Roman gems

The article considers the phalerae found as part of the gala horse bridle set in the cache of the Burial-mound № 1/1985 near the settlement of Dachi near Azov. Phalerae with bronze lining are decorated with large polished agate inlays with medallions with garnet, turquoise and coral inlays on their top, and gold lion figures in high relief, with turquoise inlays. The large banded agate inlays that adorned the central part of the phalerae, perhaps, secondary used hemispherical bowls, are unique for toreutics from the North Pontic region.
Taking into account the dating of the burial within the last quarter of the 1st century AD, the decoration of the central rosettes on top of the phalerae using the cloisonne technique, which was especially widespread in the North Pontic region in the middle and third quarter of the 1st century AD, probably, the manufacture of the phalerae should also be attributed to the same time. Figures of lions on the phalerae find a parallel in a gold figurine adorning the lid of a gold flask with figural zoomorphic handles and a Sarmatian tamga soldered on the bottom, presumably found in Olbia or Kerch. Similar in iconography are also relief images of recumbent lions on rectangular or oval pedestals, made of the so-called "Egyptian faience", which were widespread in the Northern Black Sea region, also very often found in the Sarmatian burials. Garnet gems with images of Nemesis from Smyrna and Artemis, inserted into one of the phalarae, can be confidently identified as products of the Bosporan workshop of the 1st century AD.
These unique items of horse harness, which fell into the possession of a nomad buried in the immediate vicinity of the borders of the Bosporan Kingdom (Tanais), can probably be considered as a diplomatic gift. It is possible that the phalerae, separately or as a part of the precious horse bridle set could in this case have been obtained by the representative of the highest nomadic nobility even during the events of the Bosporan-Roman war of 45–49 AD, similarly to set of four silver cups of the Bosporan origin which found their way into the cache of a burial located near the Dachi, in the Burial-mound no. 28/1982 of the Vysochino-VII cemetery.

This book presents nearly 200 objects of glyptic art from the Natsvlishvili Family collection, Tbilisi, Georgia. Their cultural, geographical and chronological diversity is considerable starting from the Near Eastern cylinder and stamp seals as well as amulets, through the Egyptian scarabs, Greek and Roman intaglios and cameos, the post-classical gems and contemporary forgeries.

This eclectic collection was a base for an essay on the subject of how to differentiate genuine ancient engraved gems from their modern copies, pastiches and forgeries. That essay is an introduction to the detailed analysis of the objects discussed in the catalogue section. Overall, it is confirmed that the cabinet contains products of the local glyptics as well as the imported ones to the territory of Georgia from all over the world through ages. The book also gives a valuable insight into the role of Tbilisi as a hub for exchange and trade in antiquities and works of art in the second half of the 19th and 20th century.

Първата и основна цел на статията е да се съберат на едно място всички достъпни геми с изображения на римската богиня на победата Виктория, както и тези на сродяваните с нея божества, носещи епитетите Victor и Victrix, и тези, в които тя е в компанията на други божества, открити в провинциите Горна Мизия, Долна Мизия и Тракия, през периода от I до III-IV в. сл.Хр. Прави се опит за паралел между сюжетите и стилистика на гемите, и тези върху монетните емисии от съответните провинции. Втората цел на статията е да се проследят, на базата на разглежданите паметници, разпространението и интензитета на култът към Виктория в посоченият времеви период.

Paper presented to Colloquia Anatolica et Aegaea Congressus internationales Smyrnenses XI Ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine engraved gems in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea area-An international e-conference on archaeological and archaeogemological approaches. May 12-13, 2021 / Izmir, Turkey.
Provisional publication, Edited by Ergün Lafli, Alev Çetingöz, Enver Melih Veziroğlu, Hugo Thoen:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346033542_Ancient_Greek_Roman_and_Byzantine_engraved_gems_in_the_eastern_Mediterranean_and_Black_Sea_area

Faerie Stones explores the Faerielore and Folklore associated with different stones and various crystal formations, from the ancient Neolithic arrows known as Elfshot to magical Faerie dusted geodes known as Fairy Cavern Quartz. It deals with the metaphysical aspects of the stones, their traditional uses and healing qualities, and discusses which types of Faerie and which Deities/Faerie Monarchs are associated with each stone. It also offers practical tips and two meditations for working with Faeries and stones for spiritual development. Aimed at all those who love Faeries and Crystals, it is ideal for the beginner or the more experienced practitioner

The visualization analyzed the minerals and precious stones in the Natural History of Pliny: Books XXXVI and XXXVII.

Thanks to the information mentioned in book XXXVII of Pliny, we know the origin of many of the most famous gemstones in the Roman markets. Being able to know its origin offers an image of the preferences of the Romans. Gems originating in the Middle East and India were the most coveted.

In this study, a gem with an Aphrodite image on it, obtained from the Philadelphia (Gökçeseki) Excavation in the Isaurian Region will be evaluated in terms of its valuable stone as well as the cultic and iconographical features of the figure. As known, the depictions on the gemme are carved, not on the surface placed on the bezel setting, but to its exterior part. Under the similar finds the Gökçeseki example appears to be the single one with the carving at the surface. Along with this example, it is seen that in addition to the known cameo and intaglio techniques used in ancient times, a third technique, which is the 'rever-se intaglio' technique was applied. In relation to the small size of the material, skillful work was carried out in the Roman Empire period, especially during the Iu-lius-Cladius period. Especially retrospective trends to the Classical and Hellenistic Periods began in large scale and on small objects. In relation to this fact, the Aphrodite will be traced also iconografically which leads us to a variation of the Anadyomene type of Aphrodite. As a result, the ring will be examined in terms of both its cultic and iconogrphical aspects and in the aspect of the transfer of a well-known type to a small-sized material with a new technique.

"Das Tema des Beitrags bilden vier römisch-kaiserzeitliche Ringe, gefunden im Kataster von Bratislava – Rusovce.
Zwei von ihnen stammen aus Rettungsgrabungen des SNM – Archäologischen Museums. (Kat. Nr. 1 und 2).  Die anderen zwei Ringe stammen aus dem äußeren Dorfereich und sie wurden dem Museum von Privatbesitzern zum Dokumentieren zur Verfügung gestellt (Kat. Nr. 3 und 4). Der Verband von Siegelringen aus Bratislava – Rusovce ist heterogen. Für die Herstellung der 4 Ringe verwendete man unterschiedliche Materiale: Eisen, Bronze, Gold, Glaspaste, Halbedelsteine (Granat und weißer Onyx). Die Datierung aller dieser Funde zwischen das 2. Jahrhundert und den Anfang des 4. Jahrhunderts entspricht der historischen Entwicklung und archäologischen Funden aus dieser Fundstelle."

El objetivo de este trabajo es el estudio del adorno personal femenino en Mérida de la Antigüedad y Antigüedad Tardía, desde la fundación de la colonia en el 25 a. C. hasta la llegada de los omeyas en el 713 d.C. Partimos de un concepto amplio de ornamenta, que incluye no sólo joyería, sino que también todas aquellas producciones que tienen como objetivo del exorno de la mujer así como, por otra parte, su relación directa con el mundus muliebris, esto es, los hábitos estéticos y cosméticos y la cultura material con ellos relacionada.
El núcleo analítico se sustenta en una exhaustiva revisión de los fondos custodiados en el Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, que ha dado lugar a un catálogo de 439 objetos, de los cuales el 65% eran inéditos. Dicho catálogo se estructura por tipos de adornos: anillos y entalles, brazaletes, adornos para el cuello, pendientes, hilos de oro y aplicaciones sobre indumentaria, y adornos del cabello. Cada grupo se organiza por tipologías, de manera que pueda valorarse su recurrencia y variabilidad. Se ha realizado un análisis fundamental de las piezas, exhaustivo en el detalle pero permitiendo un examen de conjunto estructurado. En el catálogo se ha cuidado especialmente la documentación fotográfica, realizada casi en exclusividad ex profeso para este trabajo.
Los siguientes dos capítulos incluyen, por una parte, una revisión de las materias primas constituyentes de la colección analizada, y, por otra, un estudio cronotipológico. La elección de la materia en la creación de los adornos personales es un aspecto esencial. No sólo son seleccionadas por sus cualidades estéticas, sino también por el estatus social que reflejan de su poseedora, debido a lo habitual de su exclusividad. Por otro lado, será muy frecuente que las materias empleadas aúnen connotaciones simbólicas, como las piedras preciosas, ya que se les confería propiedades profilácticas o propiciatorias. Con respecto a las materias primas, se observan sus propiedades físicas, los lugares de captación y los circuitos comerciales por los que transitaban, los procesos tecnológicos a los que eran sometidas, específicamente referido a la particularidad que se observa en la colección emeritense, así como las principales referencias que sobre ellas citan las fuentes clásicas.
El capítulo dedicado al estudio cronotipológico de los adornos parte, en primera instancia, del texto del Digesto de Justiniano en el que se especifican los principales tipos de ornamenta, y por otra parte, del empleo de las fuentes iconográficas en las que se puede observar la disposición de las joyas  y su combinación. Este capítulo se completa con un estudio preliminar de los objetos del mundus muliebris ya que permiten con mayor profundidad definir la cultura material específica de la mujer y tienen un papel importante en la construcción social del género en época romana. Ornamenta y mundus constituyen lo que hoy denominaríamos el ‘universo femenino’.
Finalmente, un último capítulo de análisis se ha dedicado a los ‘Ornamenta y mundus en contexto. Los ajuares funerarios’. El estudio de una selección de depósitos funerarios femeninos destacados por la presencia de adornos personales ha supuesto una fuente fundamental de información, más allá de resolver cuestiones cronológicas, problemáticas en el ámbito de los ornamenta. Su análisis permite comprobar la recurrencia de ciertos objetos como identitarios de la mujer, joyas y adornos así como instrumentos de la toilette femenina que son exponentes del rol social esperable de ellas, lo cual nos introduce en aspectos relativos a los estudios de género.
Las conclusiones permiten vislumbrar una visión diacrónica de los cambios estéticos y técnicos operados en la cultura material asociada al exorno de la mujer, de manera general, y específicamente en el ámbito de la ciudad de Mérida durante la Antigüedad.
Puede afirmarse que entre el siglo I y el III d.C. hay un panorama coincidente con las modas y los tipos observados tanto en la Península Itálica como en el resto del territorio del Imperio, con presencia de los tipos más comunes en los circuitos comerciales de productos de lujo. Las joyas de este momento están muy condicionadas por el material disponible: empleo casi exclusivo del oro y variedad amplia de piedras preciosas. La iconografía empleada está relacionada con las divinidades oficiales, con motivos tradicionales o bien con la mentalidad supersticiosa romana. En los ajuares funerarios destaca la constante presencia de ornamenta y utensilios del mundus muliebris. Esta homogeneidad no obsta para definir cambios en las modas, especialmente entre las dos primeras centurias y la tercera como son los anillos más masivos en las dos primeras centurias o las novedades técnicas, como la introducción del opus interrasile, la cada vez mayor presencia de la policromía en la configuración de las joyas, o nuevos tipos como la joyería monetal o el pendiente de gancho a partir del siglo III d.C.
Durante el siglo IV d.C., a pesar de los problemas de documentación clara de contextos funerarios o de la ausencia de estos objetos en ellos, se pueden explicitar ciertas tendencias características en los adornos personales como es la diversificación de las producciones en modas regionales, que se manifiesta, por un lado, en el empleo de materias más accesibles y menos exigentes técnicamente, como son el hueso y el vidrio, y, por otro, propiciando la creación local de nuevo tipos de adornos. La vitalidad de los talleres emeritenses de objetos de hueso cobra identidad propia que se refleja en las figuras femeninas conocidas como ‘idolillos’ y en los acus crinales de cabeza con triángulos contrapuestos.
La llegada de las Grandes Migraciones a la Península Ibérica entre el 409 y el 411 d.C. introducen nuevas modas en el vestir muy características, como los apliques sobre el tocado y prendas de indumentaria. La necrópolis del Solar de Blanes nos sitúa ante un momento histórico muy concreto, nos abre una ventana a la primera mitad del siglo V d.C. En los depósitos funerarios analizados procedentes de esta área funeraria se reconocen los adornos típicos que la bibliografía especializada ha denominado ‘tumbas principescas póntico-danubianas’, aunque su adscripción étnica está muy cuestionada y su representatividad de las élites debatida. Se trata de un tipo de ornamentos muy singulares, en primer lugar, por su disposición sobre el atuendo, en relación a la indumentaria tradicional de los pueblos de las estepas; por otro lado, están realizados con materiales nobles y con técnicas particulares, como son el batido en frío o la estampación de matrices.
Finalmente, el panorama cambia radicalmente en el último período de estudio comprendido entre los siglos VI y VII d.C. cuando la ausencia de ajuar es característica en las costumbres funerarias, lo que influye en la documentación arqueológica que se posee y, por ende, en la información al respecto del empleo de adornos personales. La homogeneidad en las producciones es la nota dominante. Cuantitativamente el número de adornos adscritos a este período es importante, pero la diversidad de los tipos empleados está reducida a pendientes del tipo arete abierto y anillos sencillos sobre lámina. La producción parece responder a la ejecución de talleres locales que abastecerían un mercado muy reducido y que prácticamente se restringen al empleo de aleaciones de cobre, más asequibles. Además es evidente el ahorro de materiales y la limitación de recursos técnicos, en una producción mucho más comedida de objetos de escaso volumen.
En suma, este volumen ha abarcado la documentación y contextualización de una faceta casi inédita en la ciudad de Mérida, referida al género femenino y en una demarcación de la Antigüedad y la Antigüedad Tardía hasta el cambio cultural que sucedería a la invasión islámica.

The paper offers a brief survey of the Roman gems from the territory of Verona, subject explored till now only with regard to few items. The present research, focused on the published finds, could give a little piece to the difficult problem of the dating of Roman gems and their representations and also of their link with the discovery's context.

This paper considers the interpretation and function of ancient objects in the European high and late middle ages through the lens of coin hoard evidence, with a particular focus on the inclusion of ancient coins and engraved gemstones in hoards of the 11th to 15th centuries. Comparative analysis emphasises the diverse trajectories of ancient objects in medieval society; locally-found and deliberately-imported antiquities were equally capable of being reused and reimagined as sources of bullion, as collectable markers of social status, as Christian devotional images, or as amulets and talismans imbued with divine or magical power.

This journal article examines and discusses critically how classical (Greek, Etruscan and Roman) and postclassical (mainly neoclassical) engraved gems and cameos were collected, studied, classified and displayed in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both in general and more specifically as reflected in a major unpublished dactyliotheca (gem cast cabinet) of several thousand gem casts assembled by an amateur collector, Adolf Frucht (1852-1914), in Munich, Germany. This cast cabinet, now in the collection of the Classics Department at the University of Texas at Austin, was assembled around the turn of the century 1900, thus long after the short-lived cultural phenomenon of dactyliothecae was definitely over. It includes incomplete series and items from well-known eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century cast producers, notably Philipp Daniel Lippert (1702-1785) in Dresden and Bartolomeo (1758-1834) and Pietro Paoletti (1801-1847) in Rome, as well as numerous casts made by Frucht himself in various public collections in Germany over a period of around two decades. Frucht’s ambitious project to create a gigantic modern dactyliotheca representative of ancient gem-engraving as a whole was initiated using a traditional antiquarian classification system developed by the gem collector and connoisseur Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757) for his own collection, and later used by Winckelmann in his catalogue of the Stosch gems (Description des pierres gravées du feu Baron de Stosch, 1760). This system became widely influential as a model for how collections should be displayed and published in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was employed e.g. in Lippert’s four-volume Dactyliotheca Universalis (1755-76) and two-volume Dactyliothec (1767). But at a crucial point in his work process, Frucht decided to abandon the Stosch-Winckelmann system and restructure his material after new criteria recently developed by the archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler (1853-1907) in his three-volume publication Die antiken Gemmen: Geschichte der Steinschneidekunst im klassischen Altertum (1900). This pioneering work was published when Furtwängler was professor of archaeology and director of the antiquities collections in Munich, and there is a direct link between the two men, the amateur and the professional, as well as close links to a circle of private collectors in the city grouped around Furtwängler. But Frucht’s work was cut short by his unexpected death in 1914, leaving his reclassification work and the accompanying catalogue he was compiling unfinished. His collection, preserved exactly as Frucht left it at the time of his death, offers unique insights into gem collecting at a crucial moment in the history of gem scholarship when Furtwängler revolutionized this moribund field of study, saving it from neglect and marginalization with his systematic investigations of gems carrying artists’ signatures (1888-1889), on the 12.000 gems in the Berlin collection (1896) and on the whole known preserved corpus of gems (1900). The latter study, Furtwängler’s great Gemmenbuch,  presents a selection of 4.000 gems chosen from a body of more than 50.000 preserved gems that Furtwängler examined in original in all the major public and private collections in Europe and the US over the fifteen years he worked on the project. Taking as its point of departure these two principal systems of classification—the antiquarian one developed by Stosch-Winckelmann in mid-eighteenth-century Florence, and Furtwängler's complete re-systematization of the whole surviving corpus of ancient gems in the last decades of the nineteenth century—the study discusses how this field of study has evolved over the centuries, moving in and out of scholarly and popular focus. In addition to a closer examination of some instrumental scholarly publications from the early eighteenth to the early twentieth century and beyond, the study also discusses various commercial gem cast producers, notably Christian Dehn (1696-1770), Lippert, Paoletti, James Tassie (1735-1799), and Tommaso Cades (1772-c. 1850).

"Brick with jewel impression from Aquincum

Summary

During the excavation of the Resident of Aquincum’s palace in 1996, a fragment of a tube (brick) was found featuring side by side with the CHR seal (?) an impression which was made unintentionally. The impression comes without a doubt from a ring. Judging by its shape the ring node would have continued in a marked but nonetheless unadorned shoulder. As it shows on the impression, the gem could not have been entirely level with the ring node. The original of the ring belongs with types Henkel 25. Nr. 157, 56 as well as. Nr. 411. Guiraud 2 (c, d, f g), Henig XII., or Aquincum I. The node was decorated with an intaglio depicting a human profile with a laurel looking right – in all likelihood a bearded man’s profile, considering the markedly jutting chin-line. The laurel, however, is unmistakable evidence that the gem portrays an emperor. The shape of the ring, the straight nose along with the chin curtain and the moustache, as well as the round face suggest that the portrait is that of Hadrian. 
The ring impression appears twice on the brick, which allows us to make certain inferences concerning the method of brick manufacture, namely, that the moulded bricks were dried on shelves or stands. The owner of the ring, presumably a professed follower or henchman of the emperor would have been a visitor of the brick-manufacturing workshop.
"

The discovery by Clifford M. Brown of a reference to the Felix Gem (now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) in an inventory of the goods of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, drawn up after his death in 1483, confirms the hypothesis put forward by the author some years ago, that Mantegna knew the Felix Gem and used it in the Battle of the Sea Gods and the Parnassus. The author has suggested elsewhere that the Battle of the Sea Gods was intended to be part of a composition including the Bacchanals and the Triumph of Caesar. The presence of references to the Felix Gem in the latter tends to confirm this hypothesis. Includes an Appendix by Clifford M. Brown.

ABSTRACT: Several sources suggest that when the German classical archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler (1853-1907) left his position at the Berlin Museums in 1894 to become professor of archaeology and numismatics in Munich, he brought with him an impressive network of archaeologists, museum curators, collectors and dealers, and soon turned his new home town into an important caravanserai of the international trade in antiquities. He was also appointed director of four important collections in the city: the Glyptothek, the Antiquarium/vase collection, the cast collection, and the numismatic collection. Himself a serious collector and specialist on ancient sculpture and engraved gems, Furtwängler made these contacts his powerbase, offering expert advice to major museums, private collectors and dealers around the world in return for information, building one of the largest private archaeological archives in existence, with extensive photo documentation. No important ancient artworks were discovered, came on the market or changed hands without Furtwängler’s knowledge. The extensive professional network that he managed to create is comparable to those of Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757) before him and John Beazley (1885-1970) after. This short paper discusses the culture of professional and amateur collecting in the wake of Furtwängler’s scholarly activities in Munich and includes notable Munich collectors and agents like Paul Arndt (1865-1937) and James Loeb (1867-1933), but also Adolf Frucht (1852-1914), Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914), Edward Perry Warren (1860-1928), John Marshall (1876-1958), Michel Tyszkiewicz (1828-1897) and others.

During the first years of his political activity after the death of Julius Caesar, Augustus, then still known as Octavian, launched a propagandistic political program by which he was represented, both in gems and in coins, as the sea-god Neptune. This kind of divine representation was linked with the “heroic” idea of being presented himself as ruler of the seas, especially after beating Sextus Pompeius in the naval battle of Naulochus (36 BC). This visual and heroic initiative looked also for counteract and discredit the preceding divine filiation and relationship established by the Pompeii (Pompeius Magnus and Sextus Pompeius Pompei filius) with the sea-god, whom, like them, ruled over all the seas.