The bronzes from Bubon’s Sebasteion

Illegal digs are inevitable and Turkey with its countless antique sites is no exception. A beautiful bronze head of an unknown young man displayed at the Getty Villa has recently been identified as stolen or illegally excavated, and it is heartwarming to hear that it will be returned to Turkey. 

The Getty Museum in Malibu, California, acquired the head in 1971 and it could be established that it belonged to a now-lost life-size figure. It is marked with the letter alpha (the Greek A) at the bottom of the neck. The inlaid eyes, which always add so much character to a face, are missing. 

Dated to the period between 100 BC and 100 AD, the statue's provenance was not documented, although scholars now link it to the archaeological site of Bubon in ancient Lycia. Since the late 1960s, several bronzes have been smuggled out of Turkey from that area. Most depicted Roman emperors and their families but the head at Getty has yet to be identified. 

In October 2023, the New York Times published an article on these bronzes from illegal digs that have been scattered around the world to various private homes and museums. 

By 1967 the looting became apparent and slowly stopped as the Turkish police found a headless bronze torso hidden in the woods near Bubon. This site turned out to be the main source for this unique collection and authorities are determined to track the looters down. 

Bubon has not been systematically excavated and all that remains are a small theater and stadium, as well as an Acropolis. The main building may have been a shrine or Sebasteion, where several bronze statues stood around a U-shaped courtyard that was probably roofed. The Sebasteion may have been started by Nero and his wife Poppea Sabina. His example was followed by eleven emperors and three empresses, the last being Gallienus, who ruled till 268 AD. In the following decades, Bubon suffered from repeated earthquakes which buried and saved the Sebasteion. 

Scholars and experts aim to restitute the group of statues, which represented an important binding factor between the citizens to the power of faraway Rome. 

In the end, the villagers themselves, now in their 60s and 70s, provided the most precious information. They described the statues and their posture and remembered how they were sold. Their plinths with the names of the emperors in Greek are still in situ. 

Lucius Verus apparently stood next to Marcus Aurelius, his adoptive brother and co-ruler. His headless statue may be at The Cleveland Museum of Art and his Bubon origin is now under investigation. 

Septimius Severus was accompanied by his wife and sons, Caracalla and Geta. His headless statue was on loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and has been turned over to the authorities for repatriation. Some experts believe the missing head is kept at the Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark. The head of Caracalla has been seized from the Met and his torso is probably in the hands of a Greek collector. Emperor Valerian stood nearby and his torso is now exhibited at the Museum of Burdur, Turkey. Commodus also had a plinth of his own.

In due time, more emperors will be reconciled with their names on the pedestals and more effigies or body parts will be returned to their rightful spot in Turkey. 

[Top picture from Getty Museum. Lucius Verus is mine taken at the MANN]

Hello? Dr. Galen?

The physician Claudius Galenus, better known as Galen of Pergamon, was the most famous doctor in the Roman world of the 2^nd century AD and probably the most famous of antiquity.

He was born in Pergamon, where he studied, and he completed his education in Smyrna (modern Izmir), Corinth, and Alexandria. He learned his skills in his natal city while serving as an apprentice at the sanctuary of Asclepius. His main clientele was the gladiators, and through this work, he gained much experience in treating wounds of all kinds. This led to an unrivaled knowledge of human anatomy, physiology, and neurology. His fame was such that it reached even the imperial court of Rome. He moved to that city in 161 AD, where he became the personal physician of the emperors Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and Commodus. By that time, he had specialized in anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, but he was also well-versed in philosophy and logic.

The influence of Dr. Galen lasted for many centuries as his works were translated first into Arabic and later into Latin. His comprehension of the anatomy and physiology of the human body was not surpassed till the 17th century. He borrowed his philosophy from Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus and wrote an analysis of dreams seventeen centuries before Sigmund Freud. Renowned Islamic physicians, pharmacologists, and botanists heavily leaned on Galen’s studies. Over the centuries, many scholars translated his books, reviving his vast field of knowledge that was, by the 11th-12th century, taught at the newly founded European universities like Oxford, Paris, and Bologna.

 

It is evident that after almost two thousand years, Galen’s legacy has been disseminated among monasteries, madrassas, museums, universities, and private collectors worldwide. This makes it difficult to get a complete list of his works and almost impossible to know to what extent our books are complete. Lady Fortuna plays a vital role in such matters, and from time to time, new works or hitherto unknown passages are discovered.

Papyri and parchments were expensive commodities in antiquity, and in the Middle Ages, thrifty monks searching for writing support for their prayers effectively reused old parchment. They scraped off the ancient manuscripts to overwrite them with their Christian psalms and hymns perpendicularly to the initial writing. This process is called Palimpsest.

[Picture from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory by Farrin Abbott]

One such Palimpsest surfaced in Germany at the beginning of the 1900s. Its origin has been traced back to the Monastery of St Catherine on the Sinai Peninsula. Close examination with special X-ray imaging revealed an underlying text in Syriac from the 6th century, constituting the most complete surviving copy of an original book by Galen. This text was erased and written over in the 11th century. 

Thanks to modern imaging and digital processing techniques, scientists and scholars have uncovered and studied the Roman physician’s original text over the past decade. Eventually, this precious evidence will be added to the existing high-resolution images made available online by the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. This institution is collecting leaves from the same Syriac manuscript that made their way to different locations, such as the libraries at Harvard University, Paris, and the Vatican, to name just a few. 

The intention is to digitally reconstruct Galen’s book. This is a long-term project, considering it takes about ten hours to scan one single page. Only when these complex scans are completed will the research team be able to start analyzing the words and thoughts of this great physician to fit them in the context of the pages that are kept elsewhere.

Details on this time-consuming research can be found in the article “Hidden Medical Text Read for the First Time in a Thousand Years” by Amanda Solliday."

In search of the Forum at Serdica (modern Sofia)

As mentioned in an earlier blog (see: Ulpia Serdica, the Roman name for Sofia), today’s capital of Bulgaria is sitting right on top of old Serdica, whose history goes back to 5000 BC. It seems that the Thracians were the first to settle in this valley, where they built the first city, which they named Serdica. During the fourth century BC, it was conquered by Philip II during his expansion of Macedonia’s frontiers. Around 29 BC, the Romans took possession of the city and renamed it Ulpia Serdica. Emperor Trajan established his administrative center here and started an extensive building project. Serdica is said to be the favorite residence of Constantine the Great, who qualified the city as “my Rome.” Unfortunately, the city was destroyed by the Huns in 447 AD. However, it was apparently rebuilt by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who protected it with sturdy fortress walls that are still visible today. It was in the 14^th century that the city changed its name to Sofia as a homage to the St Sofia Basilica.

Excavations seem to be carried out at a more or less steady pace, although spread randomly over different locations around Sofia. The most recent digs occurred on the parking lot of the Sofia Hotel Balkan and under the square next to the Holy Sunday Church (St Nedelya), a favorite of the Bulgarians. This is where archaeologists hoped to uncover the Roman agora of Serdica. Instead, they found a building from the 3^rd century AD with exceptionally thick foundation walls of more than 1.5 meters thick. As this is three times the average wall thickness, it leads to believe that it had to support the extra weight, maybe two-floor levels. The house stands along a stretch of the old Decumanus that is particularly wide at this point, measuring about six meters.

In a way, it is disappointing that the Roman Forum has not been found, but on the other hand, not all cities had one, although there must have been some kind of meeting space to centralize public and religious life. So far, of all the cities excavated in the Roman Province of Thracia, only Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv) had a Forum. Archaeologists are not giving up their quest at Serdica as the next possible location may be the underpass of the St Petka Church. Next year’s excavations may shed new light on this theory.

Meanwhile, extensive restoration works have been carried out here as well as at previously uncovered sites, and once they are completed, the remains will be covered with glass to allow the passer-by to have an intimate look at the city’s history. The different locations will be connected in order to create a large open-air museum.

Beside remains of buildings and streets, a hoard of silver coins was discovered at St Nedelya Square in September 2015, hidden in a ceramic pot. The 13 kg weighing treasure counts 2,976 Roman coins from the 1^st and 2^nd century AD and was the prized possession of a certain Silvius Calistus, who carved his name on the pot. This is the largest collection ever found in Serdica and was gathered over a period of one hundred years as the earliest coins were minted under Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD) and the last under Emperor Commodus (180-192 AD). So far, the coins were identified with the effigies of the Roman Emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antonius Pius, but also of some Empresses or rather wives of Emperors like Vibia Sabina (wife of Hadrian), Faustina the Elder (wife of Antoninus Pius), Faustina the Younger (wife of Marcus Aurelius), and Bruttia Crispina (wife of Commodus).

Archaeology in Bulgaria (click on the link) has published a number of photographs showing the excavation sites of Sofia as discovered in 2010, together with a picture of the same spots in 2015 after cleaning and restoration works were carried out.

[Pictures were taken from Archaeology in Bulgaria]