Further Volumes

AA 2006/1
AA 2005/2
AA 2005/1
AA 2004/2
AA 2004/1
AA 2003/2
AA 2003/1
AA 2002/2
AA 2002/1

Content

For further information on this publication, please look here.

German version

Volker Michael Strocka
A Classical Household Altar    >>

Anemone Zschätzsch
New Mosaics at Grumentum    >>

Klaus Fittschen
The Appearance of Iris and Pupil Engraving on Roman Bronze Portraits and its Usefulness for Dating Purposes    >>

Felix Pirson
Pergamon – The New Research Programme and the Work in the 2005 Campaign    >>

Gerhard Hiesel – Volker Michael Strocka
The Library of Nysa on the Meander. Preliminary Report of the Campaigns of 2002–2006   >>

Archaeological Society at Berlin 2005

Jutta Stroszeck
Laconian Red-figure Pottery from the Lacedaimon Graves in the Kerameikos of Athens (403 B.C.)    >>

Annual Report 2005 of the German Archaeological Institute

Staff and Committees 2005 of the German Archaeological Institute

Scholarships of the German Archaeological Institute

Information for Authors

Volker Michael Strocka, A Classical House Altar
A marble pillar with reliefs on three sides, Berlin Sk 942, has recently been interpreted by A. Scholl as part of an arm-rail of a throne of a colossal cult-statue, whereas it is identified in this article as an altar in a private house of late 5th cent. B.C. There are parallels in Classical and Hellenistic times regarding measurements and workmanship. The author agrees with former estimations that the reliefs are Attic in style and date to the end of the 5th cent. B.C. The iconographic determination of the figures as Aphrodite Urania – Zeus Herkeios or Teleios and Hera Teleia accords perfectly with the private cult of a Classical oikos.

Keywords: relief, Greek • Classical • house altar • matrimonial laws of 451 B.C. • household gods   ▲

Anemone Zschätzsch, New Mosaics at Grumentum
The mosaics in Grumentum found in the thermal baths and in one of the houses beneath show some interesting unusual characteristics. The Domus dell’emblema con torri is decorated with a signinum floor in room 36 and a black and white mosaic in room 30. The latter has a geometric motif, which is called »bichrome reversible row of crenellated towers« (Balmelle 1985, 150). Various other mosaics with the same ornamental motif are known from all over the Mediterranean region, especially Italy. Comparison demonstrates the uniqueness of this newly-found mosaic: only this motif is used without other ornaments. The fact that the row of towers was required to turn the corner produced different solutions at different times. The development starts with free or ornamentally-shaped corners from the end of the 3rd cent. B.C. to the 2nd/1st cent. B.C. Thereafter there is the solution with a continual sequence of towers and crenellation across the corner from the end of 2nd cent. B.C. to the end of the Republican era. Corners showing a diagonal tower appear in the 1st cent. A.D.; thereafter the style of naturalistic fortification walls begins. Taking all this into consideration, this mosaic can be dated to the early 1st cent. B.C. The floors in the thermal baths date from a later period, presumably the 2th/3rd cent. B.C. Only fragments are preserved in rooms 4, 6, 12 and 50. Two well known and long-used patterns decorate the tepidarium II (room 5) and room 43: the first with a pattern of tangent white ellipses on a black ground, forming alternately large and small concave squares and the second with a pattern of squares of four rectangles, forming a central square. The Great Hall (room 45) has a complicated pattern of »irregular oblong hexagons intersecting and adjacent on the longer sides, forming squares, hexagons and oblong hexagons« (Balmelle 264). The mosaic in the frigidarium (room 48) is in excellent condition and unique in its motif. It shows four giants in the corners holding the large emblema with Scylla in the centre surrounded by sea animals. This composition calls to mind a painting of Androkydes mentioned by Athenaios and Plutarch.

Keywords: Grumentum • mosaics, Roman • patterns, geometric • Skylla • Gigants ▲

Klaus Fittschen, The Appearance of Iris and Pupil Engraving on Roman Bronze Portraits and its Usefulness for Dating Purposes
It is demonstrated that the engraving of iris and pupil on cast eyeballs in Roman bronze portraits was widespread even before the age of Hadrian, and that therefore Lahusen & Formigli’s opinion to the contrary is not justified. This is made particularly clear by certain portraits from the Vesuvian towns whose admissibility the two authors have denied without adducing reasons. Revision of their thesis allows the assumption that the ›testa Lamberti‹ originated in the pre-Hadrian period, presumably in the 1st cent. B.C.

Keywords: Bronze portraits • eye engraving • eye drilling • metal analysis ▲

Felix Pirson, Pergamon – The New Research Programme and the Work in the 2005 Campaign
The retirement of Wolfgang Radt, who directed the excavations for three decades, marks the end of an era in the exploration of Pergamon, an era that was concerned particularly with city excavation at the south slope of the Acropolis hill. The new exploration programme will focus more intensively again on the totality of the Hellenistic city, the settlement of the suburban area and the relationship between the metropolis and the surrounding area. It will include the exploration of the poleis Atarneus and Elaia. Important preliminary work for the programme was carried out in 2005 with the setting up of both a geo-information system and a new coordinate system. Geophysical surveys and soundings at the foot of the south-east slope of the Acropolis now permit new hypotheses about the street system of the Hellenistic city. Excavations in the Upper Gymnasium have localised the original eastern boundary of the site.

Keywords: Turkey • Pergamon • Hellenism • urban development • gymnasia ▲

Gerhard Hiesel – Volker Michael Strocka, The Library of Nysa on the Meander. Preliminary Report of the Campaigns 2002–2006
Invited by the director of the Nysa excavations, Prof. Dr. Vedat Idil (Ankara), and sponsored by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft from 2002 to 2006, a working group of the Archaeological Institute of the University of Freiburg i. Br. directed by the authors excavated a ruin in Nysa on the Meander which was long supposed to be a library. The building, about 25 m long and 14 m wide, is to be dated around 130 A.D. because of its architectural ornaments. Typologically it corresponds to other Roman Imperial libraries, but it seems to be an archive, too, because of numerous secondary rooms. Finally it may have functioned as a court given the presence of an exedra like a tribunal. A magnificent marble sarcophagus, discovered in situ under the portico and datable to the same time as the building, points to private sponsorship. During the late 4th or early 5th centuries the building was restored and changed internally apparently without loosing its former function. We cannot yet date the final destruction, presumably by an earthquake. In the 10th century A.D. twelve tombs were placed amid the debris of the portico.

Keywords: Nysa on the Meander • library • archive • law  ▲

Jutta Stroszeck, Laconian Red-figure Pottery from the Lacedaimon Graves in the Kerameikos of Athens (403 B.C.)
In May 403 B.C. and soon afterwards, a total of 23 Spartan soldiers were laid to rest in the Kerameikos after having fallen on the side of the Athenian Tyrants in the war against the democrats under Thrasybulus. The conveyance of the dead to the Kerameikos and their burial must have occurred immediately after the battle. As confederates of the Athenians they were entitled to a state burial in the Kerameikos. This is not only the sole grave of Spartan war dead to be found to date, it is also one of the few Spartan graves that are known from the classical period. A short time after the first graves of Laconian dead were erected, more were added, the front walls of the respective tombs being joined together. The burials are revealing about Spartan burial customs. The dead men are buried in pit graves, ordered in groups. The separate burial of a few (7–9) or of single (14–17. 24) soldiers is no doubt to be understood as a distinction. The men were bound tightly in cloth, probably their cloaks; their heads were laid on pillows set upon a slab of rubble stone. Enemy weapons, or at least pieces of them, were left in the soldiers’ bodies. Once the tomb had been completed, a sacrifice was offered to the deceased at the grave. The pottery from the sacrifice has clear connections with Sparta on account of its forms (miniature vessels, kantharoi, kraters) and its decoration. The connections are obvious in the case of the fragments of four red-figure vases of Laconian manufacture. At the beginning of the 4th cent. B.C. an extended area was located in front of the Dipylon and is mentioned as the »graves of the Lacedaimons« in the second speech of Lysias (II 63).

Keywords: Kerameikos • state burial • Spartans • Laconian red-figure pottery • Thirty Tyrants court • sarcophagus ▲