adventures in my head
In my Minucius article I discussed the below glasspaste but failed to include the one above.
This one below is so similar and yet the lituus has become a scepter and the right hand man doesn’t appear to have his hair covered.
When writing that article I also wish I’d thought more about this article
La Follette, Laetitia. “PARSING PIETY: THE SACRED STILL LIFE IN ROMAN RELIEF SCULPTURE.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 56/57 (2011): 15–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24616435.
—
Not a coin blog post.
Today is the the first day of feeling truly self directed in, well… *checks last blog post* 15 day. Wowza. How did that happen?
Much of it was meetings with colleagues both at my institution and others about matters relevant to my own career that took preparation and a great deal of energy both before, during and after. The only detail ready to be shared here is that I get a month in the Berlin museums next academic year and am just delighted.
I also served as the external examiner for a history department at a small liberal arts college, perhaps some of the most fulfilling service I’ve done for a long time–I learned a ton and met wonderful colleagues both at the institution and among the team of other externals. It as particularly enriching to reflect upon the diversity of faculty experiences in academia and across institutions.
Then I had a minor medical procedure (everything is fine: it just takes time to take care of oneself). In the recovery from that, I watched a great deal of the Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I don’t obsess about whales, I can walk through revolving doors, and no, I don’t memorize every thing I read, but watching a character become easily overstimulated by certain types of conflict and noise and the desire to escape or stim in those situations is more delightfully comforting to see on tv than I would have ever guessed. No I’m not autistic, but my neuro-divergence has limited symptom cluster overlaps, and I’ve never seen this so compassionately portrayed on the screen. It has given me a great deal of food for thought.
Now I’m dreadfully behind on communications and feeling tired and slightly avoidant. I really have a love-hate relationship with social interactions. Are you on my list of someone to talk to? I never mind a kind nudge. It’s a really a gift.
I’ve made a paper list of people to write or reach out to. Probably not complete but a start. Hopefully as I follow up on stuff my drive for my research projects will return.
This blog is going to be really worried about RRC 346 and related issues now through April as that’s the topic of my next conference paper, my colleagues are going to be working mostly on the Schaefer material so I’ve volunteered to think about the hoard evidence to get the two to talk to each other. Maybe, if I can manage it.
There are seven hoard from Pennisular Italy and Sicily from the period 88-86 BCE (a narrow window to be sure!) in the CHRR database. Of these only 5 contain RRC 346.
I want to look just at how RRC 346 looks compared to other very recent issues so I only compared it to RRC 334-349, basically post 100 BCE issues containing denarii.
On the below graph time moves bottom to top for issues and left to right for hoards (although the latter is less ‘real’ in any meaningful sense of our knowledge of time of deposition.)
The issue Marcius Censorinus coin types are the purple. Notice how much thinner it is that any of the other types, especially RRC 341, 342, RRC 344, and RRC 348. Arguably the first three had a longer time to build up in the circulation pool, but not so RRC 348 which is thought to have only been made a year later.
If I redraw this I think I better include the two hoards missing RRC 346 as well. I’m not even sure this is the right means of visualizing this, but it sort of works for me to see what I need to see.
The number of hoard is really small so I will probably also do it again with hoards closing before 82 or 80 BCE to try to get more data into the conversation. Anyway. This is the beginning of my thought process on the appearance of this issue in Italian hoards. I’ll refine my views over the weeks to come.
I also want to think about what hoards it ISN’T in and why that might be.
On the docket
prep for ‘screening’
notify standing appointment of late arrival
respond to post-conference emails
Inquire about recent Morgantina publications and how they might change the dating for the introduction of the denarius and other Hannibalic War coin developments, etc…
Give feedback on exhibition blurbs
Begin April conference Prep
Post Doc scheduling
Book manuscript feedback
set up phone convo with dept colleague
collect sickle series data and a share
Review Charles Parisot’s 2018 article and write up blog post on Victoriatus, esp. idea that it is a 1/2 denarius from beginning and the fixed ratio of copper to silver.
The jetlag is rough this morning. I’m three cups of coffee in and barely moving. I was going to skip this bit of journaling but I need to get the brain in gear if I’m going to conference properly this afternoon and tomorrow. Must try to get to bed a little earlier tonight.
Yesterday was the Villa Guilia and Palazzo Massimo. Starting with the latter as it is clearer in my mind.
I was not as in love with sculpture as I have been in the past. It felt too familiar and I moved relatively fast through those galleries. The frescoes held my attention for a very long time. I found myself wondering if there is a literature of human activity in Roman landscape painting. Most all the landscapes seemed to have been conceived as religious or sacral. With acts of piety towards shrines being the most typical social and even inter-generational activity. The landscapes also included rustics, figures marked as other by the disfigurement of their bodies through hard labor: rustic labor being the second most common human activity in these painting. One swine herd in particular captivated me. I cannot quite say the rustic world is romanticized in these images, as we might surmise from bucolic/pastoral poetry. The architecture in the landscapes is varied yet relatively formulaic (surely some colleague has catalogued them and created a typology?!).
Most of the panels on display with such landscapes came from elite houses, but one set was from a private columbaria. The decorative bands were between the rows niches for the funerary urns. Overall these were more varied but landscape was common. YET so are nilotic scenes with pygmies, another type of landscape genre with its own conventions. The contrast between the two imaginary worlds the idealized local and the distant other was more jarring having them all together.
I spent some time also with the fresco narrative cycle of Rome’s foundation. The lighting wasn’t great but it was still good to go over it scene by scene in person. Thinking back on it now the bands remind me more of the more humble columbaria bands than the frescoes elite domestic rooms. The private columbaria has one band of mythological scenes related to Hercules, perhaps that is why my brain wants to make the connection.
There weren’t any big thoughts at Villa Guila, except the perhaps just the good reminder of how monumental terracotta can really be as architectural and sculptural elements. Mostly I was just loving seeing traces of myth and iconography early in Italic history, esp. those that carry through.
For instance, who doesn’t love a pointy hat, which with the Romans we come to associated with priesthood and the apex.
I’ve just checked the program and realized I don’t have to be anywhere until 5 pm. I though I was due at the conference at 2pm. I had best do something with my day rather than sit in my hotel room…
Again I may come back and add more pictures but must press on.
Sitting at a hotel breakfast with a lovely view of St. Peter’s dome, forcing myself to eat some protein to get to lunch. Monday and Tuesday were mostly logistics but this post is to help me remember stuff I saw yesterday.
My hotel is up the via Flaminia. At the Ankara/Tiziano tram 2 stop there are large monumental travertine blocks in the boulevard park. No label anywhere I could see. Curious if we know what structure they are likely to have been from.
Took the subway to the Baths of Diocletian and exited in Piazza Republica and admired in the station there that the flooring for the utility corridors under the baths is exposed with large basalt pavers. Helped me visualize the true scale of the original complex.
I broke down and bought the new catalogue of the epigraphic collection from the museum. A doorstop of a book, but worth it. Things that stick in my mind that I want to read about in the catalogue:
list in no particular order
acorn shaped scale weights, similar to the acorn on coin designs.
A set of well formed well preserved basalt weights similar to those on display in Praeneste
The Mummius inscription from Fregellae
The T shaped pre historic dagger handles in the proto-Latium section: not a perfect parallel to the handle of the t-shaped daggers on the coins of Ariminum and the Eid Mar coin but got me thinking in that direction.
The major warrior burial from Lanuvium (I think that’s where) with a full set of armor and also athletic stuff. The discus thrower depicted on the discus was amazing. The sword was very Falcata like in shape. Maybe I”m wrong to read that symbol as Spanish.
The chapterhouse courtyard with all the displays of Arval Bretheran inscriptions was new to me. I got some nice teaching images with the dates on the calendars. The choice of gods honored with each different emperor was fascinating, as was the ritual emphasis on iron tools and how they were explicitly used not only to tidy up the sacred grove but also to carve the record. I particularly liked that under Elagabalus his grandmother is honored.
In that same courtyard were finds from the villa excavated along the via Anagnina. I was impressed that we know the imperial portrait (very nice pair of Verus and Marcus Aurelius) were from the impluvium/atrium area of the house. The fountain from the same area of the house seems to refer to the days of the week through deities. BUT this raised the question of when the 7 day week entered the Roman mind.
Still the same courtyard, the busts of Geta and Caracalla from the House of the Vestals in the Forum left an impression as well.
Up on what they call the 1st floor (I might have called it the 3rd), where there is all the religious stuff, there is a new to me display on magic. The prevalence of nails and the wider variety of effigies than I’ve seen before was notable. Also a lead ‘book’ with seven pages and obscure iconography was fun. There was also a summary of finds from the Anna Perenna spring. The coin deposits seem to have only started with Augustus. If this is true, perhaps this is also one of his ‘revivals’.
There were also other examples of roof tile graffiti which would provide context to the one with two sets of footprints I use in my courses so much.
I was also intrigued by the letter forms in the script writing esp. the two parallel lines to represent the letter E. Where does that come from.
In the case with the earliest writing there was one clay vessel with three names but that attributed to the potter derived from the name Ulysses.
A few lamps has a green glaze. When did this technology show up in Rome?
I’m sure there is more from there but I’ll add it as it pops back into my mind.
After leaving that museum, I walked down to the Markets of Trajan. I wasn’t planning to go in and my camera battery was completely dead. I was just trying to get enough exercise to help kick jetlag. But the markets had a late closing and how could I resist.
The colossal busts from the forum of Trajan my kids would have loved. My favorites were the lower half of Trajanus Pater (I’d recognize that chin from the coins anywhere!) and also the mystery of the woman with the hair style similar to Agrippina the younger tentatively identified as Trajan’s mother Marcia. These were in shield roundels originally alternating with the Dacian prisoners.
The displays helped make clear how this alternating motif was inspired by a similar visual alternation of shields with heads of gods and caryatids in the Forum of Augustus. Other details from the Forum of Augustus that stuck with me was the gilt foot of a giant Victory and the elaborately carved Corinthian capitals that instead of just leaves have Pegasus leaping forth.
Some how I forgot if I ever knew about the hall of the Colossus with the statue of the ‘Genius’ of Augustus of the back of the left hand portico of the forum of Augustus. The meager fragments are impossibly huge, but the display did a great job especially helping one visualize the wall painting.
The display on the removal of the Velian hill in the 1930s was very moving. The excavation artists were so talented. The video footage was arresting. The little fresco wall panels evocative. The museum book shop was selling large books with photos of the excavations of this period of the forums. V tempting.
From the forum of Caesar, I was reminded that the cupids stealing the arms of Mars so common on sarcophagi also had political resonance. Also what’s up with all the cupids killing bulls?!
Ok that’s what I remember. Maybe this evening I’ll upload some photos to go with this post.
Now off to the Villa Julia.
This gold and glass representation was found during the building of the line C subway in Rome and now widely reported in the news.
original media photo
It is being reported as representing Roma, but it could just as easily represent Virtus. This issue comes up again and again (old blog posts: a Lararium in Stabiae, RRC 403/1, Roma as Amazon, Literary treatments). There is some stuff on this in my coin book too.
In art history the debate over Virtus or Roma usually plays out in the interpretation of imperial monuments
Who holds the emperor’s arm here?
Who leads the chariot here?
There are some parallels in coin images but none exact, no triple crested helmet, no spear in front of the bust, no emphasis on bands crossing between breasts (an amazonian element). It looks like on the glass what is typically a shield in such bust representations is just extra drapery.
More than anything the style of the gold and glass reminds me of the artistic style of Contorniates, but I don’t yet own the standard reference catalogue for those. I think it is the long face. I’m not sure if there are any Roma/Virtus contorniates… Must check… (cf. Alföldi Contorniates 77 and p. 26, 10, no spear, Cf. Alföldi, Kontorniat, 70/493; )
The closest parallel seems to be with personifications of Constantinople but no triple crested helmet and it is a scepter instead of a spear.
For the triple crest cf. RRC 329/1
Also earlier post on the helmet type
I also have a strong memory that Miles MacDonald, in his book on Roman Manliness (virtus) talks about this helmet. …
I finished, at least for now, my slides for the conference. It might be a little long but I think I can get through it. I’m not scripting. This feels dangerous and delightful. I want to know my material and speak in an easy conversational style. I’m the fourth speaker on the first day full day (11 am local time next Friday.) To pull off the speaking style I want and make it make sense sans script I will need to be as hyped about the material as I am at the moment. That will take some serious time in in my hotel room the night before and the morning of. BUT I still have the better part of three days in Rome to see stuff. These are the best conference organizers ever: they are flying us in early so we can get over jetlag. So what to see! I have a habit of just seeing my old favorites again and again (I always have new eyes for the stuff.) But I want to make the most of this.
Ideas to break my old habits
Nemi site and museum
2-3 hours by public transport (four transfers: tram, subway, train, bus) or 1-2 hours by taxi (€ 67.30 there plus 27 for every hour I want them to wait plus € 67.30 back, oof!) – this is why I wish my beloved was coming with me to drive me about, I’m so spoiled, and that area is one of which I have very fond memories with him of past travels.
closed for restoration. dammit.
closed for restoration. arrgggggg.
Requires group reservation or reservation to join an individual group on a specific date. This trip not possible but link to what is possible when is useful for future.
Museo dei Fori Imperiali & Mercati di Traiano
Not as high on my list as other things, but it looks like it has changed a great deal since my last visit so perhaps a good stop.
Only by guided tour F, Sa, Su. Could probably make 5 pm Sat tour. 10 slots remaining.
To be continued.
It is very hard work to stop myself sharing all the pretty graphs I’m drawing but I’m resolved to wait until the conference itself to show my whole hand on this data. Yesterday was super productive largely because my quantification of the variation between readings from the same specimen meant that I asked for help from Wayne and learned a whole bunch in the process.
Ternary plots! A bit like that triangle below. This lets demonstrate how the ratios of copper: lead: tin appear in all specimens and allow v clear patterns to appear. 3 axes are way cooler than just 2 and a nice mental baby step towards more multi dimensional plotting stuff like Correspondence Analysis (CA)–that’s the cool type of data exploration used by Kris Lockyear to explore hoards. Unfortunately excel needs a plug in to draw these. Everyone’s favorite seams to be tri-plot. There is a fancy add-in called XLStat but it isn’t available it seems for the version of MSOffice my university gives me. BOO! Maybe I can figure out how to get a copy it looks like a great deal of fun.
Color issues! So I’ve known for a while (see below) that we’re not sure of the original surface look of aes grave, because of the high lead content, but there is some suggestion from unpublished data from the Balkans that high lead may have been used in the bronze age specifically for decorative and ritual objects because of the silvery surface color. This lead me to be v tempted by experimental archaeology to produce a few specimens to test.
Division of elements into intentional and unintentional! So I’d been mostly doing my thinking about ratios leaving the trace elements in, but this doesn’t account for original intent. There is no evidence they meant to put antimony, silver, iron, arsenic etc… into these things. They are impurities in the ores or bullion used. They tell stories but if what I want to recover is the recipe or recipes the Romans intended they only add noise. Removing them from some of my calculations has made a clearer picture.
Base-12! Ok this inspiration was my own not Wayne’s. Any target recipe was likely in Roman units of measure, likely weight and likely on a base-12 system. So we’re talking uncia and scruples once we get below a pound. This is proving a very useful means of thinking of how the data patterns might fit into Roman intention.
Casting SAND! This I owe to my v practical neighbors who know all about metal for industrial and artistic modern applications. I was running the idea of what it would take to try some experimental archaeology and we got to the material to cast in and we talked through clay and that can explode presenting safety issues as we learn what we are doing, so we thought safest to start with green sand, which means moisture-rich sand and is in no way green in color, NOT to be confused with the geological/gardening green sand. I asked how you make a shape you want and was told you just impress it same as clay. I don’t think this is what the Romans used for aes grave, but I wonder about some other aes formatum/italic aes grave. It would be fine for ramo secco and probably also the bronze shells. The later worry me. None in Haeberlin and I don’t know (yet!) of any hoards with them or site finds, a quick internet search shows Italian metal detectorists seem to turn them up but not sure I want to put scholarly weight on that. They also show up on the market but are nice collectors pieces so no surprise there. Cf. Vecchi 2014: p. 90 figs. 4-5.
It I do try some casting I think I’ll aim for this shell shape to start.
Today’s goal is to finalize visuals and start to make sure sequence of slides tells the big story of why investigating this what I did before, what comes later and what I know now. I want to try to narrate without script.
This is a free writing exercise of stuff rattling around in my brain .
After finishing cleaning and organizing the data of all my scans, I spent yesterday creating scatter plots, bar graphs, and pareto histograms. I explored overall patterns for all cast coinages and whether there are noticeable differences and patterns between the different issues factoring in the different denominations as well. I cannot wait to share all of this here, but I think I best hold back on sharing my slide deck until after the conference. Maybe about Feb 20 I can post here.
Today’s goal is to quantify degree of difference between obverse and reverse readings and ensure my audience can understand why this variation exists.
Short answer: Neither lead nor iron create a true alloy with copper. This means the composition of all aes grave is not uniform through out the individual specimen. There is not a strict purity standard that was or could be enforced given the high use of lead.
Most of the understanding of surface analysis techniques within numismatics derives from the flawed studies of Walker on silver in the 1980s and the robust debunking of those approaches using drilling techniques by Ponting and Butcher. None of this is untrue but bronze as an alloy is another kettle of fish and we need to take our lessons and caveats from bronze specialists not silver. Drilling is still the best way to know what was originally manufactured but given the lack of a uniform alloy throughout the individual specimens even drilling means we cannot know for sure our sample is always representative of the whole.
Is Drilling useless then? Absolutely not! The samples taken can contextualized surface readings and be used for deeper analyses, especially of isotopes. This is shown by historical changes that were noticed in the this study.
Westner, Katrin J., Fleur Kemmers, and Sabine Klein. “A Novel Combined Approach for Compositional and Pb Isotope Data of (leaded) Copper-Based Alloys: Bronze Coinage in Magna Graecia and Rome (5th to 2nd Centuries BCE).” Journal of archaeological science 121 (2020): 105204–.
(Sorry don’t think an open access copy is out there but happy to share a PDF if anyone needs one)
They drilled 5 cast specimens as a point of comparison for later coinages. And, they found really interesting differences between cast and struck. Here’s one visual to give a sense of the value of this work:
But being able to drill 5 specimens is a bit deal! [I must write and ask if they are willing to share data.] There is no way to drill hundreds. So this raises questions of the patterns that emerge. So for instance the drilling of Bars in the BM in the 1980s. The two Bull bars seemed a little lower in lead (18% versus upper 20s). Did this mean a different period of manufacture? A different recipe for the alloy? I might have thought so, but no more. All those bars look just like the aes grave I’ve been testing, high lead, high variation. The question becomes whats a typical versus atypical composition and how much variation seems ‘normal’ or with in tolerance.
And, then there is the question of why any of it historically relevant?
Well for one, I can tell you Roman aes grave is far more consistent in composition than the aes rude found in the region with good archaeological provenance. They circulate together but they are not the same thing.
I’m warmed up. Time to get to work.
Liv Mariah Yarrow 
