Head of Alexander found in Italy

 The news, apparently, did not make headlines.

As I watched a documentary on National Geographic, I was introduced to the city of Terracina, where archaeologists are tracing the rise and coming to power of Rome. 

After a detour about the Roman conquest of Carthage, illustrated by the discovery of a ship’s ram near the Egadi Islands, I was taken to the site of Terracina, which was unknown to me. It is located about halfway between Rome and Naples on the ancient Via Appia. 

The modern city steadily stands among and on top of the ancient one. An excellent example to this effect is the old Forum, with its exposed, near-intact pavement. The marble slabs are being trodden by the feet of the tourists, often unaware of the imprint of the bronze inscription left by the local Roman magistrate, Aulus Aemilius. He rebuilt and paved the Forum, enhancing the place with porches and new civil and religious buildings. Amazingly, the Via Appia runs right alongside the Forum. 

On the cliff high above the city proper stood a most remarkable small Hellenistic temple from the 2^nd century BC. It is considered to be the oldest Hellenistic structure of its kind and the first terraced temple in the region. Archaeologists have not yet been able to define to which god it was dedicated. 

Its presence proves that Terracina was in close contact with other Hellenistic cities around the Mediterranean at a time when the Romans had not yet conquered all of Italy. 

The hill is nowadays known as Monte Sant’Angelo, maybe in memory of the religious ceremonies that were held here. 

In 2021, the surprise find was a terracotta head that shared the familiar traits of Alexander the Great. It is not clear whether it was unearthed in the little temple or the larger area of the sanctuary. 

We may safely assume that the presence of Alexander makes sense. After its victory over Carthage, Rome conquered Alexander’s homeland in the 2^nd century BC. In the process, it established itself as the new military power of the ancient Mediterranean world. Alexander’s deeds and conquests had served as Rome’s role model.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to get hold of a picture of this newly discovered Alexander head – maybe later?

[First picture from Following Hadrian; third picture from Archaeologywiki]

The collection ship rams from Egadi keeps growing

The number of ship rams recovered from the Egadi seabed keeps growing after each excavation season. My last count dated from 2019, when the counter had stopped at sixteen Roman and two Carthaginian rams (see: Still recovering ship rams from the Egadi Islands). 

Today's latest news is that two more bronze rams were excavated in 2021, bringing the total discovered to twenty-five. I must have missed last year’s discoveries. 

[Picture from The Archaeological Network - Credit RPM Nautical Foundation] 

It is incredible that the battle site at the Egadi Islands, where the Romans fought for supremacy over the Carthaginians in 241 BC, is strewn with so many shipwrecks. The ships themselves have, of course, disintegrated over the centuries, but the bronze battering rams remained intact. 

The sheer scale and rampage of this battle are beyond our imagination. Hundreds of ships sought to destroy their opponent by maneuvering in such a way that the prow of the ship where the ram was situated would hit the enemy in the flank and sink the vessel. The stakes were very high as Rome aimed to control the Central Mediterranean, where Sicily occupied a central position. 

The diving site of Egadi has yielded many more objects made of non-degradable material like bronze helmets and cheek-pieces, dozens of lead slinger bullets, together with Hellenistic and Roman coins. 

A vessel from the first half of the 4th century AD emerged from the same area. It appears to be a big merchant ship loaded with amphorae made in Lusitania (an ancient province in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula) and Baetica (in the most southerly corner of Iberia - Spain). 

After 16 years of diving, the archaeological site of the Egadi Islands has not disclosed all its treasures, and investigations will continue in 2022.

Still recovering ship rams from the Egadi Islands

Last year, the waters around the Egadi Islands were in the news after two bronze ship rams had been recovered, one of which was identified as being Carthaginian (see: Two more bronze ship rams recovered).

[Picture from the Archaeological News Network, Credit: RPM Nautical Foundation]

Two more rostrums have been retrieved from the sea this season, raising the counter to sixteen Roman and two Carthaginian rams. Besides these great finds, various other artifacts were brought to light, among which we count 68 Graeco-Italic, four Punic amphorae, and four plates.

Unusual was this year’s discovery of an iron sword that must have belonged to a soldier of either the Roman or the Carthaginian army. This sword is 70 centimeters long, and the blade is five centimeters wide. A closer study and restoration are required to gather more precise information about this rare piece.

It will be interesting to visit the Museum of the Battle of the Egadi in nearby Favignana to look at all the recently exposed testimonies left behind after the successive Punic Wars fought in the waters around the Egadi Islands. They fill a separate room, accompanied by spectacular multimedia elements.

Two more bronze ship rams recovered

Underwater archaeology near the Egadi Islands west of Sicily has yielded several ships’ rams in recent years. The counter stood at eleven pieces, of which one was Carthaginian (see: Sicily and the Sea, temporary exhibition in Amsterdam). This year, two more battering rams named Egadi 12 and Egadi 13 were salvaged from the sea bottom.

Like the previous ones, these ship’s rams belong to the Punic Wars opposing Rome and Carthage during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. One of the newly recovered rams carries an antique Punic inscription, confirming that it belonged to a Carthaginian ship.

Besides these wonderful and unique rams, ten bronze helmets of the Montefortino type have also been recovered. One of these helmets displays a lion skin motif surrounding the central knob. Interestingly, the Carthaginian ships’ ram presented at the Sicily and the Sea exhibition mentioned above had the imprint of a Montefortino helmet.

These results are pretty promising for next year’s excavation season!

[The top picture is from La Reppublica Palermo presenting a slideshow of most of the finds]

Sicily and the Sea, temporary exhibition in Amsterdam

The exhibition Sicily and the Sea is a real treat! It is presently running at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam and can be visited till 17 April 2016.

It has, in fact, a collection of finds from several Greek and Roman ships that sank, generally during a storm, around the island of Sicily. The names of most of these places are not well-known, but there are plenty of maps to clarify the locations.

The objects retrieved from shipwrecks come from a wide area around the Mediterranean island: the Gela shipwreck is a Greek merchant ship of 17x6m, with a crew of 3 or 4, dating from 500-480BC, that sailed from mainland Greece to the Sicilian colonies; the Capistello shipwreck is an Italian merchant ship of 20m long, with a crew of 3 or 4, dating from 300-280 BC, that sailed from Campania to North Africa; the Levanzo shipwreck is Roman, with a crew of 3 or 4, dating from 275-300 AD, that sailed from North Africa to Rome; and the Scauri shipwreck is Sicilian,  with a crew of 2 or 3 crew, dating from about 450AD.

Exhibited are, for instance, a cargo of red colored vessels retrieved from the Panarea shipwreck, dated to 400-350BC; copper ingots found off Pantelleria dating from around 1500 BC; a bronze Phoenician statuette from around 1000 BC found off the coast of Sciacca; a Corinthian helmet found off Camarina and dated to between 600 and 500BC; a lovely Pyxis with a painted marriage ceremony from Centuripe and dated 3^rd century BC. There is more, of course, like this Greek bowl with stamped decoration found near the Lipari Islands and dated to the 3^rd century BC; a quite unusual Greek terracotta altar or incense burner recovered from a ship off the Panarea Islands and dated to the 3^rd century BC together with some votive anchors; a marble male torso that could be either Greek or Roman, and might represent one of the Dioscuri found off Marsala and dated to 200–1 BC; a Sicilian-Greek Hercules found off Catania from the 2^nd century BC; and a rare Carthaginian hoard of bronze coins found off Pantelleria, dated 264-241 BC. The list is simply too long, for there are also some ship’s anchors and a choice of amphorae of all sizes and shapes, not forgetting the cute Phoenician or Egyptian glass beads with a human face.

The most remarkable pieces, however, are the three ships' rams, one Carthaginian and two Roman. The Carthaginian ram is unique, the only one ever recovered from the bottom of the sea. They all belong to the fierce battle that ended the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage in 241 BC near the Egadi Islands, south of Sicily. Here, underwater archaeologists have recently recovered ten Roman battering rams and one Carthaginian. This means that the three battering rams that are shown at this exhibition are by themselves reason enough to go to Amsterdam. There is no way to distinguish the Carthaginian battering ram from the Roman ones; it seems to come down to their respective inscriptions. How unique to see this!

A full set of my pictures is available in my album Sicily and the Sea (please click).

Exhibition about Carthage in Leiden, Netherlands

In the wake of my visit to Motya in Sicily where I was confronted with a number of Punic artifacts and a Tophet (Punic cemetery), I expected that this exhibition about Carthage at the Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden in Leiden in the Netherlands would be a nice complement. Well, it was not the case, but anyway, I learned a lot more about the Carthaginians who still are shrouded in mystery.

Carthage is advertised as the third city in the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria. This grand city was located in northern Africa on the coast of today’s Tunisia and was founded by the Phoenicians (from modern Lebanon) in the 9th century BC. Carthage had a powerful fleet and extended its power all over the Mediterranean Sea, much to the chagrin of the Romans, and led to repeated confrontations. The last so-called Punic War took place in 146 BC from which the Romans emerged victorious. A good century later, thanks to the efforts of Emperor Augustus, the city was rebuilt to become the third largest of the empire. Its glory lasted till 439 AD when Carthage, like so many cities in North Africa, was invaded by the Vandals. From the 7th century onwards it was gradually forgotten, to be rediscovered early in the 19th century. Since then it has been added to the World Heritage List of UNESCO.

The exhibition in Leiden, which is running till 7 May 2015, is divided in two parts: Carthage from 900 to 146 BC and Roman Carthage after 146 BC. The artifacts have been collected from several museums in Tunisia, but also from the Louvre and the British Museum.

Punic art is pretty intriguing, to say the least, for it is not immediately recognizable as for instance Greek or Egyptian art. Their artifacts are always mixed with foreign influences, either from Egypt, Africa, or Syria (their homeland), often with a Greek twist since many artists turned out to be Greek.

A striking example is, for instance, the lady on the marble lid of a sarcophagus from the 4th-3rd century BC found in the Necropolis of Rabs in Carthage. She is presented in Etruscan fashion but with a robe draped in Greek style; of Egyptian influence is her hairdo and the snake on her forehead, as well as the wings folding over her body. She could be a priestess of Isis, but that is not certain. Another noticeable statue is that representing a Goddess with the Head of a Lioness made of terracotta and dated from the first century AD. Although from the Roman era, the statue strongly reminds us of the Punic god Tanir, while she could be identified as the Egyptian Selhmet as well. The head does not really match her body, I’d say, but her robe looks Greek although the feather motives refer to the Middle East. This statue was found at Tinissut and is on loan from the Bardo Museum in Tunis.

There are, of course, many more highlights to be seen, like the Punic steles; the splendid bronze Punic cuirass; the elaborate Phoenician dishes from the 7th century BC; a collection of incense burners on top of terracotta heads that look very Greek and date from the 3rd-2nd century BC; or the unique marble sundial (scaphe) from Carthage dating from the 1st-2nd century AD on loan from the Louvre (see: What about sundials in antiquity?).

The collection from the Roman era is obviously showing an array of Roman men and women among objects for daily use. It is wonderful, however, to see two bronze statues recuperated from a shipwreck discovered off the coast of Tunisia near Mahdia, one representing Eros with the Lamp and the other a Dancing Satyr, both from around 100 BC. 

Absolutely unique is the presence of a Phoenician bronze battering ram that once was mounted at the very bow of a trireme. It looks brand-new and is quite amazing! It was recently discovered near the Egadi Islands, where the remains of at least 11 warships lost during the final naval battle of the First Punic War were uncovered (see also: The Trireme, a Ship to Remember). This battle occurred just off the Western coast of Sicily, near the island of Favignana. The battering ram that is exhibited here seems to be the only Phoenician one among the otherwise Roman examples.

A good number of highlights are illustrated on a special page of the site of Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden and my own highlights can be found in this album, Carthago in Leiden 2015.

The trireme, a ship to remember

The trireme seems to be the most intriguing type of ship built and used in the ancient world. It was, in fact, the most dangerous and effective warship of its time, built for mobility and speed. We know that Tyre had a fleet of triremes when they attacked Alexander to hamper him from working on the causeway to connect the island to the mainland. Arrian clearly states that he “took the quinqueremes and five triremes,” he quickly assembled to meet the Tyrians and eventually “rammed the majority and made them unsailable”.

 [Picture: Greek Reporter]

Triremes were meant to be used as a ramming weapon and were powered by 170 oarsmen arranged in three rows. The bottom row of oarsmen sat hardly 18 inches above the water level, meaning that the ship was not fit to be used in rough weather or to be handled in the open ocean. Yet they were ideal for short battles as they were very fast and maneuverable, a huge advantage during critical encounters. They are known to have been the decisive weapon during the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC when the 371 Greek ships defeated the much larger Persian fleet of 1207 ships.

The first trireme was invented around 700 BC by Ameinocles the Corinthian. It could move fast and under sail under favorable conditions, could even reach a speed of 10 knots. So it is not surprising that these triremes were favorites and were optimized over time to be the fastest ships in antiquity. They were used all over the eastern Mediterranean and the practical Romans sailed them until the 4th century AD.

In the past thirty years or so, there have been a lot of discussions about their shapes, the three levels of oars, and their overall measurements. All we could go by were vase paintings, coins, and pictures of different sculptures, as no wreck was ever found. A few construction details were revealed in ancient texts, like the performances of the rowers or the fact that each oar was handled by one single man. Some building sheds, however, seem to have come to us, providing us with at least the maximum length and beam of a trireme. The length of the oars was a main subject of debate since they plunged into the water from different levels. In the end, a general agreement has been reached to establish the length of a trireme at 120 feet (37 meters). They were manned by 170 oarsmen, of whom 31 sat on the top row, 27-29 on the middle and bottom rows.

By the end of the last century, the debates flared up, and eventually, a Trireme Trust was created in 1982 to rebuild a full-size ship. It took about five years to launch the prototype, which was baptized gallantly as Olympias. I like to believe that was in honor of Queen Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great but I couldn’t find any evidence to support my assumption. The modern replica was born in the shipyards of Piraeus using Oregon pine since adequate Greek pine had declined and was not expected to stand up to the strains. Some 20,000 wooden wedges were used to connect the hull planks, which, according to tradition, were made of beech wood, while the required 25,000 bronze spikes were all handmade. The ramming front was made of cast bronze in two separate pieces. The sails, on the other hand, were made of linen in Scotland, the only place capable of making such sails.

By 1987 sea trials were carried out in the Saronic Gulf around the island of Poros (1 day), in 1988 with a voyage to Methana and the subsequent circuit of Poros (1 day), in 1990 around the coast to Porto Heli when speed records were reached (5 days), in 1992 the first trireme passage through the Canal of Corinth was achieved and the longest voyage to Corinth, via Aegina and Salamis (6 days) and in 1994 the Olympias was used for public relation purposes with several Greek film crews. Remarkably, the ship even sailed up the River Thames in 1993 to mark the 2,500th anniversary of Greek democracy (I wonder why democracy had to be celebrated in London?).

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All these trials led to interesting conclusions in spite of the opposition by the purists who thought that any reconstruction should be based on an archaeological wreck, of which none exists. The Olympias sailed under favorable conditions in a sprint under oar at a speed of 9 knots (very close to the 10 knots mentioned above), while she was rowed continuously for more than 30 miles at a cruising speed of close to 6 knots. She turned out to be extremely maneuverable, and a lot of practical information was gleaned during these trials about the practicalities and logistics of using both oar and (square) sail.

The story of the Olympias has been dormant since, but suddenly I hear that scientists believe to be close to tracing the wood from which these ancient triremes were made. They are actually focusing on the Macedonian fir and pine tree of Olympus in the Pieria area, southern Macedonia, Greece, because their wood, locally known as “liacha” has no knots but is very resistant to salt water. This theory is based partly on Theophrastus, Aristotle’s successor, who recorded that these trees were used in the construction of paddles and ships, and partly on the results of archaeological excavation that were carried out in Methone in 2003. Since 2011, scientists from Greece have been joined by those from the USA, Britain, and Ireland in a collective effort to discover pure pieces of wood from the 8th century at the excavation site of Methone. I can hardly wait for the results of this study, especially since this city is part of Alexander’s homeland!

[Picture from Daily Mail]

Meanwhile, more exciting news comes from recent diving expeditions off the east coast of Sicily near the Egadi Islands, where ten bronze ship-rams have been discovered together with a variety of arms and utensils. The site is where the last battle of the First Punic War (241 BC) was fought between Carthage and Rome, which was won by the Romans thanks to their smart planning. The ten rams, each weighing as much as 125 kg, were mounted on the bow of the triremes or quinqueremes to be used to simply ram the enemy ship to pieces. This find is quite significant considering that till now only four rams have been recovered for all antiquity. Follow the latest developments on The Archaeology News Network. Another interesting article appeared lately in the Daily Mail.