Tag: archaeology

Postcard from Istanbul, Turkey: Tooting horn about restitution of artifacts

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Above: Stag rhyton, Milas, Turkey, 400 BCE, displayed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

The elegant stag rhyton pictured above must have been quite a status symbol for its owner in ancient Turkey. Today’s value of the combination wine aerator and drinking vessel, $3.5 million, probably made it even more so for the billionaire American collector who acquired it without verifiable provenance.

For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe. His pursuit of ‘new’ additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers, and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection.”

Cyrus Vance, Jr., District Attorney of Manhattan, December 2021 Statement

Now it is part of a growing collection of repatriated stolen antiquities proudly showcased in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

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Postcard from Lecce, Italy: A place to slip into that dolce far niente

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lecce pastries

Tarted-up pastries gifted by the landlord of our rental in Lecce

The leisurely pace of Lecce makes it easy to indulge in the luxury of sweet idleness in one’s travels. Boulevardiers and flaneurs feel comfortably at home.

Fruit and vegetable stand across the street from our apartment.
The statue of Saint Orontius was removed from its high column for restoration.
Tile wood-fired stove and oven in our apartment rental in Palazzo Pio. The copper pots that appear as though resting on burners actually are fitted into the openings, with about 3/4 of the pot sunken into the wood-burning area. And, yes, there also was a modern gas one for our use.

Before we leave Italy, duck your head into one final museum: Museo Archeologico Faggiano.

Luciano Faggiano planned on opening a restaurant in the historic center, but his quest proved a pipe dream. Or a pipe nightmare, as it turned out.

The plumbing kept backing up, and the only remedy would be to excavate in search of the ancient sewer pipes. He summoned his two older sons back from college to help. Just for a week at most.

The pipe proved elusive. But the more they dug, the more underground chambers they uncovered. With each new opening, the older brothers would lower their 12-year-old sibling down through the hole to report back before they proceeded. The ancient stone walls contained thousands of archaeological artifacts. As they progressed, the men hauled the excess rubble away in their car.

A suspicious neighbor reported them to authorities, and everything ground to a halt. The government pushed plumbing down to a lower priority, and not a spade-full of dirt could be turned without the presence of an observer from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. Most artifacts uncovered belong to the government and are displayed in state-run museums.

The restaurant? It is now a family-run archeology museum, leaving visitors to explore several ancient tunnels and tombs which extend past the property line of this former convent.

Now, Luciano has bought the house behind it, and the excavations continue. The possibility that either will ever serve guests pasta appears unlikely. A couple enters the museum and pays about $10; a couple in a typical restaurant in Lecce would pays about $16 for two full plates of pasta. The museum business appears both easier and more reliably profitable.

Two of the Faggiano brothers
Museo Archeologico Faggiano

These  represent the final batch of photos from our relaxing stay this past fall. But our armchair travels have assumed such a leisurely pace during shutdown that one more trip remains. Next stop: Merida in Mexico.

Postcard from Rome, Italy: Few clues for archaeologists of future times

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The war against graffiti within the historic center in Rome is constant, but it is amazingly successful. “Divieto d’Avissione.”

The penalties must be high, because most of what is of any interest at all obviously is executed rapidly by stencil or pasted on a wall by someone on the run. The center is pretty much devoid of any authorized street art as well.

That was not the case in ancient Rome:

But, unlike today, Roman graffiti was not forbidden—and it was practically everywhere, from the private dining rooms of wealthy homes (domi, where friends sometimes left messages for the hosts) to the public forum. In fact, according to Kristina Milnor, more 11,000 graffiti images have been found in Pompeii—which is just about the size of the population at the height of the town….

Without this threat of punishment, it seems that graffiti was readily practiced by people at all strata of society, making it perhaps the most valuable text we have from the ancient world. Man, woman, child, slave, poor, rich, illiterate—it did not matter, so long as there was an empty spot on a wall. Which means that, through graffiti, we are able to hear the voices of those who have been traditionally voiceless, granting us the possibility of astounding insights into lives and minds we’ve never been able to access….

Naturally, all of these works have slowly changed ideas on what Roman life was like at the time.

“Why ancient Roman graffiti is so important to archaeologists,” Susanna Pilney, Red Orbit

The majority of these images are fleeting, soon to be eradicated by graffiti police. Surely not Super Papa Francis?

How will archaeologists of the future ever understand what Romans of today think about politics, sex, love, religion?

If the #qwerty from the featured image were all that remained, the keyboard reference would only confuse them. Who could figure out any Latin-based alphabet based on that?