All 📸 photos by me. | Telling history through art. Different angles of ancient & some medieval ruins & pieces. | Creator of The Cobra Effect Podcast.
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1/ By the 1st century AD, approx. 800k inhabitants lived in the "Eternal City." The imperial grain dole went to 200k of them every month. This was a logistical nightmare for the port city of Ostia.
The solution? The Harbour of Claudius.
A feast to the eyes, 🧵 of 📸 below!
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Here we have a chunky bronze drachm from Ptolemaic Egypt. Minted in Alexandria under Ptolemy IV Philopator (221 – 204 BC), this coin has 42 millimeters of diameter (~ 1.6 inches) and weighs around 73 grams. The obverse is an excellent example of religious syncretism, where the head of Zeus-Ammon looks to the right. It shows the classical image of a bearded Zeus wearing a tainia. A tainia was a Greek headband (I circled it in red in the last pic). Over the headband, the ram’s horns of the Egyptian god Ammon are visible (I circled it in yellow in the last pic as well). The reverse shows an eagle standing on a thunderbolt with a filleted cornucopia in the left field. A dotted border can be observed on both sides of the coin. The legend reads ΠTOΛEMAIOY BAΣIΛEΩΣ, which translates to “King Ptolemy.” The coin uses the Greek word Basileus, which means Pharaoh in the context of Egypt.
So, next time you eat an Oreo, think about the Ptolemaic Egypt of more than two thousand years ago and their chunky coins.
📸 Coin photo with the Oreo by me.
This piece was also made in ancient Egypt and is associated with Alexander the Great.
An excellent example of religious syncretism, this head of Zeus-Ammon amalgamates the classical Greek bearded Zeus with the ram’s horns of the Egyptian Ammon.
After Alexander took Egypt from the Persians, he was welcomed as a liberator and set out with a group of his closest men for the Oracle of Siwa in 331 BC. The oracle was in the oasis of Siwa, deep in the Libyan Desert, about 360 miles west of modern Cairo. According to Ptolemy, snakes led them, while according to Aristobulus, it was crows. Once there, Alexander had a private conversation with Zeus-Ammon.
The oracle told him of his destiny as world conqueror and who his true father was. Alexander was not the son of Philip II of Macedon, a mortal man. He was the son of Zeus-Ammon himself! Alexander's claim of the world was divine in origin.
Only 8 years later, Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, but the cult of Zeus-Ammon survived for centuries.
This piece dates to Imperial Rome, c. AD 120 – 160, and was found at the mouth of the Nile River.
📸 By me at the MET.
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Visuals of the Ancients retweeted
This ivory male head, on display at the Archaeological Museum of Mycenae, was excavated from the "Room with the Fresco" in the Cult Center of Mycenae and dates to the Late Helladic III B period (roughly 1250–1180 BC). It measures about 2.67 in (6.8 cm) tall and features wide inlaid or carved eyes, a prominent nose, and stylized hair beneath a headband.
This piece was carved from the solid central portion of an elephant tusk, a luxury material that, along with hippopotamus ivory, Mycenaeans imported into mainland Greece through trade networks reaching Egypt and the Levant.
📸 by me.
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Folks, if you are on Instagram, I'd really appreciate it if you stop by visualsoftheancients and drop a follow! Yours truly is trying to get to 10k 🤝🫡
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Visuals of the Ancients retweeted
The Empire that Refused to Die
For thousand of year after the fall of the West, Roman Empire remained the beacon of civilization
Light in the darkness. And when the candle finally went dim, it sparkled the Rennaisance, ushering Europe (and the world) into the early modern age.
Simon Kuestenmacher
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There's a life-sized replica of a Brachiosaurus in the Chicago O’Hare International Airport!
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Visuals of the Ancients retweeted
Saint Albans Cathedral
~Pop-up card~
Which castle or cathedral would you like to see in 3D card next?
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1/2 Serapis, one of the most interesting deities of the Graeco-Roman-Egyptian pantheon. Enthroned here, he is accompanied by the hellhound Cerberus and wears a modium/kalathos on his head.
Ptolemy I Soter promoted his cult after succeeding Alexander the Great as pharaoh.
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2/2 Over the following centuries, his cult extended from the Mediterranean to the Kushan Empire in modern India, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
This 3rd-century AD marble statue was from the temple of Serapis in the Italian city of Puteoli (Pozzuoli).
📸 by me. National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
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In Late Antiquity the Roman Empire sought mercenaries far and wide.
Centuries before English exiles joined the famed Varangian Guard, there were surprising links between the Anglo-Saxons and the Roman Empire.
[Thread]🧵
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Well... what do I know. I grew up watching the History Channel and Nat Geo documentaries about the Parthenon's entasis. 🤣
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A broken cannon sits beside the Parthenon, with a cannonball jammed in its barrel, likely from the Acropolis sieges during the Greek War of Independence against the Ottomans in the 1820s, or possibly from the earlier 1687 Venetian siege. There's no sign nearby.
📸 by me.
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Here's a view of the Theater of Marcellus from the Capitoline Hill/Museums. 📸 by me.
It's one of the most fascinating buildings in Rome. The Theater of Marcellus testifies to the continuity of life in the "eternal city."
In a short description of an early photo from 1858, the MET summarizes its history: "Begun by Julius Caesar and completed about 12 BC by Augustus, despoiled in the 4th century, fortified in the 11th (13th according to other sources), and converted into a palace in the 16th, the theater housed apartments and the shops of artisans by the mid-19th century."
Imagine living right there!
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One Empire, and yet, two very different styles. These pieces capture the Early and Late Roman Empires like no other.
See below for what the details of the Augusto di Prima Porta and the Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs reveal!
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Before the day ends: today in AD 14, Gaius Octavius died. What a better way to talk about Augustus, Rome's first Emperor, than to describe the Augusto di Prima Porta! 📸 by me.
Currently on display at the Vatican Museums, the 7 ft. (2.08 m.) tall statue of Augusto di Prima Porta is perhaps the most representative piece of Imperial Rome. Book covers, documentaries, trinkets… everywhere we look into Roman history, this figure is there, as omnipresent as imperial propaganda was 2,000 years ago.
To talk a bit about Roman imperial propaganda, well, let me bring you a close-up of the cuirass of the Augusto di Prima Porta itself. In the center, two figures tell us a story.
The man on the right is a Parthian, and we know this because of his tunic and trousers. He may be the Parthian king Phraates IV returning an Aquila standard that the Roman general Crassus lost. The Aquila standard, with an eagle on top, was sacred to the Roman legions. In 53 BC, Crassus lost the battle of Carrhae to the Parthians and, with it, his life. But times were different now; at least, that is what this statue of Augustus tells us. The man on the left is a high-ranking Roman army officer, as indicated by his helmet, cuirass, and military boots. This man may be Tiberius, Augustus’ stepson, sent to negotiate with the Parthians the return of the standards lost by Crassus decades before.
Rome was compensated through a show of strength and diplomacy, and its pride was restored. This is Roman imperial propaganda at its finest.
I hope you enjoyed this post. If so, please Share and Follow!
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If you read this discovery on the news, @antmoose just posted an amazing thread about it. 100% worth reading.
For #MosaicMonday, a colossal discovery. This is the Great #Mosaic, which I visited last Tuesday beneath the #BathsofTrajan in #Rome. Though fragmentary, this wall mosaic almost defies comprehension due to its quality and vastness. Let's have a look.🧵
ALT HALL OF THE GREAT MOSAIC, 64-98 CE. MUSEO DELLE TERME DI TRAIANO A steep downward perspective into a subterranean space beneath heavy brick vaulting. A vast vertical wall dominates the centre, covered in the remains of a monumental mosaic. This hall measures 10 by 15 metres and is 12 metres tall. The ground level has not yet been excavated, and the lower three metres, still buried, were originally faced with marble slabs. At the centre of the long wall, part of a rectangular niche is visible, which must once have contained a statue. It is far too large to be part of a private domus and is built on lands expropriated by Nero for the Domus Aurea, whose main Oppian pavilion is nearby. The gigantic size and high quality of the surviving mosaic suggest an imperial commission, but of what? And was it a Neronian building or a Flavian or Domitianic one? At the very bottom right edge, a modern blue metal railing provides a sense of the staggering scale.
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