POLICE in southern Italy have seized a large haul of well-preserved artefacts that were illegally excavated between the two southern towns of Benevento and Foggia, near Naples.
A total of 584 antiquities were recovered, estimated to be worth around €2 million euros and intended for sale on the black market.
Investigations are ongoing, but so far 21 tombaroli, or "graverobbers," have been identified by police, while a 46-year-old man from the area has reportedly been charged with handling stolen archaeological objects after investigators searched his property in the nearby town of Castelpagano.
The artefacts are reportedly in very good condition and range from a large ancient Greek krater estimated at €150,000 to small pieces valued at around €1,500. The collection includes other Greek objects, including a group of fourth-century BC ceramic bowls decorated with red figures, various Etruscan and Corinthian objects, a set of 340 rare coins, many Roman lanterns and a particularly well-preserved helmet.
Colonel Cesare Maragoni, the regional commander of the Guardia di Finanza, the arm of the police responsible for dealing with financial crime and smuggling, called this one of the most important finds in the region’s history.
"This find has been the result of an enormous amount of intelligence gathering… and it's a big blow to the black market that continues to plague our country," Maragoni told the Italian press.
Speaking at a press conference, Luigina Tomay, the head of the regional Superintendency for archaeology in Benevento said that "the major impact of the black market for antiquities is that it prevents scholars and archaeologists from studying the history of these objects," since they have been removed from the context of their original sites. Experts will now attempt to establish exactly where each object was excavated.
Gangs of grave-robbers are running increasingly complex and technologically advanced operations in southern Italy and authorities are struggling to clamp down on the practice.
"What is clear," Tomay said, "is that these predators are real professionals."
When Emperor Hadrian visited Alexandria,
the poet Pancrates presented him
with a beautiful lotus flower.
Awestruck by the magnificent rosy-red petals,
Hadrian agreed to name the flower
after his beloved Antinous.
Drawings by Uendi
Beautiful CG Art by Antonyus Subia
Music by Kevin MacLeod
INCAN children who were sacrificed 500 years ago were regularly given drugs and alcohol in their final months to make them more compliant in the ritual that ultimately killed them, new research suggests.
Archaeologists analyzed hair samples from the frozen mummies of the three children, who were discovered in 1999, entombed within a shrine near the 22,100-foot (6,739 meters) summit of the Argentinian volcano Llullaillaco.
The samples revealed that all three children consistently consumed coca leaves (from which cocaine is derived) and alcoholic beverages. But the oldest child, the famed "Maiden," ingested markedly more of the substances.
Coca was a highly controlled substance during the height of the Inca Empire, when the children were sacrificed.
The evidence, combined with other archaeological and radiological data, suggests that the Maiden was treated very differently from the other two children, Llullaillaco Boy and Lightning Girl (so named by researchers because the mummy appears to have been struck by lightning).
After being selected for the deadly rite, the Maiden likely underwent a type of status change, becoming an important figure to the empire; the other two children may have served as her attendants.
"[The Maiden] became somebody other than who she was before," said study lead author Andrew Wilson, an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the U.K. "Her sacrifice was seen as an honor."
FORGET skeletons in the closet ... a 10-year-old boy in Germany stumbled upon an Egyptian mummy in the attic of his late grandfather's house.
Little Alexander Kettler was poking around the dusty attic when he noticed some loose boards on a wall panel.
Like a young Indiana Jones, he sensed there might be something behind them ...
And sure enough, he discovered a hidden chamber containing three mysterious wooden crates.
His disbelieving father cautioned against expecting hidden treasure or anythng else the least bit unusual ... until he opened the biggest crate ... and found a life-size mummy in a coffin lined with linen decorated with elaborate hieroglyphs.
"I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened it and saw a genuine mummy, exactly 1.60 meters long (5 ft, 3 in), and the interior of the case artistically worked out in hieroglyphs," says Lutz Wolfgang Kettler, a 53-year-old dentist.
What was in the other two smaller crates?
"A death mask made of earthenware pottery which fits the face of the mummy perfectly ... and then a Canopic jar sort of a vase which was used for preserving the internal organs of the body," he says.
How did these strange crates end up in the northern German hamlet of Diepholz?
"My father, who died 10 years ago, traveled to Egypt in the 1950s. Unfortunately, he never told us much about it ... except that he had to go to the port of Bremerhaven to get something through customs. I'm afraid there aren't any documents on what it was."
The secret died with his father.
"Nobody in the family ever suspected there was a mummy in the attic."
Now Dr. Kettler plans to take it to a friend of his in Berlin who is a forensic specialist.
"I'm going to load it in the back of my Mercedes station wagon and take it to this guy I know in Berlin who is going to X-ray it," he says.
The Egyptians have a long history of selling mummies to foreigners. Every European aristocrat wanted a mummy in their stately home. And "mummy dust" from ground-up mummies was believed to be a curative for a vast array of ailments aimed at prolonging life.
In some cases, genuine ancient mummies have been sold to travelers, and many of the mummies now in museums around the world were bought from mummy vendors in Egypt.
But very often, fake mummies have been foisted onto gullible tourists over the centuries.
Oftentimes the elaborate wrappings conceal animal bones arranged to resemble the form of a human skeleton.
Other times ... and despite Islamic abhorrance of desecrating the dead ... human corpses were hastily eviscerated and haphazardly mummified and sold to foreigners.
Through the centuries, it has been a neat way of disposing of unwanted corpses ... eliminating the corpus delicti without anyone being the wiser. This ploy has been a frequent plot device in countless novels and movies.
So it will be interesting to see what those mummy wrappings reveal ....
EXCITING
news for fans of Steven Saylor, gay author of the best-selling epic
"ROMA" ... he has finished his next novel ... a further adventure of
Gordianus the Finder.
"RAIDERS OF THE NILE" is available now for pre-ordering prior to publication in February 2014.
The new book comes fresh on the heels of his highly acclaimed
Gordianus prequel "THE SEVEN WONDERS", which traces the exploits of Gordianus the Finder as a young man.
Saylor just posted this on Facebook:
"My new novel is called 'Raiders of the Nile' and directly follows 'The Seven Wonders,'
recounting the further adventures of young Gordianus (and Bethesda) in
Egypt. I took inspiration from the motifs of the ancient Greek novels:
separated lovers, kidnapping, bandits, concealed identity, love tested
and redeemed. This plot hinges on a true incident: the disappearance of
the golden sarcophagus of Alexander the Great..."
HE
is an unkempt creature of the wild, with shaggy hair and goat-like
characteristics –pointed ears, a short tail and dewlaps – and he is
delighted to raise high a cluster of freshly picked grapes.
The Fauno rosso, a magnificent Roman statue commissioned by Hadrian for his villa at Tivoli, is currently on view at the NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART in Kansas City.
Through
September 29, visitors to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art can view the
sculpture in Kirkwood Hall, which has been transformed into a classic
Roman palazzo.
The loan is part of a program of exchanges and
cultural events that was launched in 2011 called "The Dream of Rome," a
collaboration between the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Enel Green Power
and the Knights of Columbus.
Through "The Dream of Rome," some
of Rome's masterpieces will be on display in Washington, D.C., San
Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Kansas City.
The
great Emperor of Rome Hadrian commissioned the Fauno rosso, and it was
most likely sculpted by Aristeas and Papias of Aphrodisias in modern-day
Turkey. Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini gave the sculpture to the
Capitoline Museum in 1746, and the Capitoline is now lending the
sculpture to the Nelson-Atkins.
The Fauno rosso depicts a satyr,
follower of Dionysus, the god of wine. The entire sculpture is of red
marble, rather than the commonly used white marble, and seems to suggest
that the subject is so drunk that his skin has turned into the color of
the grapes.
To his left is a goat that looks up at him and rests one leg on a wicker basket.
The
Fauno rosso's eyes would have been of glass or brilliant stone (the
sockets have been hollowed out to receive them) and would have been
sparkling with life and energy.
ANTIOCH was called the "golden" city because of its wealth and gilded architecture and staruary.
On
August 1st the Religion of Antinous commemorates the entry of Hadrian
and Antinous into Antioch. It was founded by one of the generals of
Alexander the Great, who reportedly had camped on the site and said it
would be a good location for a great city.
Indeed it was, and Antioch rivaled Alexandria as the most important city in the Eastern Empire.
The
emperors preferred Antioch. Julius Caesar visited the city. Tiberius
and others showered favors on Antioch because it was far more
strategically important than Alexandria.
Alexandria was between the desert and the sea. Antioch was at the crossroads of major trading routes and military roads.
Antioch
was a pure Hellenistic city refounded by Augustus in 25 BC as a Roman
colony. Hadrian felt very much at home here in this Hellenistic
atmosphere.
Antioch was to be the base of Hadrian's Imperial
administration until early spring of 130. This prolonged stay was spent
visiting the regions of Syria. Starting with Antioch, the whole
atmosphere of the Imperial Tour began to change. Antioch is a turning
point.
Unlike the cities of Asia Minor, which had opened their
hearts to Hadrian and proclaimed him a living god, the people of Antioch
were cold and critical of Hadrian's policies.
The large Jewish
population resisted the policies of Hellenization, which Hadrian
promoted. They would not cooperate with the new religious order of
unity, and condemned the whole effort as blasphemous.
The
Christians were equally seditious, and defiant. They were disgusted by
the presence of Antinous by the side of the Emperor, and called the
whole affair an abomination.
Antioch
was the center of Christianity in the ancient Roman world. It had been
the base from which Paul the Apostle operated, and was considered to be
his seat.
It was from Antioch
that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans that is now part of the Bible,
which specifically forbids and condemns homosexuality, and thereby
dictates the position of the Christian religion on same-sex love (a
position never taken by Jesus).
Flamen Antonyus Subia explains the significance of the visit to Antioch:
"Antioch
represents the enemies of homosexuality as embodied by the Apostle
Paul. It was here that Hadrian and Antinous first discovered that their
love was considered to be unholy, a reality that was to over cloud the
religion of Antinous and of same-sex love for centuries to come.
"We
observe that when Antinous entered Antioch, the darkness of hatred for
homosexuality was born. Our enemies in the Christian Church took
inspiration from the beauty of Antinous and used his deification as a
weapon for our destruction. It was in Antioch that homosexuality was
crucified.
"We lament the misery brought
against our kind, and we remember those countless souls who were
brutalized and murdered for our cause, and for our form of Love. Through
Antinous, upon whom the hatred of Antioch fell, we pray for salvation
as we enter the second year of the Sacred Peregrination. "
Antioch
today is a pile of ruins ... periodic earthquakes have taken their toll
on the Roman forum and the beautiful marble palace where Hadrian and
Antinous resided in August of the year 129. The tremors of their tour of
the Eastern Empire sent shock waves which reverberate to this very day.
