IS this the face of Antinous? Art historian Peter C. Marinescu has created this reconstruction of his face in life based on the dimensions of his features ... from a famous marble head of Antinous found at Hadrian's Villa. He writes: FaceGen Modeller, a program that recreates realistic animatable 3D portraits, allowed me to investigate a series of renowned Antinous busts, including one portrait found in Villa Adriana at Tivoli, as photographed by Marie-Lan Nguyen in 2006. Now hosted in Palazzo Massimo alle Terme as MC1192, this is a particular work considering the emotion expressed in the mimics and the coming of mature age. These vivid features suggest that it might have been an experiment of a distinguished late contemporary work intimately directed near the date of the young lad’s death. The results noticed following the auto-correction of facial bones structure has proved an extremely styilized eyebrow shaping. The living model must have been bearing a spiritual stance of depth, gazing a subtle sensual attitude, while the artist decided to confront this appearance with a more tense but less provoking figure. Physical anthropology suggests furthermore that hair was dark, maybe with brown reflections (in the 19th Century, he was erroneously seen by scholars as blonde). The fact he was perceived as having huge eyes is because he might have had light brown eyes. This project’s aim was underlining to what extent giving skin tones to a realistic work of art that has been adjusted to meet real life physiognomy, can recreate the ideal of a past beauty image. Did wealth and caress received at the imperial court contribute to Antinous' state of arête (the great potential attributed to heroes), leading the way to deification of the soul? READ THE FULL REPORT HERE: POSSIBLE FACE OF ANTINOUS More photos below:
IS this the face of Antinous? An artist called Jude Maris has created this reconstruction of his face in life based on the dimensions of his features ... from the many statues and busts of Antinous. The artist explains: The one thing more disastrous than having next to no images of an individual to study is having DOZENS to choose from, each slightly different from the other. Such was the case for Antinous. While there was a general "look" to most of his statues and busts, the details of eye and nose and chin shape varied widely. One of the main reasons this reconstruction changes so drastically from the original bust is the fact that I was referencing several different sculptures from different angles and different sculptors and was picking and mixing the matching features to place on the reconstruction. It has taken the better part of two months arguing with all these different busts trying to get a consensus on the result, which even at its best is still just a guess. The main agreements of features seemed to rest in a large straight nose, long flat brows, deep set eyes, full lips, a modest chin, rounded cheeks, and a full head of curly hair. The rest is speculation. It has been agreed that Antinous was likely shown in the best possible light in a way that was most pleasing to Hadrian's idealized memory of him. When hair or eye color is unclear, the best option is to go for what was most likely to be common based on geneaology and geography. So, brown hair and eyes was in the middle between the extremes of black or blonde, though Antinous's ancestry suggested that his hair might have been darker than shown here. My foremost concern is and always will be the shape of the face, which is not affected by details of color. Here is the video reconstruction:
THE 16th of June is the Egyptian "Night of the Teardrop" festival. On this night, when the moon rises into the sky, Isis sheds one blessed and mournful tear for her beloved, Osiris, as the breeze from her wings fans the breath of life into him ... so that he is reborn to eternal life. That precious tear is then collected by intersex Nile inundation deity HAPI, signalling the start of the build up to the inundation in July. Similarly, Hadrian wept for Antinous after he died in the Nile in late 130 AD, and subsequently proclaimed Antinous a god. Divine Antinous called upon HAPI to bring forth a bountiful flood in the summer of 131 AD to end a famine. It was the first miracle of Antinous! The mystery teaching: Even in tears of grief, the divine miracle of life comes forth.
PRIESTS of Antinous wish all gay dads a very Happy Father's Day. Priest MICHAELUS ISOM, who is a gay father himself, says: "We honor Hadrian on Father's Day. "He is the Father of the Empire, so to speak "And a Father figure to Antinous." Art by FELIX D'EON.
THE 15th of June is the Egyptian festival when Ma'at unites as one with all the deities of the heavens. This is when all the gods take on the principle of Ma'at ... including Antinous as the final god of Egypt and ultimate Classical deity. Ma'at is often thought of as representing justice, but her true function is balance. If something has been pushed off kilter, then Ma'at embodies the power that restores equilibrium. This means that she can be appealed to if you are the victim of an injustice, and she will ensure that harmony is restored. However be very sure that you are the victim, because Ma'at is impartial, and will restore balance whoever has been at fault - this is the reason that justice is often shown as blindfolded. 15 de junho é o festival egípcio quando Ma'at une como um com todas as divindades do céu . Isto é, quando todos os deuses assumir o princípio da Ma'at ... incluindo Antinous como o deus final do Egipto e deidade clássica final.. Ma'at é muitas vezes considerado como representando a justiça , mas a sua verdadeira função é o equilíbrio. Se algo está desequilibrado , então Ma'at encarna o poder que restaura o equilíbrio . Isto significa que você pode chamá-la , se você for vítima de uma injustiça , e ela irá garantir que a harmonia é restaurada. No entanto, ser muito certo de que você é vítima , porque Ma'at é imparcial , e irá restaurar o equilíbrio quem foi a culpa - esta é a razão que a justiça é muitas vezes apresentada como com os olhos vendados . 15 de de junio es la fiesta egipcia Maat cuando se une como uno con todos los dioses de los cielos . Esto es cuando todos los dioses toman en el principio de Maat ... incluyendo Antinoo como el dios definitiva de Egipto y la deidad clásica final. Maat se piensa a menudo como la representación de la justicia , pero su verdadera función es el equilibrio. Si algo no es equilibrada , a continuación, Maat encarna el poder que restaura el equilibrio . Esto significa que puede llamar a ella si usted ha sido víctima de una injusticia , y ella se asegurará de que se restablece la armonía . Sin embargo estar muy seguro de que usted es la víctima , ya que Maat es imparcial , y restaurará el equilibrio el que ha sido el culpable - esta es la razón de que la justicia se muestra a menudo como los ojos vendados .
THEY say all roads lead to Rome, but they also lead outward to a number of intriguing places. There’s Antinoopolis in Egypt, Londinium in what we now know as England, and … should funding from the mighty Emperor Hadrian arrive … the yet-built Panticapaeum station along the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea. If the Roman Empire had managed build a continents-spanning transit system for its empire, it might have looked like this.
Or so says this wonderfully thought-out fantasy transit map from Sasha Trubetskoy, showing the major thoroughfares of the Roman Empire circa 125 A.D. as dozens of stops along multicolored subway lines.
Trubetskoy started poking into the idea after noticing there was a dearth of good maps of Rome’s old road network, let alone train-themed ones. So he decided to go for it, pouring about 50 hours of research and design work into his sprawling “Roman Roads.”
“I enjoy reading about history, though I’m not a huge classics buff,” says Trubetskoy, a 20-year-old statistics major at the University of Chicago.
“But there’s something alluring about Rome’s ability to carve out such a huge and advanced empire, with a legacy that lasts today.”
Trubetskoy’s primary points of historical reference were the Peutinger Table, sort of a gas-station highway map of Rome dating from ancient times, and the Antonine Itinerary, an atlas of thousands of places in the empire with estimated distances calculated among them. He also used Stanford University’s ORBIS tool and the Pelagios Project from Sweden’s Johan Åhlfeldt, which he describes as “kind of like Google Maps for Ancient Rome.”
Trubetskoy didn’t try to represent every single road and town in the empire, going instead for major routes and large-population cities to mark some “stations.”
In certain cases he mapped routes with real titles … the famous Via Appia, for example, the first major road in Rome.
When the historical name didn’t exist or was unknown, he chose creative nomenclatures like the Via Claudia for a road built under Emperor Claudius and the Via Sucinaria (or the Amber Road) to mark an old trade route running from Italy to northern Europe. “I thought of myself as a Roman government official designing a map that people would actually be using … how do I make it effortless to look at?” he says. “I also had to make sure things were evenly spaced, colors were distinct, and the labels were unambiguous. I started from scratch at least five times before I arrived at the current design.”
ON JUNE 13ththe Religion of Antinous commemorates the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who died on this date in 1886 under mysterious circumstances in an Alpine lake. As with Antinous, his death is shrouded in myth and legend and it will never be known whether he drowned accidentally or whether he was assassinated.
Born August 25, 1845, Ludwig was only 18 when he ascended to the throne of Bavaria in 1864. He was the last truly sovereign monarch of that Alpine nation, which was engulfed by Prussia during his reign and very much against his wishes.
While the king of Prussia was planning a war against France, and various other crowned heads of Europe were scheming and conniving to commit war and bloodshed, "Mad" King Ludwig (as he was called) devoted the entire resources of his land to the performing and visual arts, commissioning operas by Richard Wagner and building the most astounding fairy-tale castles and palaces.
In the build-up to the Franco-German war, as troops were marching off to battle, Ludwig did not bother to see off his military forces. Instead, he went off on a jaunt to Switzerland to confer with Wagner on plans for a Wagnerian opera house in Munich. The opera house was never built, due to opposition from local critics. Instead, it was built at the Bavarian town of Bayreuth to the specifications of the composer, paid for by Ludwig personally.
Shockingly, in a staunchly Roman Catholic land, Ludwig never married and instead surrounded himself with handsome manservants, artists and architects.
Indeed, Ludwig is best known as a closeted gay man whose legacy is intertwined with the history of art and architecture, as he commissioned the construction of several extravagant fantasy castles (the most famous being Neuschwanstein below) and was a devoted patron of Wagner, who might never have finished his "Ring" cycle without Ludwig's ostentatiously generous support.
In an age of fiercely militaristic nationalism, Ludwig came under intense pressures from his advisers to abandon his artistic projects and to devote himself to empire-building. Feeling harassed and irritated by his ministers, he considered dismissing the entire cabinet and replacing them with fresh faces. The cabinet decided to act first.
Seeking a cause to depose Ludwig by constitutional means, the rebelling ministers decided on the rationale that he was mentally ill, and unable to rule.
Medical psychiatry was in its infancy, and a panel of "experts" assembled mostly anecdotal evidence of the king's "madness" to satisfy the ministers.
The list of "mad" behavior included his extreme shyness, his distaste for politics and state affairs, his complex and expensive flights of fancy (including moonlit picnics at which his young groomsmen were said to strip naked and dance), conversations with imaginary persons, sloppy and childish table manners and sending servants on lengthy and expensive expeditions to research architectural details in foreign lands. He was deposed on June 9, 1886, and placed under house arrest at a castle on the shores of Lake Starnberg south of Munich where he was under the constant watchful eye of a psychiatrist.
On June 13, around 6:00 pm, Ludwig asked the psychiatrist to accompany him on a walk along the shore of Lake Starnberg. The doctor agreed, and told the guards not to follow them. The two men never returned. At 11:30 that night, searchers found both the king and his doctor dead, floating in the shallow water near the shore.
Ludwig was known to be a strong swimmer, the water was less than waist-deep where his body was found, and the official autopsy report indicated that no water was found in his lungs. Nonetheless, the official death certificate listed suicide by drowning. The death of the doctor was never explained. Most other monarchs of his era have been forgotten, or else their names have been cursed by succeeding generations for laying the groundwork for the First World War. But Ludwig was only interested in laying the groundwork for grand architecture and enduring cultural masterpieces. His legacy of art and architecture ... and homoerotic romance ... continues to inspire and to enchant.
Now hosted in Palazzo Massimo alle Terme as MC1192, this is a particular work considering the emotion expressed in the mimics and the coming of mature age. 
