Second life for the Nymphaeum of Amman

It always makes me happy when new life is brought to an ancient site or building as they often have been mistreated over the centuries and have suffered from war, plunder and erosion.

[Picture from Jordan Times]

This means that the news about the recently rehabilitated Nymphaeum in downtown Amman, Jordan, situated right next to the busy fruit and vegetable market deserves our attention. Basically a Nymphaeum was a gift to the nymphs, who were divine spirits associated with water.

This Roman fountain from the second century AD has now been turned into an outdoor museum and performance space, which should attract the tourists visiting the nearby Theater and Odeon. It was not a small local fountain as archaeologists have established that the water in the 600 m2 pool was continuously flowing through a three meters deep basin. This is truly a building worthy of a major city, then and now.

Since the Nymphaeum is located so close to the modern market place, the municipality has agreed to do  their utmost to keep the area clean and to meet the necessary requirement for its perseveration.

The Histories by Polybius, A new translation by Robin Waterfield

The Histories by Polybius (ISBN 978-0199534708) are far less known than, for instance, The Histories by Herodotus and cover an entirely different period. As a result, the author and his book merit being put in a well-deserved spotlight.

Few people ever heard of Polybius and it may be useful to introduce him with a short biography. Polybius was born ca. 200 BC, probably in Megalopolis, the capital of the Achaean League (a federal organization of the Peloponnesus). His father played a leading political role and Polybius at the age of thirty was elected deputy leader of the League. But his life changed dramatically when Macedonia lost its independence at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC. This had far-reaching consequences for the rest of Greece. The Achaen leaders were deported to Rome, including Polybius, who spent seventeen years in the capital.

However, as a highly educated Greek, he soon befriended Scipio Aemilianus, one of the most powerful men in Rome at that time. He also became friends with Prince Demetrius held hostage in Rome and managed to arrange his escape from the city in 162 BC in order to reclaim his place on the Seleucid throne.

Polybius accompanied Scipio during his campaign in Spain and went to Numidia, modern Tunisia. He tells us how he walked in the footsteps of Hannibal from Spain to Italy. In 149 BC, he was summoned to Carthage where, using his diplomatic skills brought the Carthaginians to comply with the demands of Rome. Not for long though as two years later Polybius joined Scipio again in his siege of Carthage. When that city fell, he traveled beyond Gibraltar to explore the coast of western Africa. For reasons that could not be determined, Achaea revolted against Rome in 146 BC and lost the battle; as a result, the League was dismantled, and proud Corinth was destroyed. Polybius apparently played an important role in the reconstruction of Greece, a gesture that was widely appreciated as Pausanias tells us that many cities of the Peloponnesus erected statues in honor of their fellow countryman.

It is clear that Polybius led a very active life as a politician, general, and even as an explorer and it makes one wonder when and how he found the time to write. Besides his Histories, he left us a study on tactics, a treatise on the habitability of the equatorial region, about the war of Rome against Numantia in Spain, and a biography of Philopoemen, a famous and skilled strategos of Achaea. Unfortunately, the largest part of his works have not survived.

Polybius’ Histories treat the rise of the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean in the period from 220 to 146 BC – a colossal job filling forty books of which only five have survived. Books 1 and 2 are basically an introduction to his work leading to the battle for power between Rome and Carthage, which spills over into Book 3 with the victory of Hannibal in 216 BC. In Books 4 and 5, Polybius turns to the situation in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean before that same date in order to match the chronology in which he likes to report events. Of the following books, which are not necessarily straight history and treat for instance of geography in Book 34, substantial excerpts also exist. From what transpires, he took the trouble to make a summary of his work in Book 40. So much precious information has, unfortunately, been lost over the centuries!

In his effort to explain what kind of constitutional structure Rome applied to conquer the world, it appears that in Book 6 Polybius developed a highly interesting theory about the recurrent cycle of government in which monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy alternate. In the same book, he described the constitution of Rome at length giving us a unique insight into the great organizational skills of the Romans.

What makes Polybius stand out is his overall chronology reporting the events as they develop simultaneously in the eastern and western end of the Mediterranean. It truly is a rare horizontal history and, what’s more, he is the only historian from the Hellenistic period whose work survived to such an extent.

Since the Punic Wars are treated in detail, I found this the best history I ever read without getting lost or confused one way or another in those repeated conflicts that lasted on and off for 118 years. To keep track of time, the year in which the events took place is handily quoted in the margin.

The translation made by Robin Waterfield is superb and reads with the clarity that is characteristic of him (see: Dividing the Spoils).

The book has a great Introduction without which the Histories would be very hard to understand. It also includes a handy chronology of the events covered in the book and a set of three maps, one of the Mediterranean and a detailed one for both Greece and Italy.

Oldest Greek shipwreck found in the Black Sea

The diving season of 2018 has come to a close and it seems we are being flooded with ever more news about shipwrecks discovered all over the Mediterranean.

This time, a Greek shipwreck from 400 BC found intact at the bottom of the Black Sea is making headlines. It was located some 80 km off the Bulgarian city of Burgas.

  [Picture from Archaeology New Network, Credit: BLACK SEA MAP/EEF EXPEDITIONS]

Using the latest technology, an international team of scientists is mapping the floor of the Black Sea. So far over sixty shipwrecks have been discovered, ranging in date from the Roman era all the way to the 17^th century.

At the close of the 2017 season, however, another trading vessel from the Greek Classical period was spotted and it is now confirmed that this is the oldest intact shipwreck in history. Scientists are very excited about this find, particularly since it shows such a close resemblance to the design used on Greek pottery and more precisely to the “Siren Vase” exhibited at the British Museum. It could be established that the ship is 23 meters long and elements like the rudder, the rowing benches, and the cargo are still intact.

                   [Picture from Archaeology News Network, Credit: Werner Forman/UIG via Getty Images]

Originally the “Black Sea MAP” project got underway to study the changes in the environment off the Bulgarian coast, including the impact of sea-level change after the last glacial period. In the process said ship was located at a depth of 2,000 meters where the waters of the Black Sea are free of oxygen and where organic material is easily preserved for thousands of years.

At this depth, the shipwreck is rather safe since it is beyond the reach of modern divers and treasure hunters. Next step will be to examine the cargo in detail as amphorae can tell us more about the traded goods and the ports that were called at but this will require extra funding, of course.

Laodicea, an update on the works in progress

As announced last year (see: Laodicea, great works in progress!), excavations of the area around the city's sacred agora and the adjacent temple have exposed a row of colossal columns from under seven meters of rubble. The back wall covered with paintings is now painstakingly and meticulously reassembled and reinforced. That sounds very promising indeed for it is a rare example of frescoes covering such a large surface. Plans to restore the Hellenistic theater from the 2^nd century BC and seating as many as 15,000 seem to be materializing as well.

[Picture from Tornos News]

Further excavations have established that Laodicea existed already before Antiochus II (see also: When pillars with unknown writing were discovered in India) who dedicated the city to his wife Laodike. Archaeologists have found proof that the settlement was established already in 5500 BC and that the first settlers were people from Anatolia. The location was ideal for trade as there was access to the sea through the Meander River to ship their local productions of cereals and textiles, as well as the locally quarried marble.

But there is still a huge amount of work to be done to expose the remains of Laodicea which cover some five square kilometers. The list of monuments waiting to be unearthed and restored appears to be endless: a large Stadium measuring 285 x 70 meters, two theaters (Western and Northern), four Roman Baths, no less than five Agoras, five Nymphaeums, two monumental city gates (Ephesus and Syria), a Bouleuterion, several temples, churches, public latrines, houses with a Peristyle design, and several colonnaded streets (Syria, Ephesus, Stadium Streets). Importantly, let’s not forget the two large water distribution terminals where the city’s water laws were found (see: Water laws, still unchanged after nearly two thousand years). Outside Laodicea all the necropolises used over the centuries are awaiting investigation.

Damned dams, once again

On several occasions, I brought up the matter of the disastrous consequences of flooding our history through the construction of dams on major rivers. I have developed the pros and cons in earlier blogs (see: Zeugma, border town along the Euphrates River; My heart is bleeding for Allianoi; and Damned Dams). This is, however, only the very tip of the iceberg and it is very sad that so little is done to bring this matter of utmost importance for the preservation of our cultural heritage to the attention of the general public.

Perchance I found an incredibly interesting presentation on YouTube that clearly illustrates the catastrophic consequences of these dam-building projects using Turkey’s three main dams on the Euphrates River. The problem, however, is not limited to Turkey alone but known all over the Near East.

Although we often believe that much of the city of Zeugma has been rescued and moved to the Museum in Gaziantep, the truth is that only an infinite part of this ancient city has been excavated - most of it is drowned forever. More dramatic is the city of Samsat on the Euphrates founded in the 7th millennium BC and flooded without merci in 1989 when the Ataturk Dam was completed.

This documentary, unfortunately, has not been seen by the number of visitors one would and should expect for such a sensitive and important subject. It is quite amazing – and certainly an eye opener – to see all the dots on the maps where archaeological sites have simply disappeared forever. The crimes of IS received far more attention and indignation around the world than the flooding of our ancestral roots on such a large scale.

The documentary was created by the UNIBO team led by Nicolò Marchetti in the frame of the 2015-2018 EU-funded JPI project "Heritage and Threat".

Please, do visit this site and show your appreciation by clicking on the Thumbs Up!

Many ancient shipwrecks found in the Greek waters

The twenty islands of Fourni in the Eastern Aegean are just one of so many clusters that can be found is those waters. It seems that the narrow passage between the islands create sudden windstorms and choppy waves which would catch many a pilot off guard – hence the great number of wrecks that have been found together.

A first assessment was made last year (see: The surprises of underwater archaeology) and at the end of this year's diving season the number of shipwrecks in the area has risen to 58.

[Credit: Vassilis Mentogiannis/Hellenic Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities/via Reuters]

The fact that they mainly carried amphorae supports the image of intense sea traffic along the coast of Asia Minor.It is difficult to separate the wrecks of those ships that actually crashed on the rocks and those that sank in the stormy weather. Some of them are in pristine condition because they lay at a depth of 40-60 meters. All the relics stranded above the 40-meter level either fell apart or have been looted in the past.

It is very inspiring to learn that the research team of archaeologists, divers, and conservators envisage creating a local museum on the main island Fourni to house their finds. Let’s hope this will work out properly.

Alexander bust to be returned to Rome

At some time before 1959, a head of Alexander the Great found during the excavations of the Forum Romanum in Rome in the early 1900's was stolen from the Forense Museum in that city.

[Picture from Archaeology News Network]

The head travelled all across Europe and eventually made its way to New York. The Alan Safani Gallery in Manhattan had purchased it in 2017 from a London gallery. The transaction took place in good faith based on the documentation about the provenance of the bust.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigating looted antiquities, however, traced this head as it lacked the kind of documentation that normally travels with artifacts leaving Italy. They found that it was sold at auction by Sotheby’s in 1974 and again in 2011. This kind of pattern seems to be typical for looted items as they “disappear” from the country of origin and reappear several years later in another country without the proper supporting paperwork. The ensuing questionable sale is meant to create some form of ownership history.

Although this Alexander head has been dated to early 300 BC, i.e. not so long after his death in 323 BC, it is not one of the finest examples. Anyway, let’s hope that it will soon find a well deserved place in the rich collection of one of Rome’s famed museums.