe soldiers carryingthe standard.Fig 10. Bengali pata(painting), papermounted on cotton,Murshidabad School,India, 19 th century.Brightly colouredscrolls such as thiswere used as visualaids in story telling.This particularexample depicts a folklegend, and high<strong>light</strong>sthe protective andpowerful qualities ofthe Bengal tiger.Fig 11. Clay sealing,India, Gupta Dynasty(4 th – 6 th century AD).Dating from the modern period,a high<strong>light</strong> of the exhibition is Tigerin a Snow Storm (Fig 8), a stunningwork by the celebrated Japanese artistKatsushika Hokusai (1760–1849),which was painted in his 90 th andfinal year. Showing an aged tiger battlingthrough deep snow, in the midstof a blizzard, the painting is reminiscentof Hokusai’s own situation in thewinter of his life. Although physicallyweak, the artist was said to be spirituallystrong and imbued with the innerstrength of a charging tiger. Other keyworks include a striking Bengali pata(scroll painting) showing a pregnantwoman being guarded by tigers whilstshe sleeps (Fig 10). n‘The Tiger in Asian Art’ runs at AsiaHouse, 63 <strong>New</strong> Cavendish Street,London, W1G 7LP, until 12 February.Asia House is the leading pan-Asianorganisation in the UK, and existsto build dynamic links with Asia,providing insights into culture,policy, business and education. AsiaHouse is a non-profit, non-politicalorganisation. For more information,please call 020 7307 5454 or visitwww.asiahouse.org.Courtesy of Jacqueline Simcox Ltd8Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum Courtesy of jacqueline simcox ltd91042Minerva January/February 2011

Asian art1The wonderfulthing abouttigersA new exhibitioncelebrates thismagnificent, deadlyand imperilledcreature throughdepictions from3000 years ofAsian art. BySophie MackenzieOnly around 3200 tigerscurrently survive in thewild, and conservationistshave asked: when thenext Chinese Year of the Tiger comesaround in 2022, will there be anytigers left? In November 2010, RussianPrime Minister Vladimir Putin hostedthe International Tiger ConservationForum in St Petersburg, which wasattended by representatives from the13 tiger range countries (Bangladesh,Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India,Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia,Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand andVietnam) and high-level representativesfrom other nations. The summitcapped a year-long process led by thetiger range countries to agree on howto double the number of wild tigersby 2022. As part of this global driveto save the highly endangered species,Asia House is hosting a major newexhibition, ‘The Tiger in Asian Art’,which runs until 12 February.Through the exhibition, factual displaysand a series of informative events,Asia House aims to galvanise publicsupport and motivate people to takeaction to save the tiger. Featuring stunninginterpretations of this endangeredspecies through the ages, The Tiger inAsian Art connects fine and contemporaryart spanning the last 3000 years2Fig 1. Tiger of theWest, silver, China,Tang/Liao period (9th– 10th century AD).Courtesy of Eskenazi,London.Fig 2. Palanquinpole ends. Thesesilver-gilt finials arethought to be fromthe poles supportinga palanquin (coveredsedan chair or litter)or howdah (coveredseat carried on theback of an elephant)belonging to TipuSultan (r. AD 1782-1799) the Muslim rulerof Mysore in SouthIndia. Courtesy ofthe Victoria & AlbertMuseum.with an urgent environmental issue.The exhibition includes loans from TheBritish Museum and the Victoria andAlbert Museum (Fig 2), as well as severalprivate collections, and includesrare Asian paintings, sculptures, textilesand photographs, many previouslyunseen.The exhibition’s curators, KatrianaHazell and Zara Fleming, have assembledworks dating from the 1 st centuryBC to the modern and contemporaryperiods, with exhibits originatingfrom China, Japan, Korea, Tibet,India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma andthe Mongolian steppes. Focusing onthe cultural and spiritual significanceof the tiger to these diverse cultures,‘The Tiger in Asian Art’ high<strong>light</strong>s theimportant role this creature has played,and continues to play, in the humanpsyche.The tiger is important as a symbolof power and protection throughoutAsia. The exhibition reveals the way in40Minerva January/February 2011

Asian art563which the tiger is feared, revered andused as a vital and enduring symbol.The tiger’s significance is explored infive themes: as a protector, a spiritualpower, a material power, a hunted animaland a species in decline.For the people of Asia, the tiger is anenduring and powerful symbol of culturalidentity. During the Han Dynasty(206 BC – AD 220), the Chinesebelieved the tiger to be the king ofbeasts. According to legend, the tiger’stail would turn white when it reachedthe age of 500 years. The white tigerwould only appear when the emperorruled with absolute virtue, or if therewas peace throughout the world. InChinese belief, the colour white alsorepresented the west; the White Tigertherefore became a mythologicalguardian of the West, correspondingwith the Green Dragon of the East, theVermilion Bird of the South, and theBlack Warrior ‘Tortoise and Snake’ ofthe North. The exhibition includes anexquisite silver appliqué tiger (Fig 2),part of a set comprising the animals ofthe four compass points and a Taoistfigure. These were probably originallypinned to the sides and lid of a box.The appliqué, which was made duringthe Liao dynasty (AD 907–1125),founded by the semi-nomadic Khitantribe who originated from the areanorth of China, would have been anobject of high status, possibly playinga protective role in a tomb.Several other ancient artefactsincluded in the exhibition relate to thetiger’s role as a protector. During thefirst millennium BC, nomadic craftsmenin the Ordos area of north westernChina made decorative plaquesto adorn garments and horse harness4Fig 3. Bronze tigerplaque, Ordos area,1 st century BC – 2 ndcentury AD. Courtesyof The British Museum.Fig 4. Bronze belthook, Eastern Zhouperiod (770–221 BC).Courtesy ofThe British Museum.Fig 5. Tiger tally,bronze, China, HanDynasty (206 BC – AD220). Courtesy ofThe British Museum,bequeathed by BrendaZara Seligman.Fig 6. Tiger pillow,stoneware, China,Song dynasty (AD960–1279). Courtesy ofthe Victoria & AlbertMuseum.Fig 7. Tiger box, giltbronze, China, EasternHan Dynasty (1 st – 2 ndcentury AD). Courtesyof Carson Kohle.that invariably featured animal decoration.A bronze example depicting atiger with elegant incised wings (Fig3) would have served to protect thewearer and his flocks from danger.Belt hooks have been found in Chinesetombs dating to as early as the EasternZhou period (770–221 BC). Beltswould have been needed to hold uptrousers or long robes when on horseback,and a bronze belt hook in theform of a spirited tiger (Fig 4) wouldhave had an additional symbolic function:to protect the wearer from harm.The incised features of the tiger’s fur aretypical of the 1 st century Han dynasty,when chased ornamentation replacedthe richly inlaid and gilded bronzes ofthe Western Han.In ancient China, a tally (fu) was apractical and ceremonial object madeof two matching parts. It was assignedto an important person as a representationof authority or identification. Onepart was held in a certain location and7the other was matched against it whenverification was necessary. Tiger tallies(hufu) made of bronze, like the exampleincluded here (Fig 5), which datesto 206 BC – 220 AD, were used by thehighest ranking military officers andhad the added benefit of protection.During the Han Dynasty, protectivetigers adorned weapons, funerary jarsand numerous everyday objects suchas bronze boxes (Fig 7), which wouldhave contained trinkets, sweetmeatsor precious possessions, and wouldhave been used both during the lifeof the owner and in the tomb. Otherobjects used during life accompaniedtheir owner after death, where theywould continue to provide protectionfrom evil spirits, and it is difficult notto form the opinion that ceramic pillowsused as neck supports, such asthe Cizhou stoneware example in theshape of a tiger (Fig 6), would havegranted more comfortable rest to thedead than to the living.The Chinese character (wáng),which means ‘king’, resembles themarkings on the forehead of a tiger,and many cartoon depictions of tigersin China and Korea are drawn withon their forehead. In Buddhism, thetiger is also one of the Three SenselessCreatures, symbolising anger; themonkey represents greed, and the deerlovesickness. As one of the spirits thatMinerva January/February 201141

Asian artCourtesy of The British Museum.presided over the four ‘quadrants’ of theuniverse to ward off evil, the tiger alsocorresponded with a season – autumn,and a specific ‘element’ – metal. Underthe system of geomancy or feng shui,which translates as ‘wind water’, theuniverse is controlled by the two complementaryyet opposing forces ofwind and water, also known as yin andyang. The tiger represents the dark,feminine yin, whilst its counterpartthe dragon symbolises the <strong>light</strong>, masculineyang (see Minerva, November/December 2010, pp. 42–45). Variousartworks depict a dragon and tigerfighting an epic battle, whilst somedepictions fuse the two creatures intoa beast of unparalleled power (Fig 9).A common Chinese idiom, often usedto describe rivals in sporting contests,is ‘Dragon versus Tiger’, whist in martialarts, ‘dragon style’ is used to describestyles of fighting based more on understandingmovement, while ‘tiger style’ isbased on brute strength and memorisationof techniques.Tigers were revered and mythologisedelsewhere in Asia. The Tungusicpeople considered the Siberian tiger anear-deity and often referred to it as‘Grandfather’ or ‘Old man’; The Udegeand Nanai called it ‘Amba’. The Sanskritfor tiger is vyaghra – a word that hasbeen irretrievably adopted by the marketeersof the pharmaceutical giantPfizer. The widely worshiped Hindugoddess Durga, an aspect of Devi-Parvati, is a ten-armed warrior whorides the tigress (or lioness) Damoninto battle. In southern India the godAyyappan was associated with a tiger.The weretiger replaces the werewolf inshapeshifting folklore in Asia; in Indiathey were often depicted as evil sorcerers,while in Indonesia and Malaysiathey were somewhat more benign.In ancient India, the sealing was anessential tool of state administration,acting as a mark of authentication,like a signature, whilst also serving asa passport, talisman, amulet and votiveoffering. A seal impression on a claydisc (Fig 11), dating from the Guptadynasty, 4 th – 6 th century AD, depictsan armed warrior with a tiger or lion. Itis inscribed Bharatasya, meaning ‘fromIndia’, in the Gupta Brahmi script.11Fig 8. Tiger in aSnowstorm, Hokusai(1760–1849), paintingon silk, Japan, 1849.The painting is dated‘Month of the Tiger,Year of the Cock,1849’ and is inscribed‘Old man mad aboutpainting, ninety yearsof age’.Private collection.Fig 9. Military banner,brocaded silk satin,Ming dynasty (AD1368–1644), China.This fragment of abanner depicts a tigerwith bat-like wingssurrounded by flameand clouds. It wouldhave originally beentriangular in shape,with an identicalimage stitched on thereverse, to frightenthe approachingarmy and to generatebravery amongstthe soldiers carryingthe standard.Fig 10. Bengali pata(painting), papermounted on cotton,Murshidabad School,India, 19 th century.Brightly colouredscrolls such as thiswere used as visualaids in story telling.This particularexample depicts a folklegend, and high<strong>light</strong>sthe protective andpowerful qualities ofthe Bengal tiger.Fig 11. Clay sealing,India, Gupta Dynasty(4 th – 6 th century AD).Dating from the modern period,a high<strong>light</strong> of the exhibition is Tigerin a Snow Storm (Fig 8), a stunningwork by the celebrated Japanese artistKatsushika Hokusai (1760–1849),which was painted in his 90 th andfinal year. Showing an aged tiger battlingthrough deep snow, in the midstof a blizzard, the painting is reminiscentof Hokusai’s own situation in thewinter of his life. Although physicallyweak, the artist was said to be spirituallystrong and imbued with the innerstrength of a charging tiger. Other keyworks include a striking Bengali pata(scroll painting) showing a pregnantwoman being guarded by tigers whilstshe sleeps (Fig 10). n‘The Tiger in Asian Art’ runs at AsiaHouse, 63 <strong>New</strong> Cavendish Street,London, W1G 7LP, until 12 February.Asia House is the leading pan-Asianorganisation in the UK, and existsto build dynamic links with Asia,providing insights into culture,policy, business and education. AsiaHouse is a non-profit, non-politicalorganisation. For more information,please call 020 7307 5454 or visitwww.asiahouse.org.Courtesy of Jacqueline Simcox Ltd8Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum Courtesy of jacqueline simcox ltd91042Minerva January/February 2011

Medieval historyLife,Death,ResurrectionMark Merrony looks at the reality that liesbeneath the enduring and chilling legend ofCount DraculaIt was his pleasure and gavehim courageTo see human blood flowAnd it was his customTo wash his hands in itAs it was brought to the table.Michel Beheim (1463)Michel Beheim’s poem isevocative of the legendarycharacter createdby Bram Stoker (Fig 4)in his masterpiece of Victorian Gothicliterature, Dracula, in 1897. It portraysa man who is bloodthirsty, evil,and satanic. The extraordinary truth isthat it describes a real character whosereign of terror was enacted in thesame region as the legendary vampireCount, 450 years before the publicationof Stoker’s novel. The fascinatinglink between the Dracula of fact andfiction has naturally attracted a greatdeal of curiosity, and scholars of medievalhistory have argued about theextent to which Dracula was based on areal character (Figs 1, 3). This interestingtopic is certainly worth revisiting,but the focus of this article is to paint2a picture of the historical Dracula.Documents, oral tradition and archaeologycombine to form a picture of theevil that characterised his life, and thecurious events surrounding his death,burial and ‘resurrection’.Dracula reigned as Voivod (Prince)of Wallachia in modern Romania in1448, 1456–62 and 1476. Three documentsrecord that the Voivod signedhis name as ‘Dracula’ or ‘Draculea’,and a rare painting has a Latin caption:‘Dracula, voevod of TransalpineWallachia, the most fearsome foe of theTurks’. Also known by the sobriquet‘The Impaler’ by the Turks, Romanianwriters later called him ‘Tepes’ – ‘TheImpaler’. His father, Vlad II Dracul,was known as such after his investitureinto the Order of the Dragon in 1431,founded in 1408 by Sigismund, King ofHungary (r. 1387–1437) and later HolyRoman Emperor, to crusade againstthe Ottoman Turks. It is curious that‘Dracul’ deriving from Latin ‘Draco’for ‘dragon’, in its shorter Romanianform, ‘Drac’ also means devil. Theassociation between the dragon andthe devil is referred to in the <strong>New</strong>Testament Book of Revelation, ‘The1Fig 1. Portrait ofVlad III Draculafrom Ambras Castle,Austria, oil oncanvas, 15 th century.© KunsthistorischesMuseum.Fig 2. Silkscreen posterfor the Federal TheatreProject presentationof Dracula byHamilton Deane andJohn L. Balderston,adapted from BramStoker’s novel ofthe same name, atthe Mason OperaHouse, Los Angeles,California, 1938.great dragon, the primeval serpent,known as the devil or Satan, who hadled all the world astray’ (12.9) and ‘thedragon, that primeval serpent whichis the devil and Satan’ (20.2). The synonymybetween devil and dragon is atthe root of the Triumph of Good overEvil in medieval literature, notably thetale of George and the Dragon (seeMinerva, November/December 2010,pp. 42–44). Adding suffix ‘a’ to ‘Dracul’– ‘Dracula’ – means ‘son of the dragon’or ‘son of the devil’ in Wallachian.To return to the association betweenthe historical Dracula and CountDracula, M.J. Trow (2003) has suggesteda similarity between the descriptionof the facial attributes of both: inChapter II of Dracula and the eyewitnessaccount of the papal legate to theking of Hungary, Niccolò Modrussa,c. 1470. A breakthrough occurredin 1972 when R.T. McNally discoveredBram Stoker’s working papers forDracula in the Rosenbach Museum,Philadelphia. The documents attest toStoker’s knowledge of Vlad Dracula,which came from a book by W.Wilkinson, Account of the Principalities44Minerva January/February 2011

Medieval historyof Wallachia and 4Moldavia (1820).One passage reads:‘Dracula in Wallachian languagemeans Devil. Wallachians wereaccustomed to give it as a surname toany person who rendered himself conspicuousby courage, cruel actions, orcunning.’ A second passage refers to theWallachian-Turkish conflict of 1448:‘…Their Voivode [Dracula] crossedthe Danube and attacked Turkishtroops…’ (18–19). Thus in DraculaProfessor Van Helsing described theCount as ‘that Voivode Dracula whowon his name against the Turk… if itbe so, then was he no common man;for in that time, and for centuries after,he was spoken of as the cleverest andthe most cunning…’ (291). E. Miller(1998) published an article that refuteda comprehensive link between the twocharacters. However, she does concedethat the Rosenbach papers ‘proveconclusively that he did know aboutthe existence of the Voivode Dracula’.While this is certainly the case, nothingin Dracula appears to indicate thatthe author was party to any of the latemedieval manuscripts detailing thecruel and bloodthirsty activities of the15 th century Prince.It is ironic that the success of Draculaafter its publication, and the posthumousshort story Dracula’s Guest(1914), inspired productions on thestage and screen that project Draculaas a bloodthirsty, cruel, and oftensatanic aristocrat. Bram Stoker’s widowFlorence permitted the first adaptation,produced in 1924 by HamiltonDeane, starring Raymond Huntley asCount Dracula. The play toured Britainbefore performances in London andBroadway in 1927 (Fig 3). In 1922 MaxSchreck played the eerie Count Orlock(Dracula) in the silent classic Nosferatu,directed by Felix Murnau. Less than adecade later came the first talkie,Dracula (1931) portrayed by BelaLugosi (Fig 5) – for many the archetypalCount – directed and producedby Tod Browning. Francis FordCoppola’s Dracula (1992) was a sensualadaptation of the original novel, albeitwith a stronger link to the historicalPrince. Sir Christopher Lee’s portrayalsof Count Dracula as a blood/woman-lusting vampire ina series of seven enigmaticHammer productions(1958–73),present the Countas bloodthirsty,satanic, and resurrected– aspectsthat take us full circleto the realDracula.Vlad Dracula hasbeen back in vogue overthe past few decades, notablyin The Historian (2005) by E. Kostova.This drew on a fluid interplay betweenVlad and Count Dracula, perhapsinspired in part by primary informationin the excellent publications byR.T. McNally and R.R. Florescu (1972,1989) and K.W. Treptow (2000). These53Fig 3. Woodcut portraitof Dracula from apamphlet that waspublished in Bambergin 1491. © The BritishLibrary.Fig 4. Bram Stoker,whose 1897 novelreawakened interestin Dracula.Fig 5. Bela Lugosi’sportrayal of Draculain the 1931 film isregarded as thearchetypal Count.provide a crucial insight into the characterand deeds of a man we may considerthe most evil since Nero.In a political sense Dracula wasborn in the wrong place at the wrongtime: Transylvania and Wallachia weresandwiched between the westwardexpanding Ottoman Empire, and theKingdom of Hungary – spearhead ofthe Holy Roman Empire. Both powerswould influence his life and shape hismorality. In 1442, his father was forcedto cut a deal with Sultan Murad II afterbeing tricked into captivity by theSultan in Gallipoli and later released,Dracula and his younger brother Raduwere taken as hostages. Mircea, theeldest son, fortuitously remained athome. Dracula swore on oath not totake up arms against the Ottomans,an annual tribute of 10,000 gold ducats,and the devsirme – the provisionof male youths to be trained as janissaries,the crack troops of the Ottomanarmy. Dracula and Radu were takento the fortress of the ‘crooked eyes’ inEgrigoz, Tokat (probably the Byzantinecastle), then to the palace of Murad inEdirne, where they received an academicand martial education. Greekchronicler Laonic Chalkondyles providedsubtle speculation that Radusuccumbed to the sexual advances ofthe future Sultan Mehmed during thistime. Opinions suggest that the impactof this on Vlad, together with paternalMinerva January/February 2011 45

Medieval historybetrayal, forged his later cruelty.In 1447 Dracula’s father, Vlad IIDracul, was overthrown by the talentedmilitary strategist John Hunyadi– regent of Hungary and Voivod ofTransylvania – and decapitated byVladislav II of the rival Danesti clan,supported by Wallachian Boyars (aristocrats).Mircea was blinded and buriedalive in the Wallachian capital ofTârgoviste – another possible explanationfor Dracula’s harsh character.Obligations of tribute and devsirmemade it expedient for Dracula to bemade Voivod of Wallachia in 1448, tocounter the aspirations of Hunyadi,who had deposed Dracula after a shortreign and reinstalled Vladislav. Thekey to understanding unfolding eventsis the complex political and religioussituation in the region. Dracula, as anOrthodox Christian under the patronageof Constantinople, was placed ina difficult position after the fall of theByzantine capital in 1453. This heraldedthe infusion of Catholicismunder the influence of Hunyadi andhis son Matthias Corvinus. Thus,the well documented punishmentsmeted out by Dracula were essentiallyanti-Catholic and anti-Boyar– vengeance in response to the collusionof Wallachian aristocrats againsthis father and himself. By extensionhe was also anti-Saxon. To complicatematters, a feud in Hungary ensured abitter division between the Hunyadisand the Habsburg King, LadislasPosthumous supported by the HolyRoman Emperor, Frederick III – anally of the Transylvanian Saxons. Ina further twist, Dracula seized theWallachian throne through an alliancewith Hunyadi and the Ottomansin 1456. He must have taken de<strong>light</strong> inhacking Vladislav to death in hand-tohandcombat.Dracula’s second reign as Voivodmay best described as a reign of terror.Primary and oral accounts of eventsenacted against Boyars, Catholics,Saxons, Turks, and others, are sonumerous that it is necessary to treatthem selectively. The principal sourcesinclude the Russian manuscript, MS11/1088 (The Tale of Warlord Dracula)in the Saltykov-Schredin PublicLibrary, St Petersburg; German stories,MS 806 at the Monastery of St Gall,Switzerland (both late 15 th century);and the poem of Michele Beheim,Story of a Bloodthirsty Madman CalledDracula of Wallachia (1463). This, andother material, was circulated in pamphletsin the late 15 th century, especiallyin Germanic Europe, illustratedwith gory woodcuts (Fig 6). A seriesof Romanian folk tales handed down76‘...he hadimpaled onthe hill by thechapel andall aroundthe hill, andunder themhe proceededto eat at thetable and gethis joy thatway’by word of mouth have been diligentlyrecorded and translated by McNallyand Florescu. There is a broad areaof agreement between all sources buta difference in the political perspectivesof each: folk hero in Romanianaccounts, strong leader in Russian narratives,anti-Saxon in German stories.The concordance of violence that bindsthem together is sobering.Impalement was mentioned in the 5 thcentury BC by Herodotus in his chronicleof the reign of Achaemenid kingDarius: Herodotus: ‘Thus Babylon wastaken a second time, and when Dariuswas master of the Babylonians… heimpaled about three thousand menthat were prominent among them…’(The Histories, 3.159.1). Impalementis depicted on the great Assyrianreliefs in the British Museum (Fig 8).Crucifixion aside, death by impalementis perhaps the cruelest of alldeaths, as L. Worley (1995) describes:‘the thrusting of a long stake or shaftthrough the anus… through theintestines to the diaphragm muscle.The naked victim was then hoistedupward and the pole fixed in theground. Subsequent writhing eventuallyforced the stake upward to piercethe heart, causing death… Even afterdeath, the impaling process continued,with gravity often causing the staketo exit through the mouth.’ A woodcutdepicts variants of this techniqueand illustrated a pamphlet publishedby Matthias Hupnuff in Strasbourg(1500). This describes the impalementof Saxons in Brasov, Transylvania: ‘Andhe led away all those whom he had capturedoutside the city called Kranstattnear the Chapel of St Jacob… all thosewhom he had taken captive, men andwomen, young and old, children, hehad impaled on the hill by the chapeland all around the hill, and under themhe proceeded to eat at the table and gethis joy that way’ (Fig 6).In 1459 the Ottoman threatprompted Pope Pius II to request acrusade at the Congress of Mantua.Dracula proved his zealousness bytaking the fight to the Turks with noregional support. First, he withheldtribute payments to the Sultan. Inresponse, his chief falconer Hamsa Beyand the Byzantine renegade ThomasCatavolinos embarked on a mission tocapture Dracula in the winter of 1461.The Voivod was calculatingly lured toa fortress in Giurgiu on the RomanianDanube but sprang a surprise attack,routing the Turkish contingent. HamsaBey and Catavolinos were taken backto Targoviste and impaled, togetherwith many others. Dracula thenattacked Ottoman territory along the46Minerva January/February 2011

Medieval historyDanube and in northern Bulgaria.In a letter addressed to Corvinus hedescribed the number of those killed asbeing ‘23,884 Turks and Bulgarians…’In the same letter Dracula added,‘Your Majesty [Mehmed] should knowthat we have broken our peace with[the Turks]…’ Mehmed responded byinvading Wallachia in the spring of1462 with a massive force. One of severalskirmishes was the famous NightAttack on the Sultan’s camp on 17June – essentially a failed assassinationattempt but an engagement that stillinflicted as many as 15,000 casualties.This did not prevent the Sultan advancingfurther, but something more ominousdid. Chalkondyles recounts that:‘The [sultan’s] army came across afield with stakes, about three mileslong and one mile wide. And therewere large stakes on which they couldsee the impaled bodies of men, womenand children, about twenty thousandof them… The [sultan] himself in wonder,kept saying that he could not conquerthe country of a man who coulddo such terrible and unnatural thingsand put his power and his subjects tosuch use…’ (Book IX).Mehmed apparently marched homebut appointed Radu to take up the fighton his behalf, and proclaimed himBey of Wallachia. Besieged in PoenariCastle – the real Castle Dracula –Vlad managed to escape. To pacify theTurks, Corvinus arrested Dracula inWallachia and imprisoned him first inAlba Iulia in Transylvania, and thereafterat the castle of Visegrad near Budain Hungary, where he was held until1475. A pragmatic alliance betweenCorvinus and Voivod Stephen ofMoldavia favoured the reinstallation ofDracula to the Wallachian throne.His third reign began in October1476 but lasted just two months. Ina Turkish alliance with WallachianBasarab Laiota, the forces of Draculawere on the defence once more. In aletter of 1477, the Duke of Milan wroteto his ambassador to Buda, LeonardoBotta: ‘the Turks entered Wallachiaand again conquered the country andcut to pieces Dracula, the captain of theking of Hungary, with approximately4000 of his men.’ C. Rezachevici (2001)has reasoned that this took place southof Bucharest. Dracula was decapitatedand his head sent to the Sultan inConstantinople where, in a cruel twist,it was impaled on a stake. Kaziklu Bey– the Impaler Prince – was dead.Thus expired Dracula in the annalsof history, but different stages of his lifemay be plotted archaeologically. Thehouse of his birth is preserved on threelevels in Sighisoara, Transylvania. AFig 6. The Feast ofthe Impaler, woodcutby Matthias Hupnuffof Strasbourg froma German pamphlet,1500. © Mary EvansPicture Library.Fig 7. The lake islandmonastery at Snagov,north of Bucharest,where Dracula is saidto have been laid torest.Fig 8. Stone panelfrom the CentralPalace of King Tiglath-Pileser III depicting anattack on an enemytown and the impalingof three captives.Nimrud (ancientKalhu), northernIraq,Neo-Assyrian, c.730-727 BC. H. 1.09m;W. 2.11m.8plaque on the wall commemoratesthat his father Vlad Dracul lived therein 1431. Dracula selected the strategiclocation of Poenari for the constructionof an impregnable castle on theslopes of the Arges near the frontierwith Transylvania. According to anunnamed Wallachian chronicle:‘So when Easter came, while all thecitizens were feasting and the youngones were dancing, he surrounded andcaptured them. All those who wereold he impaled, and strung them allaround the city; as for the young onestogether with their wives and children,he had them taken just as theywere, dressed up for Easter, to Poenari,where they were put to work until theirclothes were all torn and they wereleft naked.’ The castle may be reachedby a bridge above a sheer precipice.It was moulded to its lofty heights inbrick and stone in the form of a polygon33m (E–W) by 36m (N–S). Theremains of five towers are visible: thecentral tower was prism-shaped, theothers cylindrical.It was in the palace at Targoviste,constructed in the early 15 th centuryby Dracula’s grandfather Mircea, thatDracula committed many of his mostnotorious atrocities. The Boyars whobuilt Poenari were summoned hereand innumerable people were impaledin the courtyard. In the throne roomon the ground floor, ambassadors tothe Sultan reportedly had their hatsnailed to their heads (MS 806.32; MS11/1088; Romanian Oral 2).According to Romanian traditionDracula’s decapitated body wasremoved from the battlefield and hewas interred in the lake island monasteryat Snagov north of Bucharest (Fig7). This has been refuted by Rezachevicion the basis that the mid-17 th centuryCantacuzino Chronicle did not statethat Dracula built Snagov as commonlythought. However, this does nottake into account that documents ofVoivod Mircea cel Bătrân (1355–1418)record that Dracula and his fatherwere patrons of the first monasterychurch. Rezachevici also contends thatthe second church was constructed inthe 16 th century but does not presentany archaeological evidence to datethe grave under the floor of the navenear the west door – the alleged restingplace of Dracula. At near foundationlevel this could logically predatethe second church.This grave was excavated byRomanian archaeologists G. Florescuand D. Rosetti in 1933. They discovereda rotten coffin with bones, fragments ofa purple veil, pieces of a yellow-brownvelvet coat, silver buttons, buttons ofgold thread, and a gold thread withthree faience buttons of garnet andgold. These finds were romanticisedfor the 500 th anniversary of Dracula’sdeath, but they are of sufficient statusto indicate the late medieval burial of aprince. The remains and artefacts weredeposited in the History Museum ofBucharest and later disappeared, so theskeletal remains cannot now be analysed,nor can Dracula be ‘resurrected’.Or can he?It is highly probable that a proportionof bone residue remains in theSnagov grave, so a re-excavation couldallow some DNA to be extracted, anestablished technique in EvolutionaryAnthropology. The analysis of theinfamous Count’s DNA could be seenas the latest in a series of ‘resurrections’,from Stoker’s fictional account,through depictions on stage andscreen, that developed the conceptsof bloodthirstiness, evil, and resurrection;research carried out by scholars ofmedieval history; and his establishmentas a folk hero in Romanian culture,not least by Nicolae Ceausescu, whoseregime had similar trappings of evil. It isironic that before his execution in 1989he boasted ‘that a man like me comesalong once every 500 years.’ nMinerva January/February 201147

InterviewPoliticsand the pastMinerva meets Ed Vaizey, Conservative MP for Wantageand Didcot and Minister in the Coalition Governmentwith responsibilities for communication, culture and thecreative industriesFollowing the publication of theComprehensive Spending Review on21 October, the corridors of powerechoed with the sound of axes fallingon budgets. About 330,000 public sectorjobs are likely to be lost; in order to eliminatethe structural deficit by 2015, departments willexperience an average of 19 percent cuts overthe next four years; £7 billion needs to be foundin welfare budget cuts; even police funding hasbeen hit by a 4 percent annual cut. So it is inevitablethat Britain’s heritage and museum sector,under the charge of culture minister Ed Vaizey(Fig 1), will have to endure a share of the pain.‘It was quite a tough settlement, but wewanted to protect what we call the front line,and to represent organisations that deliver artto audiences, whether they’re national museumsor what are known as the regularly fundedorganisations of the arts council,’ explains theMinister, who shadowed the Department forCulture, Media and Sport for the Conservativesfor four years before May’s General Election (Fig2). ‘We managed to achieve just a 15 percentreduction for them, which we were de<strong>light</strong>ed48Fig 1. Ed Vaizey MPby. That meant that overall the Arts Council settlementwas s<strong>light</strong>ly tougher, although offset bythe increase in the lottery funding, which we’reputting through at the moment. Obviously ournational museums are very much part of thefabric of the cultural life of the nation. We wantto keep free entry to museums, and I personallythink our national museums do a very good jobon very small resources’ (Fig 4).Funding cuts do, however, mean that some20 museums across the country, includingManchester’s Museum of Science and Industry,Wakefield’s National Coal Mining Museum, thePeople’s History Museum in Manchester, andthe London’s Geffrye, Horniman and DesignMuseums, will need to secure alternative sponsorsfor much of their funding after 2014.Institutions like these will clearly be forced tocut costs, and to be innovative, if they are tosurvive.‘I think there will be constant debate abouthow much of their back-office costs museumscan share, how much of their collections theycan display, how easy it is to get collections outFig 2. The Palace of Westminster, London.Photo: Sophie Mackenzie.to other organisations and get more on show,what to do about deaccessioning – should theybe freer to sell more of their collections; shouldwe be less precious about deaccessioning andsee collections as living things, refreshed withnew acquisitions and disposals? Those debateswill continue for the next couple of years,’says the Minister. ‘Overall I’d like to see muchgreater focus on innovation and technology. Iwould like to see many more arts organisationsembracing the opportunity to engage with audiencesthrough technology – through Facebookand Twitter; theatres and opera houses using 3Dtechnology, simulcasting their plays and operasusing video to provide backdrops and scenery.I hope there will be an explosion of technologyin terms of how shows are put on and how audiencesare engaged with.’Funding gaps and budget cuts will also seeBritain’s cultural institutions turning to the privatesector, and to philanthropic individuals, forsupport. This is to be encouraged and rewardedby government, says the Minister. ‘Over thepast few years, museums have become muchmore open to philanthropy, much more willingto reward benefactors by naming galleriesand rooms after them. I think governmentshould be seen, from the very top downwards,to show gratitude to people who are preparedto support the cultural life of this country. Eventhrowing a party for philanthropists – it mightsound s<strong>light</strong>ly trite, but people who give shouldbe recognised. We also need to look at how wemake the tax system easier for people to give,both in terms of being able to say thank you,which is where the tax system becomes quitecomplex, and also whether we can look at anyreforms in tax that would encourage people togive more.’Government could also play a role, theMinister believes, in ensuring that Britain isable to retain its cultural treasures. At the timeof our interview, it was unclear whether thepurchaser of the Crosby Garrett Helmet (Fig6), see Minerva, November/December 2010,Minerva January/February 2011

Fig 3. The market place in Leptis Magna, Libya.Most of the architecture that can now be seenat the site was constructed during the reign ofSeptimius Severus (AD 193–211) who was bornin the city. Photo: Motohiro Sunouchi.Fig 4. The Great Court at the British Museum.Photo: courtesy of the British Museum.Fig 6. Bronze parade ground cavalry helmetfound at Crosby Garrett, Cumbria, England,c. late 1st-2nd century AD. H. 40.7cm. Photo:pp. 52–53) intended to take the artefact out ofthe country, but government might interveneshould that be their intention. ‘I would seekindependent advice on whether to impose anexport ban, and I would follow that advice. It’simportant to make clear that when export bansare put in place it’s on the basis of independentadvice, not on the whim of a minister. I’d followthe advice I was given on whether it wasappropriate to put a stay on its export andsee whether money would be raised tokeep it in the country. It’s a fantasticallyromantic story. I was upin Cumbria a couple of monthsago, and it’s clearly capturedthe imagination of that partof the UK. There were hopesthat it could become the centrepieceof the local museum,but because of the spectacularnature of the find and the interestit generated, they couldn’tcompete in the end. I think one’sgot to be realistic about this. Thehelmet was sold legitimately, and onecan’t stop private buyers buying privateproperty. I wouldn’t like to see thesector become over-regulated and nothingever be able to leave the country, andprivate purchasers be unable to collect.’Ed Vaizey’s mother is the well known arthistorian, writer and curator Marina Vaizey,formerly art critic for The Sunday Times andthe Financial Times.Although she inheriteda piece of Roman glassand a small statue,which remain in thefamily, the Ministerhas no ambitionsto start his own collectionof antiquities.‘I almost bought aplastic Sutton Hoohelmet for my fouryear-oldbut I don’t havethe budget for antiquities and Ididn’t attempt to pilfer anything fromthe Staffordshire Hoard!’ he says. ‘In termsof the trade in antiquities, what concerns me isthe role of some of the major websites in policingthese kind of trades. Ebay is trying to putin place more sophisticated measures to stopFig 5. Collection of just a few of the gold piecesthat comprise the Staffordshire Hoard. Despitethe coating of dirt that still clings to theartefacts, the precious goldwork and quality ofthe craftsmanship can clearly be seen.Photo: courtesy of Birmingham Museum andArt Gallery.people trading antiquities online, and I think it’simportant, returning to the theme of technology,to realise the impact technology will haveon the antiquities trade, and for government tokeep pace with those developments and workwith websites to ensure that proper checks andbalances are put in place. I’m not talking aboutheavy-handed regulation; I’m talking about selfregulatorysystems that ensure proper accountis taken of the illicit trade in antiquities.’The Minister believes that cultural treasurescan help to transcend geographical and politicalbarriers between countries, and supportsMinerva January/February 2011 49

InterviewFig 7. The Basilica of Pompeii, buried duringthe eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.exchanges like the British Museum’s loan of theCyrus Cylinder to Iran (see pp. 8–10). ‘I haveevery confidence in Neil MacGregor, and I thinkhe takes the view, with which I agree, that thesharing of cultural objects between nations is avery important part of the relationship betweenthem. The fact that the BM was prepared tolend it was a very good thing, and shows thatthe BM’s collection is effectively the world’scollection. It’s unique, apart from perhaps theMet, in having a collection that spans every cornerof the globe and almost every age of man.Given the stewardship of this incredible collection,it’s incumbent upon the Museum to shareobjects from that collection where and when itcan, and in return we benefit from unique exhibitionslike the Terracotta Warriors. That was arecognition that the BM sits at the centre of thisextraordinary ecosystem, whereby people shareobjects of immense cultural importance.‘Political arguments take place at the politicallevel. We should treasure the fact that nationscan continue to speak to each other through themedium of cultural exchange. The idea of puttingpolitical pressure on the British Museum tofollow a political agenda would be anathema tome (Fig 4). We make it very clear to other governments,such as in the case of the ParthenonMarbles, that this is a matter for the trustees ofthe British Museum, and that they are independent.As such, even if a future government didever want to return them, it couldn’t.’At the time of our interview, the increase inuniversity tuition fees was making waves inWestminster and across the country. Does theMinister believe that lack of funding for furthereducation will lead to a shortage of young talententering the fields of history and archaeology?‘One of our education ministers, Tim Laughton,has a degree in archaeology, and he would takeexception to the idea that it doesn’t give you agrounding! A lot of employers appreciate anyonewith a degree, who’s learned how to thinkand marshal arguments. That’s what an arts andhumanities degree gives you. I think universitiesFig 8. Gold collar from a seax (a long singleedged knife). The stylised animal decorationcan clearly be seen. L. 7.3cm. Photo: courtesyof Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.50Political arguments take place at the political level. Weshould treasure the fact that nations can continue to speakto each other through the medium of cultural exchange.have to adapt very quickly, and provide a betterservice for their customers, their students.They have to provide alternative courses – is athree-year course necessary for an archaeologydegree? Could more distance learning beoffered? In any event, the government is puttingin place a lot of measures to protect peopleon lower incomes, and I know archaeology isn’tnecessarily a lucrative degree, so the quid proquo of that is that you’re less likely to have torepay your student loan! People who want to goon to do PhDs require passion and dedication,and there may be funding sources such as charitablefoundations that would encourage peopleto carry on studying those subjects,’ he says.Leading figures in the Conservative Party,including Mayor of London Boris Johnson,feel passionately that Britain’s education systemwould benefit from a fresh focus on theClassics. It is a view the Minister supports.‘Boris is fighting a one-man campaign to ensurethe Classics are takes seriously – he wants to seeLatin taught in primary schools. I think personallythat would be a wonderful thing. Latin isthe foundation of our language, and I also thinkit’s a fantastic discipline in teaching one how tothink and construct arguments, and it’s at theroot of so much of what we take for granted inour civilisation today. My children are about togo to primary school, and I’d love to walk intoa primary school where they said, “By the way,we also teach Latin.” I hope there will be a resurgenceof the Classics.’The Minister himself was educated at St Paul’sSchool and Merton College, Oxford, where herose to the rank of Librarian of the OxfordUnion and took a BA in history. His interest inthe subject has taken him to sites around theworld, including Pompeii, which he had longedto visit for years (Fig 3). ‘It’s a wonderful place– you expect it to be disappointing, rather tootouristy, but I thought it was superb. I love thesense you get of the rush of the cartwheel in thestreet and that kind of atmosphere – althoughI gather it’s started to fall down. Leptis Magnawas a great privilege to visit (Fig 7), and I’vebeen to some of the sites in Syria as well. I’vevisited some very special places.’The Minister’s knowledge of archaeology isnot extensive, he says, but his enthusiasm forthe subject is clear. ‘I love it for the connection itgives one with the past, the ability to see objectsthat have been hidden for hundreds or thousandsof years, and to be among the first peopleto see them after such a long time. It givesa very strange feeling of direct connection withthe past. The Staffordshire Hoard is probablythe best-known recent world-class archaeologicaldiscovery, and one feels its ability to touchthe Anglo-Saxon past – one can almost hearthe battle-poems being recited at your shoulderas you hold the objects and wonder howthey came to be hoarded in this way (Figs 5, 8).I also remember seeing a Roman leather shoebrought out of the water in a city archaeologicaldig and being transported back to that moment;picking up musket balls in Wallingford fromthe Civil War when there was an archaeologicaldig at West Hanney in my constituency; seeinga Saxon burial site, and wondering aboutthe female skeleton that the archaeologists wereexcavating; who she was and how she got there– it’s extraordinarily romantic.’However, the Minister’s relationship withthe Anglo-Saxon world is a troubled one. ‘Theycost me my first-class degree,’ he explains. ‘Mygeneral history paper was on Sutton Hoo andwhat it can teach us about history, so I rolledthree questions into one, and got a Gamma –so in spite of getting first-class marks in all myother papers I ended up with a 2:1, thanks to theAnglo-Saxons!’ nMinerva January/February 2011

Bonhams3641257Fig 1. Wood and bronze goose from Egypt,c. 664–32 BC). Sold for £86,400. H. 28cm. Lot 49.Fig 2. Attic black-figure olpe depictingDionysus and Ariadne, c. 500 BC. Sold for £4800.H. 22.6cm. Lot 92.Fig 3. Marble head of Homer, c. 1 st –2 nd centuryAD. Sold for £31,200. H. 47cm. Lot 129.Autumn sales reportThe Bonhams autumn antiquities sale, held in London on 6 October, saw 267 of the 436lots sold, realising a total of £1,233,276 inclusive of buyer’s premium. Dr James BeresfordFrom the estate of Jay Ward came anEgyptian goose with a body of cedarwood, while the feet, neck and headwere of cast bronze (Fig 1). Dating tothe Late Period (c. 664–32 BC), the de<strong>light</strong>fulfigure, which stands 23cm in height, has a sinuousneck and ovid-shaped eyes with an incisedoutline. Its scale-like skin and webbed feet arefinely detailed down to the small pointed claws.Folded wings and upturned tail are carved onto the wooden body. Provided with an estimateof £30,000–50,000, the goose sold for £86,400.Pottery at the Bonhams auction tended tosell on or around the estimate. Reflective ofthe sale was an Attic black-figure olpe datingto c. 500 BC (Fig 2). A bearded Dionysusis depicted standing to the left while offering acup to Ariadne, who stands to the right, while adog is at their feet. The scene reflects the mythmost famously recounted in Hesiod’s Theogony,of the return of Thesus to Athens after slayingthe Minotaur. While Ariadne slept on Naxos,the hero abandoned his lover, and it was onthe island that Dionysus found the daughter ofKing Minos and married her. The vase sold for£4800 after being provided with an estimate of£4000–6000. The most striking pottery artefactat the auction was Lot 93, a splendid Attic blackfigureneck amphora dating to c. 510–500 BC,featuring Apollo playing the kithara with a goddessclad in a long chiton to the right. It carriedan estimate of £200–300,000 but did not sell.As so often tends to be the case, sculpturedepicting historical figures sold well. Whilethere are no true likenesses of Homer, a marblehead from the early Roman Empire presentsan idealised portrait of the great poet thatwas relatively common during antiquity (Fig 3),showing him with eyebrows locked in a sternfrown, and with hair thinning on top, thoughwith long curls from the sides of his head fallingover his ears and, together with a full beard,framing his face. Bought for £31,200, the headmade more than twice its top estimate of £10–15,000. However, following on from the Homersculpture, the next Lot (130), a marble from the1 st century BC thought to be a depiction of thegreat Roman poet Virgil, and provided with anestimate of £60–80,000, failed to sell.Another sculpture of a historical figure thatsold well was a small marble head of Alexanderthe Great (Fig 5). Dating to the Hellenisticperiod, it portrayed the Macedonian king lookings<strong>light</strong>ly upwards, head tilted to the left, withthick wavy hair. Selling for £10,200, it considerablyexceeded its estimate of £3000–4000. Abust of the emperor Tiberius (r. AD 14–37),thought to have been carved between AD10–30, was one of the most impressive artefactsat the Bonhams auction (Fig 6). The finelycarved bust portrays the stepson of Augustus,and his successor to the purple, with his headturned to the left. Though with damage to the54 Minerva January/February 2011

1011 1289nose and ear, this fine portrait carried an estimateof £250-350,000 and sold for £300,000.Following strong sales of ancient weaponryat the Hermann Historica militaria auction inMunich on 12 April (see Minerva September/October 2010, pp. 52–53), military artefactsalso sold well in London. A Roman gladius ofthe Pompeii-type, probably dating to the late 1 stcentury AD, sold for more than three times itsestimate (Fig 4). With a flat, double-edged ironblade, with a bone hilt consisting of a domedpommel, an oval-shaped guard decorated withfour symmetrical grooves, and a spiral-ribbedgrip, the sword carried an estimate of £3000–4000, but fetched £12,600. A Phoenician ceremonialsilver and gold axe-head, decorated witha design of a snake or wave-line (Fig 7), datingto c. 1700 BC, had an estimate of £4000–6000and sold for £5040.From the extensive collection of ancient militariaacquired by the late Axel Guttmann camea Roman marble grave stele depicting a gladiator,probably dating to the 2 nd century AD (Fig9). The Murmillo gladiator, wearing a distinctivegalea crested helmet and a protective greaveon the left leg, is depicted with a knife or daggerin his right hand and a large oblong shieldMinerva January/February 2011Fig 4. Iron bladed gladius with a bone hilt, c.late 1 st century AD. L. 68.5cm. Sold for £12,600.Lot 142.Fig 5. Marble head of Alexander the Great,3 rd –2 nd century BC. Sold for £10,200. H. 14cm.Lot 117.Fig 6. Marble bust of Tiberius, c. AD 10–30, H.54.5cm. Sold for £300,000. Lot 160.Fig 7. Gold and silver Phoenician axe, c. 1700BC, H. 14cm. Sold for £5040. Lot 181.Fig 8. Marble Roman funerary stele, c. 2 ndcentury AD. H. 69.8cm. Sold for £9000. Lot 154.(scutu) in his left. It had an estimated price of£20,000–30,000, and sold for £24,000. AnotherRoman funerary stele from the same periodalso appears to have a military theme: the lowerof the two registers depicts a mounted figure,his cloak billowing behind him, while a soldierarmed with two spears and a shield stands to theleft (Fig 8). While this lower register may indicatethat the stele commemorated a soldier, theupper section contains a domestic scene with aman reclining on a couch, holding a cup in hisleft hand and a wreath in his right. To the leftsits his veiled wife holding a baby, while a tablepiled with food stands before them. Runningacross the top of the stele is a Greek inscriptionwith the poignant line ‘farewell daddy Chareas’.With an estimate of £8000–10,000, the stele soldfor £9000.Two European funerary urns, sold togetherwith four other related Bronze Age artefacts,including an impasto-ware dipper, a terracottaspindle whorl, and two bronze fibulae, high<strong>light</strong>edthe importance that is now attached tosecure provenance (Fig 10). The collection wasaccompanied by a photograph of the amateurGerman archaeologist Hermann Rogatz andhis daughters, in the trench from which theFig 9. Marble grave stele of a Murmillogladiator, c. 2 nd century AD. H. 53.4cm, W. 33cm.Sold for £24,000. Lot 158.Fig 10. Collection of Bronze Age artefactsexcavated from Niederlausitz, Germany,c. 7 th century BC. Large impasto-ware urn toleft, H. 15cm, Diam. 25cm. Smaller impaso wareurn to right, H. 14cm, Diam. 24cm. Collectionsold for £3360. Lot 191.Fig 11. Bronze harness mount, c. 1 st century BC/AD, Diam. 11cm. Sold for £1440. Lot 198.Fig 12. Carnelian Sasanian intaglio, c. 5 th –7 thcentury AD, L. 2cm. Sold for £1020. Lot 233.artefacts were excavated in 1907 where Rogatzwas digging in the Niederlausitz area, to thesouth-west of Berlin. The Bronze Age artefactswere part of a large collection donated toa museum in Bremen that was largely destroyedby allied bombing during World War II. Thesmall collection sold for £3360, just above theestimate of £2000–3000. Also from northernEurope came a Celtic openwork harness mountin bronze, probably dating to the 1 st centuryBC/AD (Fig 11). The graceful curves of themount has curled tendrils of the ‘trumpet’design, and provide an impression of a bird’shead with an eye and a curled beak. With anestimate of £800–1200, the harness mount soldfor £1440.Many of the intaglios and cameos in theBonhams sale either did not sell, or went for theestimated price. One of the few that achievedrather more than expected was a Sasanian carnelianintaglio, c. 5 th –7 th century AD (Fig 12).Profiles of two male busts are engraved on thesemi-precious stone, a clean shaven youth to theleft and an older bearded man facing him fromthe right. An inscription runs around the ovalborder. With an estimate of £400-600, the intagliosold for £1020.55

Christie’s13151716 1814At the Christie’s antiquities sale, which took place on 7 October, 366 lots were offeredand 302 were sold, for a total of £3,030,750One of the earliest artefacts in the Christie’sauction was a stone Mesopotamian ‘spectacleidol’, dating to c. 3000 BC (Fig 13). Spectacleidols appear to share a common symbolismwith the more common ‘eye idols’, and both areprobably intended to represent deities duringa period when divinities were not usually representedin human guise. The ‘eyes’ of the idolprotrude from the top of the long conical neck,which sits on a rectangular base with roundededges. Idols such as this are generally found intemple sites or sanctuaries and are believed tohave played a role in cultic or religious practice.With an estimate of £150,000–250,000, the idolsold for £169,250.From the 22 nd dynasty, during the ThirdIntermediate Period of Egyptian history (c. 945-715 BC), came a silver sistrum in the form of thejaniform head of Hathor (Fig 17). The rattle wascommonly used in rituals related to the goddessand was usually shaken by priests and priestessesduring temple rituals, to pacify the violentnature of Hathor. In this example, the deity isdepicted with finely contoured eyebrows andcosmetic lines, while her cow ears can be clearlyseen against the background of her wig. The sistrumsold for £73,250, well above its estimate of£30,000-50,000.One of the most interesting artefacts at theChristie’s auction was a recumbent lion carvedfrom wood, possibly from the lid of a box (Fig14). Dating to the Persian period of Egyptianhistory (27 th dynasty, c. 525–404 BC), the lion’shead is turned to the right, with a short striatedmane framing the lower part of the face.The Persian artistic influence is clearly visible inthe open snarling mouth, rather than the moretypical closed mouth of Egyptian lions. As withthe Bronze Age burial urns in the Bonhamsauction the day before (Fig 10), the lion hada wonderfully documented provenance consistingof ink-inscribed labels from the collectionof Henry Oppenheimer, which was Lot23 in the Christie’s London sale of 22–23 July1936 (where it was acquired by Hindamian for£42.10s), and the E.L. Paget collection, sold atSotheby’s London as Lot 295, on 17–18 October1949. Handwritten notes relating to the M.T.Schiff collection sale held in the Hotel Drouoton 16-17 March 1905, when the lion was enteredas Lot 11, further add to the impressive provenanceof the wooden artefact, and togetherwith the wonderful carving itself, explain how itrealised a price of £46,850, far outstripping theestimate of £12,000-18,000.Glassware generally sold well above estimatein the Bonhams sale, but this was not generallythe case at Christie’s. There was, however, abeautiful exception in the form of a core-formedamphoriskos from the Eastern Mediterraneanof the 6 th –5 th century BC (Fig 16). The opaquewhite body of the vessel features auberginemarvered threads in a zigzag pattern. With anestimate of £2,500–3,500, the amphoriskos soldfor £7,500.Another amphoriskos, dating to the 3 rd –2 ndcentury BC, fashioned from rock crystal andwith a gold suspension loop and wire terminals,achieved a far higher price (Fig 15). The vessel,with its elongated thin-walled body and twinscrolling handles joining the shoulder to theneck, easily surpassed its estimate of £30,000-50,000 to sell for £82,850.Seals generally sold well at Christie’s, andconsiderably better than at Bonhams a day earlier.A white stone Elamite cylinder seal datingto c. 3000–2800 (Lot 70) decorated with runningibex, estimated at £2000–2500, realised£8125, while a green stone Elamite cylinder sealfrom c. 3000 BC (Lot 72), featuring a bull anda flowering tree, estimated at £6000–8000, soldfor £11,250.Later seals and stamps also sold well atChristie’s; a dark green stone Achaemenid cylinderseal of the 5 th –4 th century BC (Lot 82), decoratedwith two felines with a Persian king oneither side, estimated at £5000–8000, realised£12,500, while a blue chalcedony conoid stampseal from Syria, dating to c. 700–500 BC (Lot84), carved with a worshipper standing in frontof the spade of the god Marduk and the stylusof Nabu, and estimated at £3000–3500 sold for£6875. However, the highest price generated56 Minerva January/February 2011

1921 22 2320Fig 13. Stone spectacle idol from Mesopotamia,c. 3000 BC. H. 26 cm. Sold for £169,250. Lot 69.Fig 14. Wooden recumbent lion, 27 th dynasty (c.525–404 BC), L. 12.4cm. Sold for £46,850. Lot 22.Fig 15. Rock crystal and gold amphoriskos,c. 3 rd –2 nd century BC. H. 8.2cm. Sold for £82,85.Lot 135.Fig 16. Glass amphoriskos from the EasternMediterranean, c. 6 th –5 th century BC. H. 10.5cm.Sold for £7,500. Lot 40.Fig 17. Silver Egyptian sistrum, c. 945–715 BC,H. 23.5 cm. Sold for £73,250. Lot 15.was that of a Kassite seal carved into an agateof red, green and grey, c. 14 th –13 th century BC(Fig 18). A seated deity is depicted holding arod and wearing a horned headdress and longfringed robe, while a man stands worshippingbefore him. The seal includes a sevenlineroyal inscription in Sumerian cuneiform:‘Enlil, mighty lord, who determines the decreesabout heaven and earth, Kadashman-Enlil, thenoble you created, be his pleasant trust, mayyou return to its proper place the spirit of thethrone’. Provided with an estimate of £30,000–50,000, the seal realised £37,250.As was the case in the Bonhams auction,portraits of famous historical figures sold wellat Christie’s, the most prominent being a marblehead believed to be that of Mark Antony,carved in the 1 st century BC/AD (Fig 19). Thesculpture is depicted with an Attic-type helmetcarved with crest and ear volutes that covers hishair, making it difficult to positively identify thefigure. Nevertheless, the head has the wide faceand heavy features often associated with the politicianand general of the Late Roman Republicon coins. The portrait sold for £145,250, closeto the top of its estimate of £100,000-150,000.The highest price realised for a sculpture in theauction was for a bust of a young male athlete.Although carved in the early 1 st century AD, theRoman marble bust was very much modelled onthe sculpting traditions of Classical Greece (FigMinerva January/February 2011Fig 18. Agate cylinder seal, Kassite period,Babylonia c. 14 th -13 th century BC. H. 4.2cm.Sold for £37,250. Lot 74.Fig 19. Marble portrait, possibly of MarkAntony, c. 1 st century BC/AD, H. 27.3cm.Sold for £145,250. Lot 149.Fig 20. Iron sword with gold hilt and scabbard,c. 6 th –7 th century AD. L. 109.3cm. Sold for£157,250. Lot 89.Fig 21. Marble bust of an athlete, c. 1 st centuryAD, H. 35.6 cm. Sold for £277,250. Lot 150.Fig 22. Bronze Etruscan warrior, c. 450–400 BC.21). The young man has s<strong>light</strong>ly parted lips, anaquiline nose, and lidded almond-shaped eyes.With an estimate of £250,000-350,000, the bustsold for £277,250.Achieving a strong sale was a statuette ofan Etruscan warrior (Fig 22). Dating to thelater half of the 5 th century BC, the bronze figurealso wears a cuirass decorated with spirallingcircles and tongues. With an estimate of£10,000–15,000, the warrior achieved £23,750.An outstanding military artefact was an exceptionallyrare, high-status Sasanian sword of the6 th –7 th century AD (Fig 20). With a doubleedgediron blade, the sword also featured gripmounts and a scabbard constructed from gold.The weapon is fitted with curving asymmetricalgrips that would be most appropriate for asingle- rather than a double-edged blade. Onlymilitary leaders of high rank would have beenpermitted to own such a weapon and wouldprobably have required permission from theking to wear the sword. It sold for £157,250, justabove the estimate of £100,000-150,000.Pottery at the Christie’s auction generallysold on or around the estimate. One of the moreinteresting lots on offer was an Attic red-figuredalabastron c. 520–500 BC, featuring a negotiatingscene between a hetaira (courtesan) andher customer, a youth depicted leaning on astaff and offering her a flower (Fig 23). The titillatingnature of the scene probably means the24H. 13.4cm. Sold for £23,750. Lot 101.Fig 23. Red-figured Attic alabastron, c. 520–500BC. H. 16 cm. Sold for £15,000. Lot 120.Fig 24. Apulian Red-figured fish plate, c. late4 th century BC. Diam. 20.3cm. Sold for £15,000.Lot 140.alabastron was used at symposia, and possiblyalso explains modern interest that led to the alabastronachieving £15,000, well above the estimateof £6000–8000.Also attaining a price well above in advanceof its estimate was an Apulian red-figured fishplate, c. late 4 th century BC (Fig 24), decoratedwith a dogfish, flatfish, bream, two clams anda shrimp, around a central recess intended forgarum (fish sauce). Despite realising £15,000from an estimate of £8000–10,000, the platedid not come close to matching the £75,650(from an estimate of £4,500–5,000) paid for aSouth Italian fish plate in Christie’s spring antiquitiessale (see Minerva, September/October2010, p. 49).Finally, the high<strong>light</strong> of the Christie’s auctionwas, of course, the remarkable Crosby GarrettHelmet (see Minerva November/December,2010 pp. 52–53 for details). With an estimateof £200,000–300,000, the parade ground helmetsold for a staggering £2,281,250, thoughthe identity of the buyer remains undisclosed.While it is currently unknown if the helmet willbe placed on public display, when interviewedby Minerva, the British government’s Ministerof Culture, Ed Vaizey, confirmed that he wouldseek independent advice about whether toimpose an export ban should the buyer seek toremove the unique artefact from the country(see Minerva, this issue, p.49). n57

ookreviewsThe Romans on the Bay of Naples:An archaeological guideLawrence KeppieThe History Press, 2009192pp, 81 diagrams and b&w illus, 24 colourplatesPaperback, £17.99The Roman cities and villas that cluster aroundthe Bay of Naples are among the most famousand frequently visited archaeological sites in theworld. Ongoing excavations in the region alsocontinue to turn up new and fascinating discoveriesthat help us to better understand patternsof Roman settlement and agriculture, aswell as the architectural and artistic splendourof the inhabitants of the area. This new book byLawrence Keppie, former Professor of RomanHistory and Archaeology at the University ofGlasgow, offers an up-to-date description ofmany of all the most important archaeologicalremains in the area, and provides a guide forvisiting them. The motivation for this new volumeis stated in the introduction: ‘The presentguidebook grew out of a realisation that, whilemodern tourists are familiar with Pompeii andHerculaneum, they often remain unaware ofother, much less crowded attractions’ (p. 13).The first section of the book provides a usefulhistorical and topographical background to theregion, beginning with the volcanically activegeology, and especially the mighty presence ofVesuvius, which towers over the modern landscapeas it did that of antiquity. In the considerablylonger second section of the volume, ProfKeppie provides useful itineraries for thosevisiting the internationally famous (and consequentlyvery crowded) archaeological sitessuch as Pompeii and Herculaneum. However,he also provides easy-to-follow directions forthose making excursions to see the interesting,though less visitied, remains of ancient settlementssuch as the Greek foundation of Cuma,just beyond the northern sweep of the Bay, orthe streets of Sorrento in the south, where theremains of the Roman architectural splendourare largely overlooked by tourists. Also includedis a short itinerary detailing an ascent up theslopes of Vesuvius to see the crater from whichthe noxious gases and superheated ash cloudraced down the southern slopes of the volcanoin AD 79, killing the inhabitants of Pompeii andHerculaneum that had stayed in the cities, whilepreserving the 1st century settlements under athick layer of ash, pumice and mud.As Prof Keppie admits, ‘There is no shortageof books about Pompeii and Herculaneum’.However, as he goes on to point out in theintroduction: ‘The following pages do not seekto emulate their scholarship, but rather to providean accessible handbook to understandingand appreciating these and many other sites onthe ground. No attempt is made here to describethe major archaeological sites at great length,but to advise on how to find and appreciatetheir ‘must see’ features’ (pp. 13–14). The bookcertainly fulfills these stated aims. The mapsand diagrams also provide a clear understandingof the layout and street plans of the ancienttowns, while the photographs – in both colouras well as black and white – taken by MargaretRobb, allow the visitor to gain a comprehensiveunderstanding of this fascinating region.This is a clearly written guide that is perfectfor travellers interested in exploring the richarchaeological heritage of this part of Italy.Sufficiently small and <strong>light</strong> to carry in a pack,it should prove popular with holidaymakersintending to call at only one or two of the majorarchaeological sites. The volume should also bean indispensable companion for those planninga more comprehensive exploration of theRoman material culture that can still be seen inthe landscape that follows the graceful crescentcurve of the Bay of Naples.Dr James BeresfordMcGilchrist’s Greek Islands: 1. Santorini &Therasia with AnaphiNigel McGilchristGenius Loci Publications, 2010120pp, 4 b&w illusPaperback, £9.95James Bryce once wrote that: ‘The worth ofa book is to be measured by what you cancarry away from it.’ This is certainly relevant toMcGilchrist’s Greek Islands series, since theyprovide the reader-traveller with a rich seamof information to explore every nuance of theAegean cultural and natural world. It is fairByzantium: From Antiquity to RenaissanceThomas MathewsYale University Press, 2010176pp, 108 colour plates, 14 b&w illusPaperback, £14.95Byzantine studies have often – but not exclusively– been dominated by ecclesiastical art.In fact ‘Byzantine’ equates in the minds ofmany with ‘icon’, a pervasive legacy of thisera. This is perhaps not surprising given thatConstantinople was the epicentre of the GreekOrthodox Church and provided an artistic beaconof influence across its domain. It is thereforefitting that this interesting book – updated sinceits initial publication in 1998 – should focus onthe artistic aspects of the religious sphere, whileits treatment of the secular and domestic worldis especially welcome.Byzantium has always been a thorny subjectto grapple with: the term ‘Byzantine’ has causedconfusion, since people regarded themselvesas ‘Romans’ in this period; there is substantialdebate as to when the Roman period ended andthe Byzantine period began; it was essentially ashrinking empire in the face of migrations bya host of Avars, Slavs, the imperialist tendenciesof the Sasanians, and an expanding Islamicworld, thus its cultural interaction with its formerterritories were accordingly redefined.Against this tapestry of complexity ThomasMathews has done an excellent job in shapingcoherence from a turbulent world. This hasbeen achieved by a topical-thematic approach:‘adopted in the hope that long lines of continuitywill emerge better than if objects were parceledout, museum style, into decades by rulers’(p. 12). Sensibly, this philosophy provides thebest configuration in an attempt to understandthis complex subject.Visitors to modern Istanbul tend – understandably– to visit the Byzantine hub that isthe magnificent St Sophia and the splendidBasilica Cistern a little to the south-west, and58 Minerva January/February 2011

January/February 2010 Volume 21 Number 1GREEK AND ROMANMASTERPIECES INTHE BRITISH MUSEUMThe Bronze Age eruptionof Thera and the tsunamithat followedArchaeology ofCreswell CragsBringing the land andhistory of Jordan into focusREDISCOVERINGTHE AIGINA JEWELLERYJuly/August 2010 Volume 21 Number 4ISSN 0957-77189 770957 771032September/October 2010 Volume 21 Number 5Chinese historymeets humanrightsAre human figures carvedinto the stones at Avebury?The Roman trading cityon the Bay of BengalRome’s architectural legacy07March/April 2010 Volume 21 Number 2May/June 2010 Volume 21 Number 3ISSN 0957-77189 770957 771032November/December 2010 Volume 21 Number 6Evidence againstchild sacrificein CarthageUnique insight intoEgypt’s last queen<strong>New</strong> research revealsancient peridot mineA holiday tohistoric Turkeyworth over£6000Amazons atSpeyer MuseumInside Romano-British society05to say that the Blue Guides have set the standardfor this genre of publication and it shouldbe stressed that these books do not attempt tocompete, but that they share a symbiotic relationship.Nigel McGilchrist in fact authored theBlue Guide Greece, the Aegean Islands (2010)and much of the textual material in his seriesof 20 books is shared with this publication, butthis in no way detracts from the quality of thisdetailed compilation of literature.Essentially, McGilchrist’s guides are textualrather than visual, since they contain fewillustrations, but that is their charm. Th e firstbook in this series, on Santorini and its associatedislands of Th erasia and Anaphi, exemplifythis: simple yet appropriately detailed maps ofSantorini (p. 9) and Anaphi (p. 91), and the rearsection of the book contains simple but lucidplans of ancient Th era and the archaeologicalsite of Akrotiri (pp. 118-119), all in black andwhite. However, this is totally compensated forin the informative detail of the text. Anyonewho likes to explore the environment, history,and culture of the planet will instantly recognisethe value of these books, not least sincethey have been compiled in a painstaking fashionby the author in person, who seems to havecovered every inch of the Aegean in the process– a monumental feat in itself. Th is passion isendearing, and the accessible style in which theseries is written makes them addictive. Anotherappealing aspect of the books is their compactness– a mere 170 by 120mm – thus an idealfriend of the intrepid explorer.Its natural beauty aside, Santorini is interestingfor most because of its geological history,relating specifically to the cataclysmic volcaniceruption which tore the core out of the islandin the 2 nd millennium BC – the author is probablycorrect in writing that this was ‘one of thegreatest, if not the greatest in human history’ (p.8). If the desire of the reader is to know moreabout this astonishing event then this guideprovides an excellent potted history: from thelayout of the volcanic caldera, the extraordinarydepth of its water (200–400m), and the geologicalprocess of the eruption, its date, how thisshaped the islands, and continues to changethem through to the modern era. Also includedare some interesting accounts of volcanic activityby Roman writers, Strabo: ‘Flames burst outfrom the sea for a period of four days, causingthe water to seethe and flare up’ as the island(Hiera-Palaia Kameni) emerged.Excellent descriptions of the collectionsin the Museum of Prehistoric Th era in Firà,and its famous paintings, along with the OldArchaeological Museum (pp. 24–34), the prehistoricsite at Akrotiri, and a wealth of otherinformation relating to every aspect of eachisland are included in this highly recommendedseries, which is also modestly priced.Dr Mark MerronyHave youmissed anyissues?Back issues of Minerva 1990-2010can be supplied at £4.00 eachplus postage fees (please contactthe Minerva office for a quote)Payments can be made by cheque, debitcard, and Visa, Mastercard or Accesscredit cards. Please make cheques payableto: Minerva. Please send to: Minerva,20 Orange Street, London WC2H 7EF.Tel.: +44 (0)20 7389 0808subscribe@minervamagazine.comDetails of the most recent issuesare given below, full details of allback issues are now available at:www.minervamagazine.comShapingthe WesternartistictraditionBetween fireand waterIce Age artTreasurefrom atroubled landAFGHANISTAN’S BEGRAM HOARDBeyond the riverWhen X marksthe spotJAN/FEB 2010£4.00/$7.99 USAVictoriantomb-raidersBritish archaeologistsin 19 th -century TurkeyAutumn salesreviewKey pieces sold inLondon, <strong>New</strong> Yorkand BaselErosinAthensThe god of love at theMuseum of Cycladic ArtFaking itThe V&A high<strong>light</strong>sfamous forgeriesExhibitingthe deadEarly medieval burialbrought to lifeIrishchambertombsWinter solsticeat <strong>New</strong>grangeMAR/APR 2010£4.00neglect other secular and ecclesiastical sites.Th is book redresses this, from an armchair per -spective with a series of excellent, high qualitycolour photographs that include the Land Wallsof Constantinople, the Monastery of ChristPantocrator, the Column of Constantine, thesurviving Boukoleon wing of the Great Palace,the Late Byzantine extension of the BlachernaiPalace, and so on.A chapter (pp. 43–72) on icons featuresa series of lavish images of the subject andrecounts the splendour that many people experiencedin ‘Byzantium 330–1453’ at the RoyalAcademy in London (2008/9). Th e complicatedtheology relating to icons is circumvented in alucid manner; a change from some art-historicalbooks which make the subject sound morecomplicated than perhaps it should be.In the secular realm, an equally good chapterdeals with the Palaces of Constantinople, palacefashion, and aspects of country life – anotherwelcome aspect of this book. An acknowledgedMinerva January/February 2011problem with the Great Palace is the relativelack of remains, with the exception of themonument mentioned above, the floor mosaicsin the Great Palace Museum, a sizeable chunkof the original building is submerged beneaththe Blue Mosque and the surrounding area.Mathews draws on a combination of textualand artistic depictions to paint an interestingpicture of the palatial domain.Returning to the religious sphere, the authorpresents a lucid insight into the integration ofByzantine architecture with its art (pp. 97–136).Th is is an interesting achievement that usedthe architecture of a building to express athree-dimensional effect rather than the twodimensionalillusion of the classical period. Th eexportation of these concepts to Greece, Russiaand Italy is equally interesting (pp. 137–163).A timeline rounds off a highly recommendedpublication that is a must for anyone with aninterest in the Byzantine Empire.Dr Mark MerronyRobin HoodThe man behindthe legendImpressionsof the pastChinese prints atthe British MuseumArt &empireGreek masterpiecesthat seduced RomeForetellingthe futureHoax orholy relic?Analysing theTurin ShroudControversyin Cairo£4.00The Oracleof DelphiRenewed claims forthe repatriation ofcultural treasuresJULY/AUG 2010Fanningthe flamesAntiquities sales reviewAncient art, artefactsand armour under thehammer in EuropeAlexander in AmsterdamAntiquity’s great conqueror takes overthe Hermitage MuseumHeads in the hengeA passage to IndiaBuilt to lastSEP/OCT 2010£4.00Gold ofthe IncaTreasures fromthe AndesThe mysterioustravels of theWrest ParkaltarsAtheniantriremeThe warship thatchanged the worldCaesar rises from the RhoneSlaughter ofthe innocents?Cleopatracomes toPhiladelphiaGreen gemsfrom the Red SeaThe archaeology of Roman ArlesEstimates smashedat antiquities auction<strong>New</strong> Yorkcoin salesReview of the38 th NumismaticConventionTutankhamun’sDNA decodedIncest and infirmity inEgypt’s 18 th dynastyMAY/JUNE 2010£4.00MysteriouswarriorwomenRulingBritannia<strong>New</strong> York sales£4.50SUBSCRIBEAND WINNOV/DEC 201059