The Treasury of Sculptures from Tomis. The Cult inventory of a Temple. Dacia, N:S: t. LIII, Bucarest, 2009, p. 27-46. (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Treasury of Sculptures from Tomis. The Cult Inventory of a Temple
2009
In the present paper we will reopen the analysis of a group of statues and reliefs discovered in 1962 in Constanta, in a pit dug while building a housing complex. The group has been called in the scientific literature 'treasury of sculpture'. The treasury contains 24 pieces, of which 8 statues and statuettes, one aedicula, 14 reliefs and 1 altar of small dimensions with phantom traces of letters. The divinities represented are: Hecate on 6 monuments, Selene-1, Nemesis-1, Glycon-1, Tomitan Tyche -1, Isis-1, Charites-1, Dionysus-2, Asclepius-1, Cybele-1, Dioscuri-1 Herpes-1. Mithras-1, Thracian Rider.
Dacia, 2009
In the present paper we will reopen the analysis of a group of statues and reliefs discovered in 1962 in Constanţa, in a pit dug while building a housing complex. The group has been called in the scientific literature 'treasury of sculpture'. The treasury contains 24 pieces, of which 8 statues and statuettes, one aedicula, 14 reliefs and 1 altar of small dimensions with phantom traces of letters. The divinities represented are: Hecate on 6 monuments, Selene-1, Nemesis-1, Glycon-1, Tomitan Tyche -1, Isis-1, Charites-1, Dionysus-2, Asclepius-1, Cybele-1, Dioscuri-1 Hermes-1. Mithras-1, Thracian Rider.
2015
A group of sculptures found in the eastern suburbs of Alexandria, Egypt, allows us to analyse the production, trade and display of statuary in domestic contexts. This collection is composed of 13 statues and statuettes. Eight of these are reduced in size, belonging to the well-attested types of mythological statuettes which decorated Late Antique domus and villas. Two female portrait sculptures can be associated with the owner’s family and, finally, three objects – which are the only ones not made of white marble – consist of a table stand, a sphinx, and a small statuette of Isis. The analysis of marbles in relation to sculptural technique allows the identification of two groups and two different production processes and trade patterns. Nevertheless, their archaeological context reveals that these artefacts were part of a single assemblage and decorative programme. Keywords small-size sculpture, trade, Alexandria 1. Methodology The identification of the stones was based on examination of their macroscopic features, since archaeometric analyses were not permitted. This is also based on parallels with known marbles commonly employed at Alexandria. The identification of Proconnesian marble was possible through parallels with numerous groups of artefacts found at this city (statues, sarcophagi, and architectural elements). Recognition of other marble types is more hypothetical, being fundamentally based on historical patterns and parallels with sculptures kept in museums in Athens, Afyon and Aphrodisias. A significant parallel is represented by a small statuary group of Aphrodite and Pan in the museum at Afyon, showing similar features to the Aphrodite and Eros of Mehamara. 2. Previous research on the sculpture
2020
This research is devoted only to part of the numerous cults and cult sculpture of Nicopolis ad Nestum, including not the whole its territory, but only the city itself and its immediate proximity. Several neighboring sanctuaries to it, for instance that of Dolno Dryanovo, probably the biggest one, were of great importance for the Roman city, because being existent already from the 5th-4th millennium BC, they continued functioning with adequate to the next historical periods inscriptions and cult sculpture up to the end of 3rd century AD. To the present a significant number of sculptural monuments (round sculpture and votive monuments) illustrate the spread of different cults in Nicopolis ad Nestum and its vicinity. Being founded near several Thracian settlements, the city and its area around reveal the existing of Thracian, Greek and Roman cults to Zeus, Pluto, Persephona, Asclepius, Hermes, Apollo, Nike, of the xoana of Zeus and Artemis; and of the cult of the Thracian Rider, named here with the epithets Arbazenos and Pyrmerulas. In all of them we can observe the syncretism of the Greek, Roman and Thracian cults in the epithets, the iconography and the form of the sculpture (as in the case of the xoana) and in the style from the beginning of 2nd till the end of the 3rd century. In the Late Antique and Early Byzantine periods in only one monument so far, namely the votive to Pluto, the Cross is added, changing its pagan belonging and interpretation, while the other monuments broken into pieces by the Early Christians. In the article it is made an attempt to relate the studied cult sculpture to the possible existing sanctuaries and temples in Nicopolis itself and the neighboring area on the ground of the location of the inscriptions, the kind and number of sculptural monuments, and the most important cult representations on the coins minted in city itself and cults mentioned in the inscriptions. These Roman cults have been venerated by the mixed population of Nicopolis and its vicinity: the Romans in the administration of the city, the Hellenized or Romanized Thracian elite and by the Greeks also inhabiting the region. They have been represented either by priests and members of the cult collegia or by persons of high social status. They were also responsible for the sanctuaries and temples, often making orders for the cult statues, witnessed by their names and the content of the building and votive inscriptions.
This study comprises seven statuettes which are today preserved in the depot of the Museum of Ödemiş and which, within the framework of the museum's renovation works, are planned to be displayed among the museum exhibits in the near future. As part of a study entitled The Stone Artifacts of the Ödemiş Museum, supported by the University of Dokuz Eylül Research Fund and now in the preparatory stages, they are here presented for the first time to the scholarly world. These statuettes consist of one god and goddesses: two Venuses, one Hecate, one Diana, one Aesculapius, one Cybele and a Ceres or Priestess. This study aims to present and date the statuettes by comparing their stylistic, plastic and chronological characteristics with similar examples. Although the head and arm section of Diana, the left hand of the second Venus and the right hand of Cybele and, of Aesculapius, the right hand of and the portion below his ankles are lost, the fact that the statuettes are otherwise intact or completed makes them important from the standpoint of condition 1 . It is thought that the statuettes were very probably used either in a domestic cult or as votive offerings. They are dated to within the first half of the 2 nd or beginning of the 3 rd centuries A.D. on the basis of their general workmanship characteristics.
The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture: Late Antique Responses and Practices, 2015
The many statues found amidst the urban ruins of Asia Minor indicate that in this region statuary was regarded as a potentially valuable medium of expression until the end of Antiquity. Starting from a reconstruction of the “career” of a collection of mythological statues found at Sagalassos (Pisidia, modern Turkey), this article discusses the possible ways in which statuary was put to use in Asia Minor in the Late Roman age. It examines factors that might have influenced a statue’s lifespan, including the status of the city in the administrative hierarchy, a site’s access to newly carved items, the importance of civic pride, the longevity of classical culture in the region, and, finally, the progress of Christianity.