Marble relief ‘Nero and Armenia’ from the Sebasteion at aPhrodisias in Caria (Asia Minor)

The article is devoted to an artistic and historical study of a marble relief with a symbolic scene of Nero’s victory over Armenia from the Sebasteion sanctuary complex in the ancient town of Aphrodisias in Asia Minor. The temple complex was dedicated to the cult of the Julio-Claudian imperial dynasty. The artistic and stylistic analysis of the relief was performed in the context of the sculptural program and decoration of the whole complex, and took into consideration other images of Nero in the Sebasteion. Through a comparative analysis of the figure personifying Armenia depicted on the marble relief in Aphrodisias, as well as a series of images on coins and small statuary samples, characteristic iconographic traits of Armenia in the Roman imperial art were revealed. Along with this, the paper presents an in-depth ‘reading’ of this scene within the context of specific epi- sodes from the history of the Parthian-Roman conflict and the Roman struggle for Armenia during the period of 54–68 AD.

Between the Silence of the Past and the Future

Archaeomusicological research currently con- ducted at the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw, institutionalised thanks to the financial support from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (grant NPRH), gave the opportunity to develop a wider field of research. The project includes not only the documentation of musical instruments but first and foremost experimental studies. We started with completely new research on idiophones (e.g. on the sounds of lithophones and rattles), returned to previously closed topics (e.g. gusli from Opole), and developed reconstruction methods using state-of-the-art technology (e.g. the reconstruction of flutes).

History of some antiquities from the collection of Michał Tyszkiewicz in Gródek

The palace in Gródek, one of the palaces built by the Tyszkiewicz family in Lithuania, was located in present-day Belarus, a dozen kilometres from Minsk. The founder of the building was Count Michał Tyszkiewicz. Built in 1855, the palace remained in the hands of the family until 1918. Among the antique pieces of furniture documented on photographs and paintings are a table and a mirror, today kept in Lithuanian museums. The mirror, decorated with tusks of wild pigs, was offered to King Augustus II on the occasion of his coronation in 1697. In the middle of the 19th century it was purchased by Michał Tyszkiewicz, who then added it to the furnishings of a tent offered as a resting place for Tsar Alexander during a hunting trip organised by Michał Tyszkiewicz and his brother in 1858 near Vilnius. This event was recorded by journalists and artists on some lithographs.

The Egyptian collection from Łohojsk in the National Museum in Warsaw

The National Museum in Warsaw, founded in 1916, took over the function of the older Museum of Fine Arts in Warsaw, founded in 1862. Between 1918 and 1922, the National Museum was systematically enriched through donations by private persons and institutions. One of the most important collections, placed there in 1919, was that originating from an old private museum owned by the Tyszkiewicz family in Łohojsk, donated through the agency of the Society of Fine Arts ‘Zachęta’ in Warsaw. The museum in Łohojsk (today in Belarus, not far from Minsk) was founded by Konstanty Tyszkiewicz (1806–1868). The rich collection of family portraits, paintings, engravings, and other works of art was enriched in 1862 by Count Michał Tyszkiewicz (1828–1897), who bequeathed a substantial part of the Egyptian antiquities brought from his travel to Egypt in 1861–1862. The Łohojsk collection was partly sold by Konstanty’s son, Oskar Tyszkiewicz (1837–1897), but some of these objects were purchased in 1901 by a cousin of Michał Tyszkiewicz, who then donated them to the Society of Fine Arts ‘Zachęta’. At this stage, the whole collection amounted to 626 items, of which 163 were connected to Egypt. During World War II, the National Museum in Warsaw suffered serious losses. At present, the exhibits originating from Łohojsk include 113 original ancient Egyptian pieces, four forgeries, and 29 paper squeezes reproducing the reliefs from the tomb of Khaemhtat of the 18th Dynasty (Theban tomb no. 57).

Michel Tyszkiewicz (1828-1897) et les fouilles archéologiques en Italie

According to Stanisław Lorentz, the collections of Michel Tyszkiewicz, enriched by his excavations in Egypt and Italy, undoubtedly “belonged to the more valuable European collections created in the second half of the 19th century”. After his first journey to Egypt, Tyszkiewicz, enlivened with a passion for excavations, first lived in Naples and then settled permanently in Rome in 1865. As the political situation changed there after 1870 and the new government restrained issuing permits, he started applying for excavation permits in his estate of Birże, in Lithuania (1871). Later, in 1894, he also tried to obtain excavation permits at Olbia, in Southern Russia, but this time unsuccessfully. His unpublished letters to the famous German scholar Wilhelm Froehner (1834–1925), now in the Goethe und Schiller Archiv in Weimar, throw a new light on the discoveries that took place in Boscoreale and in Lake Nemi and on his purchases there, as well as on his great enterprise in relation to the Satricum excavations in 1896, from which he was excluded after discovering the trace of “thousands of different votive objects”.

Prospections non invasives sur le site de Mustis/Musti (El Krib) en Tunisie

The objective of the first step of the non-invasive survey carried out on the Mustis site described herein was to verify the possibility of locating archaeological remains and to detect the location of the supposed remains by geophysical measurements (magnetic and electric methods). Magnetic measurements were made with Geometrics G-858 Cesium magnetometer with two probes located on the same horizontal level at 0.5 m distance or on the same vertical level at 0.5 m and 0.75 m above the ground level. The instrument recorded the values of the total vector of the magnetic field strength and made it possible to calculate the pseudo-gradient of its components (horizontal or vertical). Electric measurements were made by means of axial dipole-dipole electrode configurations (parallel) with AB current electrodes with spacing of one metre and electrodes of potential MN (identical spacing) at equal distance D at 4 and 6 metres, which made it possible to record values of apparent resistivity of the subsoil, with the penetration depth of the current of c. 2.0 and 3.5 m, respectively, below the current ground level. At the time of the data interpretation, the suspected locations of the remains causing the anomalies were indicated by means of dashes of different colours and thicknesses (depending on the assumed depth of the structures). These indications, transferred on maps, can serve as a starting point for extensive analyses of the entire site and its surrounding area. The first non-invasive surveys carried out in Mustis have demonstrated the usefulness of magnetic and electric methods in mapping the preserved remains both inside and around the city. The obtained results enabled elaborating a strategy for the work to come. It is quite probable that the magnetic method will prove capable of indicating places where vestiges of constructions are preserved, while the electric method will determine the depth and conditions of deposition of localised structures.

Roman fort at Cape Aj-Todor (Charax) and its surroundings. A new look at old discoveries

Despite many years of research at the site, the Roman fort at Cape Aj-Todor near Yalta remains rela- tively poorly studied. A better understanding of the discoveries made at the site can be reached by comparing them with the results of the excavations conducted in another fort also located in Crimea – at BalaklavaKadykovka. This text is an attempt at gathering together all the published information about the discoveries made at Cape Aj-Todor. The comparison of the research results from both sites has enabled establishing numerous similarities between them. Both forts functioned simultaneously, and their architectural remains can be qualified to identically dated phases. The final effect of the analysis undertaken by the author is a more complete plan of the fort at Cape Aj-Todor along with its surroundings, processed in a new graphic formula.

‘Brown-Clay’ Amphorae from Gonio (Apsaros)

This paper presents the first study of the so-called ‘brown-clay’ amphorae discovered by the Gonio-Apsaros Polish-Georgian Expedition in the Roman fort of Apsaros (modern Gonio, Georgia) between 2014 and 2018. In the course of five excavation seasons, 157 diagnostic fragments of these containers were attested, all belonging to variants Ch 1B2 and Ch 1C dated to between c. 50 BC and the 3rd century AD. Thus, they confirm the existence of the Apsaros fortress during the first three centuries of the present era. Both Colchian and south-eastern Pontic containers were found in Apsaros, the latter produced probably in Trapezus. This suggests the south-eastern Pontic provenance of some of the imports in Apsaros, especially until the end of the 1st century AD. On the other hand, local production of containers indicates that the area of the fortress might have produced food surpluses (probably wine), which during the late 1st and throughout the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD were exported to other areas neighbouring the Black Sea.

Finds of Illyrian coin hoards from the territories of Greek Illyria. An attempt at reconstructing the circulation of coinage based on the range of particular emissions

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the circulation of coinage through an analysis of finds of hoards of ‘Illyrian coins’ from the territory of Greek Illyria in the period from the 4th to the 1st century BC. To this end, hoards from modern-day Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Serbia, that is the maximum territorial extent of the so-called ‘Illyrian state’, were compiled in a catalogue. This catalogue of hoards of Illyrian coins served as a basis for producing dedicated maps which present data in a cumulative form, as well as sorted by date and place of issue. Distribution of finds in relation to terrain and settlement patterns was studied in order to locate concentrations of coins of given centres in different periods. Additionally, important observations concerned places in which coin hoards are absent or very scarce. The catalogue was also useful for tracing patterns in the composition of the hoards – those consisting of coins most commonly minted together and those dominated by coins of differing provenance.

Gotlandic pottery outside Gotland

The article discusses contacts and networks along the eastern coast of Sweden and around the Baltic Sea. The focus is on the decorated pottery c. 0–700 AD. Sweden and Scandinavia had different regional styles of pottery during this period. One of the most distinctive Scandinavian styles is found on Öland and Gotland. This style is distinguished by the elaborate use of stamps and vessels with handles positioned from the rim to the shoulder. Vessels made in this style are found outside the large islands, notably in Svealand, i.e. the lake Mälaren Basin in central Sweden, as well as in northern Sweden. More interesting is the spread and influences in the Dollkeim-Kovrovo culture, in north-eastern Poland, and Oblast Kaliningrad. During the Roman Iron Age, a special type of beaker is found from the Mälar basin to Gotland/Öland and further on in Oblast Kaliningrad. The connection can also be seen in dress ornaments and other artefacts. The regional differences in the pottery decrease during the Vendel Period (c. 550–800 AD). A new style of stamped vessels is spread from the Langobards in northern Italy to England and Scandinavia and marks a new, more uniform material culture. This marks probably a new area of more complex and centralised political units.