Ancient world

  • The Scythians at the British Museum

    The Scythians at the British Museum

    “The Scythians: Warriors of ancient Siberia” is the title of a major new exhibition at the British Museum, London, running until 14th January. The show attempts to redeem from oblivion the culture and character of a people who strewed their path across the steppe with gold but who are otherwise…

  • The Seuso Saga

    The Seuso Saga

    Together again under a single roof. In July 2017, the Hungarian government revealed that it had acquired the remaining seven pieces of the famous Seuso (or Sevso) Treasure. All fourteen known pieces of the hoard are now in Hungary, bringing to an end years of intricate negotiations. In 2014 the…

  • Which 50 Sites of Antiquity?

    Which 50 Sites of Antiquity?

    In his book Sites of Antiquity historian Charles Freeman takes 50 sites and uses them to illustrate the development of the Classical World.  But readers have asked, why those particular sites?  His reply: It was good fun picking out 50 sites that I felt defined the Classical world. I interpreted ‘classical…

  • Roman Brixia

    Roman Brixia

    Brescia is well known for its wealth of Roman remains due to the unique urban development of the town after the demise of the Roman Empire. The original nucleus of the settlement at the foot of the Cidneo hill became crown property under the Lombards in the 8th century and…

  • The Roman Forum Reconstructed

    The Roman Forum Reconstructed

    Book review of Gilbert J. Gorski and James E. Packer, The Roman Forum: A Reconstruction and Architectural Guide, Cambridge University Press, 2015. It needed quite a lot of collaboration between kind friends before I could own a copy of this book. It is a lavishly detailed and illustrated study of…

  • The Imperial Ramp in the Roman Forum

    The Imperial Ramp in the Roman Forum

    In 1900 the archaeologist Giacomo Boni uncovered some intriguing remains in the Roman Forum: those of the so-called ‘Oratory of the Forty Martyrs’ and, leading off it, a covered brick ramp. These remains are usually closed to the public, and work on them is ongoing, but at the moment (until…

  • Hellenistic bronzes in Florence

    Hellenistic bronzes in Florence

    “Power and Pathos. Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World” is the penultimate exhibition to be held under the mandate of James Bradburne, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Bradburne has succeeded in turning the palazzo into Florence’s most important exhibition space. And no more fitting show could have taken…

  • Sassoferrato and the Aion Mosaic

    Sassoferrato and the Aion Mosaic

    “The name Sassoferrato derives from the Latin saxum ferratum, ‘stone encircled by iron’; it stands on a rocky crest, in an area rich in iron ore. Close by, at the confluence of the Sentino and Marena rivers, stood the Roman city of Sentinum, where in 295 BC the Romans achieved…

  • Egypt, Greece, & Rome

    Egypt, Greece, & Rome

    by Charles Freeman. Oxford University Press 2014. There can be few things more galling to a publisher or author than to receive the kind of reader letter that breezily announces complete satisfaction with the previous edition of a guide or text book and no intention of buying its successor. Software…

  • From Pompeii: The Afterlife of a Roman Town

    From Pompeii: The Afterlife of a Roman Town

    Ingrid D. Rowland, From Pompeii: The Afterlife of a Roman Town, Harvard University Press, 2014. One of the pleasures of reading The New York Review of Books is coming across the articles by Ingrid Rowland. Professor Rowland teaches at the University of Notre Dame in Rome and specialises in art…

  • Artwork of the Month: October. The Arch of Constantine

    Artwork of the Month: October. The Arch of Constantine

    October is the anniversary month of the fateful battle of the Milvian Bridge.

  • Artwork of the Month: July. The Phaistos Disc

    Artwork of the Month: July. The Phaistos Disc

    On 3rd July 1908, the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier, working in the so-called ‘House 101’, northeast of the palace of Phaistos, found an object with symbols on both sides, next to a Linear A tablet. The object became known as the Phaistos Disc—and it remains as intriguing and mysterious now,…

  • Artwork of the month: May. “Flora”, Pompeii

    Artwork of the month: May. “Flora”, Pompeii

    The Sorrento peninsula begins at the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia, on the southeast shore of the Bay of Naples. It takes its name from its 9th-century castle and from the ancient city of Stabiae, which was swallowed up by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Pliny the…

  • Artwork of the month: April. The Seuso Silver

    Artwork of the month: April. The Seuso Silver

    At some point during the turbulent years of the declining Roman Empire, a cache of silver was hidden by its owners, packed into a copper cauldron. This hoard has been puzzling the world ever since. Known as the Seuso (or Sevso) Treasure, it has become an artworld mystery. And the…

  • Being Mithridates

    Being Mithridates

    The death of Mithridates VI Eupator, the last king of Pontus, in 63 BC marks both the culmination and the implosion of the dream of an independent Pontic state uniting the shores of the Black Sea under one ruler. Born c. 134 BC in Sinop, Mithridates spent his life pursuing…

  • Copyrighting Heritage

    Copyrighting Heritage

    I enjoyed David Miles’ article on Stonehenge in this month’s Minerva magazine. I remember visiting Stonehenge in the autumn of 1978. I was almost the only person there. I don’t remember any fences. I walked right up to it. I touched the stones. I took pictures of it. I have…

  • Under Another Sky

    Under Another Sky

    Charlotte Higgins, Under Another Sky: Travels in Roman Britain. Jonathan Cape, London, 2013. Reviewed by Charles Freeman. If I am heading westwards from my home in central Suffolk I go along a stretch of Roman road and eventually reach the village of Stonham Aspal. To the far side there is…

  • A trip to the Port of Trajan, outside Rome

    A trip to the Port of Trajan, outside Rome

    We were lucky to get into the area of the old Port of Trajan, just south of Fiumicino airport. The website states that it is “open” between 9am and 1pm on the first Saturday and last Sunday of the month, and gives a Google map with a pin stuck in…

  • How the tide turned at the Milvian Bridge

    How the tide turned at the Milvian Bridge

    Christianity did not conquer the Roman Empire with the sword—and yet it was with the sword that the groundwork was laid, at the Milvian Bridge. Today the place is peaceful: but this not particularly impressive-seeming footbridge over the Tiber was the scene, in late October of the year AD 312,…

  • A compelling reason to visit Trapani province

    A compelling reason to visit Trapani province

    The expressive statue of a young man in a finely-pleated linen tunic, Il Giovane di Mozia, was found at Cappiddazzu on the northeast side of the island of Mozia (the ancient Phoenician Motya) in 1979. In the stance of a victor, with hand on hip, the pose of the statue expresses…

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