National Arcaeological Museum - Object Of The Month - February 2013

 

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National Arcaeological Museum in Athens 

 - Object Of The Month - February 2013

 
Περίαπτο σε σχήμα ανδρικού μορίου με οπή εξάρτησης

Material: Green glass paste

Provenance: Antikythera shipwreck. From the material retrieved in 1976

Date: 1st c. BC

Dimensions: H. 0.021 m

Inv. no: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, 30664

Exhibition Place:Temporary Exhibitions Wing, Room II

Usually made of faience or glass paste, phallus- shaped pendants were thought to have apotropaic properties. Talismans of this type were common in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt and in most Roman provinces. In fact, they were intended particularly for children.

Similar pendants, usually dated to the 1st c. BC, have been found at Delos and Dura-Europos also dated to the 1st c. BC.

The pendant's discovery in the shipwreck suggests that a young boy or girl slave may have been aboard the ship.

The tradition of talismans began in Egypt, which is considered the home of magic. The great variety of Egyptian charms influenced the production of contemporary and later ones -from prehistoric Aegean pendants to Christian crosses. Talismans were thought to protect against and intimidate evil spirits!

Arcaeological Museum of Greece - Subject Of The Month December

Πινάκια και κύπελλα
από το ναυάγιο των Αντικυθήρων 
60 π.Χ.- 50 π.Χ.

(Plates and cups from the Antikythera shipwreck)

quantity of fine tableware, mostly plates of various sizes and cups. Their main characteristic is the bright red to orange slip and the interior stamped decoration consisting of concentric notched homocentric circles (the so-called "rouletting"), combined with palmettes.

This distinctive and highly standardized mass-production late Hellenistic pottery, known as "Eastern Sigillata A ware" (ESA), emerged around the middle of the 2nd c. BC., and ceased to be produced in 2nd c. AD. It reached the peak of its dissemination around the mid-1st c. BC, at the time when the ship sank off the Antikythera coast. This kind of red-slipped ceramic ware was produced in huge quantities and was widely circulating particularly across the eastern Mediterranean, mainly along the Syropalestinian coast, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Cyclades, and in smaller numbers, in mainland Greece and Italian peninsula. The red-slipped pottery from the Antikythera shipwreck is, most probably, part of the output of a Syropalestinian workshop. It has been suggested that these vases, decorated with the distinctive combination of red-slipped coating and stamped decoration, emulate tableware of precious metals, and that coincide with the "rhosica vasa" mentioned by the Roman orator and politician Cicero (1st c. BC) and the "rhosic crockery" used by the queen Cleopatra of Egypt as stated by the alexandrian grammaticus Athenaeus of Naucratis (2nd c. AD). They were given this name after the city of Rhosus, a major export harbour for neighbouring Antioch, situated on the south coast of the Gulf of Issus. Sailing to Italy, the Antikythera ship, carried along with the rest of its precious cargo and a load of pottery of this kind, most probably destined for sale to the Roman aristocratic class (nobilitas), which was inclined towards eastern luxury!