Talks by BABESCH Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2023
The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the sixteenth annual Byvanck Lecture in collaborati... more The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the sixteenth annual Byvanck Lecture in collaboration with the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, by dr. Patrick Michel on April 18 2023. Please visit our website www.babesch.org for more information about the Byvanck Lecture and other activities of the BABESCH foundation. Abstract: The destruction of Palmyra’s Temple of Baalshamin by ISIL/Da’ish in 2015 crystallised the sense of loss of memory for those who had fled the combat zones during the Syrian Civil War. The main challenge today is how to document both the monument itself and its destruction. The Collart-Palmyre Project at the University of Lausanne digitised photos, sketchbooks and notebooks from the archive of archaeologist Paul Collart (1902–1981) and made them accessible to researchers and Syrian refugees via an open access database and a 3D reconstruction of the temple. A Virtual Reality experience created by ICONEM and Ubisoft, and partnerships with UNDP Syria and NGOs allow displaced Syrian refugees to view 3D models of the temple. The project produced Arabic learning tools and a booklet on the history of Palmyra, with emphasis on its multicultural aspects in antiquity, and aims to explore how these digital assets provide a scaffold for the memories of migrants.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, Dec 7, 2021
The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the fifteenth annual Byvanck Lecture in collaborati... more The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the fifteenth annual Byvanck Lecture in collaboration with the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, by dr. Tamar Hodos on December 7 2021. Please visit our website www.babesch.org for more information about the Byvanck Lecture and other activities of the BABESCH foundation.
Abstract:
Decorated ostrich eggs were traded as luxury items from the Middle East to the western Mediterranean during the second and first millennia BCE. The eggs were engraved, painted, and occasionally embellished with ivory, precious metals and faience fittings. While archaeologists note their presence as unusual vessels in funerary and dedicatory contexts, little is known about how or from where they were sourced, decorated and traded. Researchers at Bristol University, Durham University, and the British Museum have established techniques to identify where the eggs originated and how they were decorated. This talk shares the results of this study, revealing the complexity of the production, trade, and economic and social values of luxury organic items between competing cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world.
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2020
The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the fourteenth annual Byvanck Lecture in collaborat... more The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the fourteenth annual Byvanck Lecture in collaboration with the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, by prof. Caroline Vout on December 1 2020. Please visit our website www.babesch.org for more information about the Byvanck Lecture and other activities of the BABESCH foundation.
Abstract:
When we think of ‘classical art’, we think of nudity, naturalism, shiny white marble. But neither ‘classical art’, nor the beauty, purity and virtue that we associate with it, are obvious. Rather, they have accrued over time. This lecture focuses on what ‘classical art’ omits, on unexceptional but important sculptures that challenge our vocabularies and ask for new frameworks. In privileging sculpture, we are again being selective. But it is sculpture that has dictated our artistic engagement with the Greeks and Romans, and sculpture that is, therefore, best placed to usher in a new chapter. This is not only about extending Greek and Roman sculpture’s remit to include the ‘ugly’, ‘aniconic’, ‘demotic’, colour; it is about reassessing its interactions with ‘foreign’ traditions (the Egyptian, Eastern, Indian etc). Where does ‘classical art’ sit between the local and global, and in the midst of the archaeological? Does ‘classical art’ have a future?
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2019
The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the thirteenth annual Byvanck Lecture
by Dipl. Ing... more The board of the BABESCH Foundation presented the thirteenth annual Byvanck Lecture
by Dipl. Ing. Gilbert Wiplinger
Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Vienna
“De aquaeductu urbis Ephesi - Water for Roman Ephesus”
On Tuesday November 26th 2019
in the Temple Hall of the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden
Dr. Gert Jan van Wijngaarden (University of Amsterdam) moderated the evening.
A printed version of this year's Byvanck Lecture can be obtained for free (excl. delivery costs), by sending an e-mail to byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
“De aquaeductu urbis Ephesi - Water for Roman Ephesus”
With the 2004 conference Cura aquarum in Ephesus, the ongoing series of international congresses on the history of water management and hydraulic engineering in the Mediterranean Region was continued with the aim of placing the newly started aqueduct research in the metropole of the Roman province Asiae on an international discussion platform. This and three other symposia were published in the BABESCH Supplements series and the interdisciplinary research project at the Değirmendere aqueduct at Ephesus was advanced in parallel.
The development of the city of Ephesus is reflected in its water supply. When Lysimachus built the city on a new site at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, a simple clay pipe line from a nearby spring was sufficient. It was not until the city’s heyday in the first quarter of the 2nd century AD that channels were built under Trajan and Hadrian in order to supply large quantities of water from springs further away to the rapidly growing population with their luxurious baths, magnificent fountains and well equipped houses.
The exploration of the 36.5 km long Değirmendere aqueduct was a special challenge. Water was transported over 24 bridges and through four tunnels. The first channel was constructed in Hadrian times and allowed to transport a water volume of 21,000 m3 per day. After 30-35 years of operation, the small channel was torn apart by 3 m during an earthquake. This necessitated the construction of a new aqueduct at the end of the Antonine period. This aqueduct was given a larger cross-section and thus 50,000 m3 per day could be transported into the city. During its operating time up to the third quarter of the 4th century AD, many repairs were necessary, especially on the steep slopes and in the extremely flat channel. On the one hand, the slope pressure was absorbed by supporting buttress pillars attached to the channel, and on the other hand, many bypasses were necessary to avoid overflows. The results of this new research are manifold and fascinating.
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2018
A printed version of this year's Byvanck Lecture can be obtained for free (excl. delivery costs),... more A printed version of this year's Byvanck Lecture can be obtained for free (excl. delivery costs), by sending an e-mail to byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s birth and death years, 1717 and 1768, were commemorated in 2017 and 2018 with a series of exhibitions, congresses, book publications, and lectures. Winckelmann is generally seen as the founder of modern archaeology thanks to his groundbreaking works on the history of Greco-Roman art. He tried to define the various ‘arts’ of Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans as cultural phenomena in order to explain the supremacy of Greek civilization. To achieve this ‘Lehrgebäude’ he used knowledge from history, anthropology, medicine, geography, climate and, by doing so, expanded the narrow scope of antiquarian studies. The high level of Greek art made it the only valuable example for artists. Although most of his ideas became obsolete after some decades, scholars have always acknowledged the importance of his work and have hotly debated Winckelmann’s publications.
What is more, Winckelmann has constantly fascinated a large audience with his personality. Rising from bitter poverty in Stendal (Prussia) to the status of a modest scholar in the Kingdom of Saxony around 1750, he had the chance to go to Rome in 1755. There he would work as a librarian of cardinals, advisor for the purchase of antiquities of cardinal Albani, and antiquities inspector of the pope. He was murdered in Trieste in 1768. Letters and testimonies account for vivid details about his life.
Thanks to his superb language, Winckelmann’s impact goes as far as literature. Next to his work as an archaeologist, he has been studied and recorded up to now as a persona and as an artist and poet. This talk focuses on his impact on scholarship, literature, and reception studies and on how his work has been perceived in various countries, and hopes to demonstrate why Winckelmann continues to fascinate us.
Tuesday 4 December 2018
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2017
Punta Secca (in Ragusa province) on the south coast of Sicily is a late Roman and early Byzantine... more Punta Secca (in Ragusa province) on the south coast of Sicily is a late Roman and early Byzantine village, partly excavated in the 1960s and 1970s and identified, not altogether convincingly, as the Kaukana of the ancient sources, where Belisarius set sail for the conquest of Africa in 533 AD. This lecture concerns a more recent excavation, which focused on one building, a house, and examined in detail its building phases and the commercial contacts that its inhabitants enjoyed with other parts of
Sicily – and indeed with the wider Mediterranean world. Finds include one of the earliest examples in Europe of a thimble, and what is arguably the earliest depiction anywhere of a backgammon board. The biggest surprise was the discovery of a substantial, built tomb placed in what was probably the yard of the house in the second quarter of the seventh century AD, and of evidence for associated feasting in honour of the deceased. Who was inside the tomb, and why did that person deserve this level of respect? What evidence was there for feasts, and what did they eat? And what was the tomb doing here, in a domestic setting, rather than in the village cemetery, or indeed, since the deceased was Christian, in or near the settlement’s church? These and other intriguing questions are addressed in this lecture, and the discovery is set in the
context of what else is known about such practices in late Roman and early Byzantine funerary culture.
Tuesday 28 November 2017
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2016
The location of Corinth at the Isthmus has ensured that from the Neolithic to the beginnings of t... more The location of Corinth at the Isthmus has ensured that from the Neolithic to the beginnings of the Modern Greek State, the city has had a central role in the commerce of the Eastern Mediterranean. Its location is also responsible for the poverty, in the archaeological record, of the famous wealth of the city with the result that researchers have been forced to concentrate on the mundane. Over the past 20 years we have
adopted Northern European methodologies replacing those traditionally used by Classical archaeologists and, as a result, the little things we find have made big differences to the way we think about chronology, material culture and the place of Corinth in the past. Corinth’s cultural “reach”, both ancient and modern, means that these changes have a local regional and even European-wide impact.
Tuesday 29 November 2016
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2015
Alexander left his mark on the arts of Greece in a variety of ways. His image was commemorated by... more Alexander left his mark on the arts of Greece in a variety of ways. His image was commemorated by means of portrait statues. The first ones were commissioned from Athenian artists when he was Philip II’s heir and were displayed alongside the portrait of his father. When he became king, he chose the Sikyonian Lysippos as his court sculptor and this would have affected the style of the depictions, for we know that Lysippos had based his portraiture on life masks.
As Alexander’s royal image started to acquire Asian elements after his conquest of Persia, he had himself depicted by the painter Apelles with the thunderbolt of Zeus, and was eventually portrayed seated in a Persian-style chariot.
Alexander’s battles against Darius were represented both accurately and inaccurately, by artists who had known him and by those who knew him by hearsay. We thus have late-fourth-century depictions of Alexander with a beard or with short curly hair, whereas he was clean-shaven and had long straight hair. His youthful image became the prototype for the depiction of divine images, notably Helios, and river gods throughout the Hellenistic period.
Tuesday 15 December 2015
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2014
Between 1976 and 1979 the ASOR Punic Project to Carthage excavated 445 cinerary urns and several ... more Between 1976 and 1979 the ASOR Punic Project to Carthage excavated 445 cinerary urns and several monuments associated with them, some of which were inscribed in Phoenician/Punic. All of the urns had traces of burnt remains, almost 90% of them, identifiable as infants, lambs, and a few birds, all partridges (genus Perdix).
In trying to understand the significance of the Tophet, I will use a broad multidisciplinary approach, making use first and foremost of the direct, or primary, evidence, both archaeological and epigraphic. From the many earlier excursions in the Carthaginian Tophet, more than 6000 stelae inscribed in Phoenician/Punic have come to light.
Since for centuries the significance of the contents of the cremation urns have been understudied or ignored, I will emphasize and demonstrate the importance of the osteology, both human and animal, found in the urns for deepening our interpretation and understanding of the Tophet. Recently we have received a new and superior analysis of the bones with great implications in themselves and with resonance with other indirect sources of classical and biblical literature.
I chose as the title of my lecture (with a nod to Stravinsky), “Rites of Spring in the Carthaginian Tophet”, largely because of the co-occurrence of human and animal remains in the same jar, in at least 25% of the cremation urns. A closer look at those reveals that the lamb offerings were spring lambs, 1-3 months old, burnt on the same pyre as human infants of the same age.
As a conclusion I shall offer the proposal that there was a great spring festival in Phoenicia (Canaan) and Syria that, like Hebrew Passover, coincided with spring lambs and included them in the offerings of First Fruits, which celebrated the early shoots of barley in March-April. In the Bible this ancient Canaanite agricultural and fertility festival adopted and historicized as the biblical Exodus Story and Passover.
Tuesday 25 November 2014
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2013
If the wonder in question just happens to be Petra, then the answer is that you have an extremely... more If the wonder in question just happens to be Petra, then the answer is that you have an extremely varied range of options... This lecture will review past approaches to the study and appreciation of the remarkable 'rose red' city, a globally famous tourist attraction located in southern Jordan. The problems, indeed dangers, of being a Wonder of the World will be explored, notably through the regional lens of recent work by the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (2010—).
Tuesday 19 November 2013
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2012
The Sixth Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 20 November 2012 at the National Museum of A... more The Sixth Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 20 November 2012 at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2011
The Fifth Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 1 November 2011 at the National Museum of An... more The Fifth Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 1 November 2011 at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2010
The Fourth Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 16 November 2010 at the National Museum of ... more The Fourth Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 16 November 2010 at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2009
The Third Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 24 November 2009 at the National Museum of A... more The Third Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 24 November 2009 at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2008
The Second Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 15 December 2008 at the National Museum of ... more The Second Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 15 December 2008 at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.
BABESCH Byvanck Lectures, 2007
The First Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 26 October 2007 at the National Museum of An... more The First Annual Byvanck Lecture was held on Tuesday 26 October 2007 at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.
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Talks by BABESCH Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology
Abstract:
Decorated ostrich eggs were traded as luxury items from the Middle East to the western Mediterranean during the second and first millennia BCE. The eggs were engraved, painted, and occasionally embellished with ivory, precious metals and faience fittings. While archaeologists note their presence as unusual vessels in funerary and dedicatory contexts, little is known about how or from where they were sourced, decorated and traded. Researchers at Bristol University, Durham University, and the British Museum have established techniques to identify where the eggs originated and how they were decorated. This talk shares the results of this study, revealing the complexity of the production, trade, and economic and social values of luxury organic items between competing cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world.
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
When we think of ‘classical art’, we think of nudity, naturalism, shiny white marble. But neither ‘classical art’, nor the beauty, purity and virtue that we associate with it, are obvious. Rather, they have accrued over time. This lecture focuses on what ‘classical art’ omits, on unexceptional but important sculptures that challenge our vocabularies and ask for new frameworks. In privileging sculpture, we are again being selective. But it is sculpture that has dictated our artistic engagement with the Greeks and Romans, and sculpture that is, therefore, best placed to usher in a new chapter. This is not only about extending Greek and Roman sculpture’s remit to include the ‘ugly’, ‘aniconic’, ‘demotic’, colour; it is about reassessing its interactions with ‘foreign’ traditions (the Egyptian, Eastern, Indian etc). Where does ‘classical art’ sit between the local and global, and in the midst of the archaeological? Does ‘classical art’ have a future?
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
by Dipl. Ing. Gilbert Wiplinger
Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Vienna
“De aquaeductu urbis Ephesi - Water for Roman Ephesus”
On Tuesday November 26th 2019
in the Temple Hall of the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden
Dr. Gert Jan van Wijngaarden (University of Amsterdam) moderated the evening.
A printed version of this year's Byvanck Lecture can be obtained for free (excl. delivery costs), by sending an e-mail to byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
“De aquaeductu urbis Ephesi - Water for Roman Ephesus”
With the 2004 conference Cura aquarum in Ephesus, the ongoing series of international congresses on the history of water management and hydraulic engineering in the Mediterranean Region was continued with the aim of placing the newly started aqueduct research in the metropole of the Roman province Asiae on an international discussion platform. This and three other symposia were published in the BABESCH Supplements series and the interdisciplinary research project at the Değirmendere aqueduct at Ephesus was advanced in parallel.
The development of the city of Ephesus is reflected in its water supply. When Lysimachus built the city on a new site at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, a simple clay pipe line from a nearby spring was sufficient. It was not until the city’s heyday in the first quarter of the 2nd century AD that channels were built under Trajan and Hadrian in order to supply large quantities of water from springs further away to the rapidly growing population with their luxurious baths, magnificent fountains and well equipped houses.
The exploration of the 36.5 km long Değirmendere aqueduct was a special challenge. Water was transported over 24 bridges and through four tunnels. The first channel was constructed in Hadrian times and allowed to transport a water volume of 21,000 m3 per day. After 30-35 years of operation, the small channel was torn apart by 3 m during an earthquake. This necessitated the construction of a new aqueduct at the end of the Antonine period. This aqueduct was given a larger cross-section and thus 50,000 m3 per day could be transported into the city. During its operating time up to the third quarter of the 4th century AD, many repairs were necessary, especially on the steep slopes and in the extremely flat channel. On the one hand, the slope pressure was absorbed by supporting buttress pillars attached to the channel, and on the other hand, many bypasses were necessary to avoid overflows. The results of this new research are manifold and fascinating.
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s birth and death years, 1717 and 1768, were commemorated in 2017 and 2018 with a series of exhibitions, congresses, book publications, and lectures. Winckelmann is generally seen as the founder of modern archaeology thanks to his groundbreaking works on the history of Greco-Roman art. He tried to define the various ‘arts’ of Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans as cultural phenomena in order to explain the supremacy of Greek civilization. To achieve this ‘Lehrgebäude’ he used knowledge from history, anthropology, medicine, geography, climate and, by doing so, expanded the narrow scope of antiquarian studies. The high level of Greek art made it the only valuable example for artists. Although most of his ideas became obsolete after some decades, scholars have always acknowledged the importance of his work and have hotly debated Winckelmann’s publications.
What is more, Winckelmann has constantly fascinated a large audience with his personality. Rising from bitter poverty in Stendal (Prussia) to the status of a modest scholar in the Kingdom of Saxony around 1750, he had the chance to go to Rome in 1755. There he would work as a librarian of cardinals, advisor for the purchase of antiquities of cardinal Albani, and antiquities inspector of the pope. He was murdered in Trieste in 1768. Letters and testimonies account for vivid details about his life.
Thanks to his superb language, Winckelmann’s impact goes as far as literature. Next to his work as an archaeologist, he has been studied and recorded up to now as a persona and as an artist and poet. This talk focuses on his impact on scholarship, literature, and reception studies and on how his work has been perceived in various countries, and hopes to demonstrate why Winckelmann continues to fascinate us.
Tuesday 4 December 2018
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
Sicily – and indeed with the wider Mediterranean world. Finds include one of the earliest examples in Europe of a thimble, and what is arguably the earliest depiction anywhere of a backgammon board. The biggest surprise was the discovery of a substantial, built tomb placed in what was probably the yard of the house in the second quarter of the seventh century AD, and of evidence for associated feasting in honour of the deceased. Who was inside the tomb, and why did that person deserve this level of respect? What evidence was there for feasts, and what did they eat? And what was the tomb doing here, in a domestic setting, rather than in the village cemetery, or indeed, since the deceased was Christian, in or near the settlement’s church? These and other intriguing questions are addressed in this lecture, and the discovery is set in the
context of what else is known about such practices in late Roman and early Byzantine funerary culture.
Tuesday 28 November 2017
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
adopted Northern European methodologies replacing those traditionally used by Classical archaeologists and, as a result, the little things we find have made big differences to the way we think about chronology, material culture and the place of Corinth in the past. Corinth’s cultural “reach”, both ancient and modern, means that these changes have a local regional and even European-wide impact.
Tuesday 29 November 2016
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
As Alexander’s royal image started to acquire Asian elements after his conquest of Persia, he had himself depicted by the painter Apelles with the thunderbolt of Zeus, and was eventually portrayed seated in a Persian-style chariot.
Alexander’s battles against Darius were represented both accurately and inaccurately, by artists who had known him and by those who knew him by hearsay. We thus have late-fourth-century depictions of Alexander with a beard or with short curly hair, whereas he was clean-shaven and had long straight hair. His youthful image became the prototype for the depiction of divine images, notably Helios, and river gods throughout the Hellenistic period.
Tuesday 15 December 2015
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
In trying to understand the significance of the Tophet, I will use a broad multidisciplinary approach, making use first and foremost of the direct, or primary, evidence, both archaeological and epigraphic. From the many earlier excursions in the Carthaginian Tophet, more than 6000 stelae inscribed in Phoenician/Punic have come to light.
Since for centuries the significance of the contents of the cremation urns have been understudied or ignored, I will emphasize and demonstrate the importance of the osteology, both human and animal, found in the urns for deepening our interpretation and understanding of the Tophet. Recently we have received a new and superior analysis of the bones with great implications in themselves and with resonance with other indirect sources of classical and biblical literature.
I chose as the title of my lecture (with a nod to Stravinsky), “Rites of Spring in the Carthaginian Tophet”, largely because of the co-occurrence of human and animal remains in the same jar, in at least 25% of the cremation urns. A closer look at those reveals that the lamb offerings were spring lambs, 1-3 months old, burnt on the same pyre as human infants of the same age.
As a conclusion I shall offer the proposal that there was a great spring festival in Phoenicia (Canaan) and Syria that, like Hebrew Passover, coincided with spring lambs and included them in the offerings of First Fruits, which celebrated the early shoots of barley in March-April. In the Bible this ancient Canaanite agricultural and fertility festival adopted and historicized as the biblical Exodus Story and Passover.
Tuesday 25 November 2014
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
Tuesday 19 November 2013
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
Abstract:
Decorated ostrich eggs were traded as luxury items from the Middle East to the western Mediterranean during the second and first millennia BCE. The eggs were engraved, painted, and occasionally embellished with ivory, precious metals and faience fittings. While archaeologists note their presence as unusual vessels in funerary and dedicatory contexts, little is known about how or from where they were sourced, decorated and traded. Researchers at Bristol University, Durham University, and the British Museum have established techniques to identify where the eggs originated and how they were decorated. This talk shares the results of this study, revealing the complexity of the production, trade, and economic and social values of luxury organic items between competing cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world.
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
When we think of ‘classical art’, we think of nudity, naturalism, shiny white marble. But neither ‘classical art’, nor the beauty, purity and virtue that we associate with it, are obvious. Rather, they have accrued over time. This lecture focuses on what ‘classical art’ omits, on unexceptional but important sculptures that challenge our vocabularies and ask for new frameworks. In privileging sculpture, we are again being selective. But it is sculpture that has dictated our artistic engagement with the Greeks and Romans, and sculpture that is, therefore, best placed to usher in a new chapter. This is not only about extending Greek and Roman sculpture’s remit to include the ‘ugly’, ‘aniconic’, ‘demotic’, colour; it is about reassessing its interactions with ‘foreign’ traditions (the Egyptian, Eastern, Indian etc). Where does ‘classical art’ sit between the local and global, and in the midst of the archaeological? Does ‘classical art’ have a future?
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
by Dipl. Ing. Gilbert Wiplinger
Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Vienna
“De aquaeductu urbis Ephesi - Water for Roman Ephesus”
On Tuesday November 26th 2019
in the Temple Hall of the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden
Dr. Gert Jan van Wijngaarden (University of Amsterdam) moderated the evening.
A printed version of this year's Byvanck Lecture can be obtained for free (excl. delivery costs), by sending an e-mail to byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
“De aquaeductu urbis Ephesi - Water for Roman Ephesus”
With the 2004 conference Cura aquarum in Ephesus, the ongoing series of international congresses on the history of water management and hydraulic engineering in the Mediterranean Region was continued with the aim of placing the newly started aqueduct research in the metropole of the Roman province Asiae on an international discussion platform. This and three other symposia were published in the BABESCH Supplements series and the interdisciplinary research project at the Değirmendere aqueduct at Ephesus was advanced in parallel.
The development of the city of Ephesus is reflected in its water supply. When Lysimachus built the city on a new site at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, a simple clay pipe line from a nearby spring was sufficient. It was not until the city’s heyday in the first quarter of the 2nd century AD that channels were built under Trajan and Hadrian in order to supply large quantities of water from springs further away to the rapidly growing population with their luxurious baths, magnificent fountains and well equipped houses.
The exploration of the 36.5 km long Değirmendere aqueduct was a special challenge. Water was transported over 24 bridges and through four tunnels. The first channel was constructed in Hadrian times and allowed to transport a water volume of 21,000 m3 per day. After 30-35 years of operation, the small channel was torn apart by 3 m during an earthquake. This necessitated the construction of a new aqueduct at the end of the Antonine period. This aqueduct was given a larger cross-section and thus 50,000 m3 per day could be transported into the city. During its operating time up to the third quarter of the 4th century AD, many repairs were necessary, especially on the steep slopes and in the extremely flat channel. On the one hand, the slope pressure was absorbed by supporting buttress pillars attached to the channel, and on the other hand, many bypasses were necessary to avoid overflows. The results of this new research are manifold and fascinating.
For more information, please visit our website www.babesch.org
or contact us by email at byvanck@babesch.org.
Abstract:
Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s birth and death years, 1717 and 1768, were commemorated in 2017 and 2018 with a series of exhibitions, congresses, book publications, and lectures. Winckelmann is generally seen as the founder of modern archaeology thanks to his groundbreaking works on the history of Greco-Roman art. He tried to define the various ‘arts’ of Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans as cultural phenomena in order to explain the supremacy of Greek civilization. To achieve this ‘Lehrgebäude’ he used knowledge from history, anthropology, medicine, geography, climate and, by doing so, expanded the narrow scope of antiquarian studies. The high level of Greek art made it the only valuable example for artists. Although most of his ideas became obsolete after some decades, scholars have always acknowledged the importance of his work and have hotly debated Winckelmann’s publications.
What is more, Winckelmann has constantly fascinated a large audience with his personality. Rising from bitter poverty in Stendal (Prussia) to the status of a modest scholar in the Kingdom of Saxony around 1750, he had the chance to go to Rome in 1755. There he would work as a librarian of cardinals, advisor for the purchase of antiquities of cardinal Albani, and antiquities inspector of the pope. He was murdered in Trieste in 1768. Letters and testimonies account for vivid details about his life.
Thanks to his superb language, Winckelmann’s impact goes as far as literature. Next to his work as an archaeologist, he has been studied and recorded up to now as a persona and as an artist and poet. This talk focuses on his impact on scholarship, literature, and reception studies and on how his work has been perceived in various countries, and hopes to demonstrate why Winckelmann continues to fascinate us.
Tuesday 4 December 2018
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
Sicily – and indeed with the wider Mediterranean world. Finds include one of the earliest examples in Europe of a thimble, and what is arguably the earliest depiction anywhere of a backgammon board. The biggest surprise was the discovery of a substantial, built tomb placed in what was probably the yard of the house in the second quarter of the seventh century AD, and of evidence for associated feasting in honour of the deceased. Who was inside the tomb, and why did that person deserve this level of respect? What evidence was there for feasts, and what did they eat? And what was the tomb doing here, in a domestic setting, rather than in the village cemetery, or indeed, since the deceased was Christian, in or near the settlement’s church? These and other intriguing questions are addressed in this lecture, and the discovery is set in the
context of what else is known about such practices in late Roman and early Byzantine funerary culture.
Tuesday 28 November 2017
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
adopted Northern European methodologies replacing those traditionally used by Classical archaeologists and, as a result, the little things we find have made big differences to the way we think about chronology, material culture and the place of Corinth in the past. Corinth’s cultural “reach”, both ancient and modern, means that these changes have a local regional and even European-wide impact.
Tuesday 29 November 2016
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
As Alexander’s royal image started to acquire Asian elements after his conquest of Persia, he had himself depicted by the painter Apelles with the thunderbolt of Zeus, and was eventually portrayed seated in a Persian-style chariot.
Alexander’s battles against Darius were represented both accurately and inaccurately, by artists who had known him and by those who knew him by hearsay. We thus have late-fourth-century depictions of Alexander with a beard or with short curly hair, whereas he was clean-shaven and had long straight hair. His youthful image became the prototype for the depiction of divine images, notably Helios, and river gods throughout the Hellenistic period.
Tuesday 15 December 2015
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
In trying to understand the significance of the Tophet, I will use a broad multidisciplinary approach, making use first and foremost of the direct, or primary, evidence, both archaeological and epigraphic. From the many earlier excursions in the Carthaginian Tophet, more than 6000 stelae inscribed in Phoenician/Punic have come to light.
Since for centuries the significance of the contents of the cremation urns have been understudied or ignored, I will emphasize and demonstrate the importance of the osteology, both human and animal, found in the urns for deepening our interpretation and understanding of the Tophet. Recently we have received a new and superior analysis of the bones with great implications in themselves and with resonance with other indirect sources of classical and biblical literature.
I chose as the title of my lecture (with a nod to Stravinsky), “Rites of Spring in the Carthaginian Tophet”, largely because of the co-occurrence of human and animal remains in the same jar, in at least 25% of the cremation urns. A closer look at those reveals that the lamb offerings were spring lambs, 1-3 months old, burnt on the same pyre as human infants of the same age.
As a conclusion I shall offer the proposal that there was a great spring festival in Phoenicia (Canaan) and Syria that, like Hebrew Passover, coincided with spring lambs and included them in the offerings of First Fruits, which celebrated the early shoots of barley in March-April. In the Bible this ancient Canaanite agricultural and fertility festival adopted and historicized as the biblical Exodus Story and Passover.
Tuesday 25 November 2014
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden
Tuesday 19 November 2013
at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden