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Subterranean Stars : Astral Imagery and Eschatology in Ancient Thrace’ Funerary Art
No full textMy article focuses on some intriguing decorations from Hellenistic and Roman Thrace, which
demonstrate that astral/cosmic images found a place in elite funerary art. They include the
crescent moon and star carved on the wall of the burial chamber tomb at Dolno Lukovo, the
head of Helios painted on the marble door of the tomb beneath the Goljama Kosmatka Tumulus,
and the starry sky on the vault of the tomb in Tumulus A at Vize, Kiklareli. As I have argued
recently, an astral/cosmic programme was featured in the coffered ceiling of the tomb in the
Ostrusha Tumulus, where the personification of the Pleiades may have peopled a symbolic sky
together with Nereids, Sirens, and characters from Greek myth. On the strength of this evidence,
it seems that bringing the celestial into the underworld – and projecting the underworld into the
celestial realm in turn – appealed to the warlike Thracian aristocracy, as it did to Eastern, Greek,
and Roman civilisations. Several factors enhance these Thracian examples’ importance for
understanding Thracian religion, art and culture, the knowledge of which is still partial and
controversial. One question we may ask, for example, is whether they offer evidence of a local
tradition of astral eschatology. More generally, the topic offers a special opportunity to explore
cultural interactions in funerary astral art and the reception of Greek and/or Eastern art, culture,
and values in a non-Greek environment
The Tomb below the Ostrusha Mound and the Painted Prosopa within the Central Boxes of the Ceiling. Proposal for a new reading
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Orientalia da Vigna Bonelli-Crescenzi-Mangani : riesame e nuovi tentativi di contestualizzazione
No full text"Our Daily Bread” in Italy: Its Meaning in the Roman Period and Today
Full text linkFrom antiquity to the New Millennium, bread continues to be a staple in the daily and
ceremonial life of Mediterranean culture, even though its uses, shapes, and ingredients have been modified over time. Italy, in particular, figures among the countries where this food has represented an important geographical and cultural marker from the most ancient periods. Bread-making requires diverse types of knowledge and skills, from commanding nature in order to transform the landscape for the purpose of a cereal-crop, to the building of works (factories and bakeries), which are essential for bread-making. This paper focuses on the meaning of the bread, both as a food staple and as a
cultural symbol, in two key periods. The first refers to the Roman period, and the second to modern time (post-eighteenth century), when baking production acquired an industrial scale. The study enlists three levels of analysis to understand how consumers viewed the product: the materials and techniques of bread making, its production, and its sales and distribution
Analisi e studio di 152 pavimenti, Roma, Regiones XI, Circus Maximus (21 pavimenti), e XII, Piscina Publica (152 pavimenti), nell’ambito del progetto Corpus Mosaici di Roma (CMR) e della banca dati TESS
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Reconsidering the Orsini Villa at Santa Caterina, Castel Gandolfo (1830-1899) and the so-called Alban Villa of Clodius on the Via Appia
No full textAn archaeological site tells us many stories. Behind every story there are people: those who owned and lived on the site in ancient times, and those who owned the same site in modern times, paid for the excavations, and managed the antiquities discovered. People are also the scholars who have unearthed or studied the archaeological remains over centuries, each time applying the values, parameters, and methods of their own times. The unravelling of the relationships among these people – their perception
of the site – against the backdrop of the times in which they lived and operated is essential to reconstruct the archaeological reality of a site. Using antiquarian and archival sources of the 16th and 19th centuries, this study retraces the modern history of Villa Santa Caterina (Castel Gandolfo), and the surrounding vineyards where the Alban Villa of Publius Clodius has long been located. The aim is to demonstrate that a critical approach to these sources may provide a framework to integrate and expand knowledge based
on archaeological data. Here, in particular, it provides an essential contribution to the Italo-Danish investigations recently started at Villa Santa Caterina, and to my Marie Curie project ‘Cultus
Culti pubblici in mano privata. L’”appropriazione” dei luoghi di culto tra il II secolo a.C. e il II secolo d.C
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