King’s spice cabinet found on Gribshunden

Ex Cathedra

A new study of botanical materials found on the wreck of the Gribshunden, the 15th century Danish royal warship, has found it was laden with exotic spices, including the first archaeological evidence of saffron, ginger, cloves in medieval Scandinavia, previously only known from scant written sources instead of material remains. It is also the only known archaeological example of a complete royal spice larder from the Middle Ages. It is so well-preserved that the saffron still has its distinctive aroma after 527 years underwater.

Gribshunden, the flagship of King Hans of Denmark and Norway, sank while anchored next to the island Stora Ekön off the Baltic coast of Ronneby, southern Sweden, in 1495. The king and his retinue had disembarked and were headed to a meeting with the regent of Sweden in Kalmar when the ship suddenly caught fire and quickly sank to the seabed 35 feet below the surface.

The wreck was first spotted in 1971 by local sports divers and it became a popular scuba site. Archaeologists only began to explore the site in 2001 after early iron gun carriages were found. Subsequent fieldwork revealed a carvel-built warship from the late 1400s that was unusually large for the period. It was also unusually well-armed and well-provisioned. Its design, contents and radiocarbon dating of the timbers identified it as the Gribshunden. It is the oldest armed warship found in Nordic waters.
Built in 1485 in northern France or Belgium, Gribshunden was one of the first European naval vessels to be outfitted with guns and King Hans made ample of use it for a decade before its sinking. Its last trip in June 1495 was a diplomatic mission. Hans was attending a summit to convince the regent of Sweden and the Swedish Council to recreate the Kalmar Union by electing him King of Sweden. That would join the crown of Sweden to that of Denmark and Norway and reunite all of the Nordic countries under a single ruler.

Hans needed his flagship fully stocked with emblems of his hard power — shipboard artillery, a whole battalion of soldiers, armor, small arms — as well as his soft power — luxurious livery, books, enough food and drink for multiple royal courts to feast on — to impress the Swedish delegation. Archaeological evidence of this rich assemblage, even the organic elements, survived in exceptionally good condition thanks to the consistently low temperature and low salinity of Baltic waters. Thick algae deposits also create anaerobic zones that preserve archaeological remains from wooden crossbow stocks to fruit seeds.

In total, the study identified 3097 plant remains from 40 species. Spices dominate, representing 86% of the assemblage.

The plant material from Gribshunden contributes new knowledge about the foodstuffs consumed by the social elite in medieval Scandinavia. Considering that Gribshunden sank in the beginning of June, perishables such as ginger, grapes, berries, and cucumber were likely preserved as dried fruit, pickles, or jams to have been available for consumption all year around. It is unclear if ginger rhizomes were stored fresh or were preserved in some form. If fresh, the rhizomes must have been procured within days of Gribshunden’s departure from Copenhagen, as fresh ginger has a short shelf life. Other foodstuffs recovered from Gribshunden could be stored for far longer than fresh ginger. Spices from far distant origin, such as black pepper, saffron, and cloves would keep for long periods if they remained dry. Dill, black mustard, and caraway were likely sourced locally. Flaxseeds, almond, and hazelnut have long storage lives. It is probable that nuts were stored on board in their shells and cracked opened when ready for consumption, as broken shell parts were recovered from both nut species.

It is tempting to compare this wide variety of fresh produce to records of medieval maritime provisioning; but as the royal flagship, Gribshunden is a special case. Instead, the exotic foodstuffs from the king’s spice cabinet provide a window into the consumption patterns that likely followed in the elite landscapes of castles ashore. Despite the popularity of exotic spices among the medieval aristocracy, very few of these foods have survived archaeologically. The preservation of these plant foods on Gribshunden constitutes a discovery of great historical value. Spices and other exotic foods such as almonds were typically consumed only by society’s wealthiest. On Gribshunden these were not victuals for the working crew. Exotic food items are probably some of the most easily identifiable indicators of social context. King Hans was travelling on the ship together with his courtiers; these expensive exotic foods are linked to these passengers.

Danish archival sources from 1487 relate brief but telling details specific to King Hans’ expenses and activities aboard his flagship. While laid up awaiting favorable winds in 1487 en route to Gotland and at a stop on Bornholm island on the return, Hans gambled on card games. In those few weeks, his recorded losses totaled 42 marks, nearly the annual salary of one of the ship’s senior officers. He ate candy and nuts, and with his companions, drank wine and particularly beer. On that voyage the ship reprovisioned with fresh barrels of local beer, as well as embstøll, a hopped Prussian beer originally brewed in Einbeck, Germany. Other recorded purchases for Hans’ sea voyages are consistent. He bought more confectionaries for the apothecary, nuts, and saffron while voyaging to Års, Jylland, Denmark. The amount of saffron purchased was prodigious: the cost was 36 mark danske, equivalent to nine months of salary for a senior officer on Gribshunden, or 18 months of salary for a sailor. These documentary references combined with the remains of saffron, almonds, and hazelnut recovered from Gribshunden’s 1495 wrecking prove that the king regularly consumed these extravagant foods while at sea, and most probably while ashore. […]

Had Gribshunden safely arrived in Kalmar, from its decks Hans would have employed all manner of elite signaling to impress the Swedish Council. The consumption of exotic foods certainly was symbolic of prestige and social superiority within Hans’ realm. It also demonstrated that King Hans and medieval Denmark were culturally integrated with the rest of Europe, and the world beyond the continental borders.

The Republic of clay returns to the Capitoline

Ancient, Roma, Caput Mundi

Suetonius (69-122 A.D.) wrote in The Lives of the Caesars that Augustus could accurately boast that he had found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. The context of the statement was the improvements to the city Augustus had made as sole ruler after he abandoned any idea of restoring the Roman Republic and instead subsumed all the major magistracies of the Senate, Tribunician powers and the entire treasury of Rome under his personal control.

The city, which was not built in a manner suitable to the grandeur of the empire, and was liable to inundations of the Tiber, as well as to fires, was so much improved under his administration, that he boasted, not without reason, that he “found it of brick, but left it of marble.”

Cassius Dio (155-235 A.D.) attributes the same quote to Augustus (Roman History, Book LVI:30), only he explicitly rejects the literal interpretation proffered by Suetonius.

“I found Rome of clay; I leave it to you of marble.” [Augustus] did not thereby refer literally to the appearance of its buildings, but rather to the strength of the empire.

A new exhibition at the Capitoline Museums‘ Palazzo Caffarelli presents a whole new view of that Republican city of clay via more than 1800 archaeological remains, most of which have never before been on display. There are bronze pieces, local stone and a tiny smattering of marble, but the overwhelming majority of the objects are made of terracotta and ceramic; ie, the clay/brick that Augustus was so proud of replacing.

Many of these works are fragmentary, recovered at various times at locations within the city and in its environs, but most of them were recovered from the sites of ancient temples on the Capitoline Hill and in the Campus Martius. They date to between the 6th century B.C. and the middle of the 1st century B.C., the heyday of the Roman Republic.

The exhibition focuses on the material remains that attest to the physical construction of the city, and curators used the latest technology to attempt to reconstruct how some of these fragments would have looked when intact during the Republic. For example, chunks of terracotta cladding slabs from a temple in what is now Largo Argentina (of cat shelter fame) have been set into a background image illustrating what the vividly-painted terracotta frieze would have looked like.

One group of largely ignored objects — pieces of terracotta figures discovered in the 19th century on the Via Latina leading south out of Rome — stands out for the high quality of craftsmanship and the importance to their religious function. Researchers determined that the 11 pieces were part of sculptures of the Capitoline Triad (deities Jupiter, Juno and Minerva) that adorned a temple pediment in the 1st century B.C. They then recreated the full-size sculptures by 3D-printing what was lost and integrating the original fragments into the reproduction in their proposed original locations. It’s a striking presentation that deploys technology in an innovative way to showcase fragmentary materials as close as possible to their original state.

The Rome of the Republic exhibition is open now and runs through September 24th of this year.

Getty acquires monumental bust of Antoninus Pius

Ancient, Museums

The Getty Museum has acquired a larger-than-life-sized portrait bust of the emperor Antoninus Pius from a private collection in England. It is one of the finest surviving portraits of Antoninus Pius, but previously unpublished until it appeared at auction last year. The deal isn’t quite done yet — the museum awaits an export license from the UK Ministry of Culture — but should it go through, the bust will go on display alongside the Getty Villa’s other important Antonine-period sculptures.

A prime example of Antoninus Pius’s main portrait type, the bust was created sometime after he ascended the throne in AD 138. With minor variations, this portrait type remained the emperor’s official image throughout his reign until AD 161. Carved from a single block of fine-grained white marble, the bust shows the emperor as a mature man with distinct facial features, a full, neatly trimmed beard, and thick curly hair. He wears a tunic, a cuirass (body armor), and a fringed paludamentum (a general’s cloak) folded in half and pinned at his right shoulder.

“This exquisitely sculpted and remarkably preserved portrait ranks among the finest of more than 100 versions of Antoninus’s image that have survived from antiquity,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “The bust adds a new highlight to the series of high-quality imperial portraits at the Getty Villa, including the full-length statue of Antoninus’ wife Faustina the Elder, and the busts of Augustus, Germanicus, Caligula, and Commodus.” […]

“Many objects in our collection were made in the Antonine period, as it is known today, including portraits, mythological sculptures, sarcophagi, and numerous other works,” says Jens Daehner, associate curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum. “The bust of Antoninus provides a firmly dated visual reference for what characterized Roman aesthetics during that period. On display in our galleries, the bust will convey to visitors how, for example, Antonine sculptors carved drapery folds, used drills to give texture to hair, or incised the eyes of their sitters.”

Believed to have been discovered in Pozzuoli in the 19th century, the bust is first documented in 1851 when it was bought by Robert Martin Berkeley (1823-1897) and his bride Lady Mary Catherine Berkeley (1829-1924) on their honeymoon. Berkeley’s honeymoon diary records buying the bust on June 11, 1851, from antiques shop of dealer Raffaello Barone on Via Costantinopoli in Naples’ historic center. He paid 240 ducats (about $5400 today, adjusted for inflation). The newlyweds brought it home to Spetchley Park in Worcestershire where it has remained all these years until the descendants sold it last December.

This bust has many features in common with a bust in the collection of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. The carving of the draping, fibula and fringe of the paludamentum is so similar in both busts that it is probably they were produced by the same workshop.

Antoninus Pius (b. 86 – d. 161 A.D.) was the adopted son and successor of Hadrian (b. 76 –  d. 138 A.D.) and the uncle, father-in-law and adoptive father of Marcus Aurelius (b. 121 –  d. 180 A.D.). Marcus Aurelius wrote an extraordinary tribute to Pius in the Meditations. In the First Notebook, Marcus lists the things he learned from people who were formative influences in his development as a philosopher, emperor and man of virtue. The entry on his father is the only description of an emperor written by another emperor who knew him as family, friend and mentor and it was never intended for publication. Marcus’ notebooks were journals, not letters, not inscriptions, not future memoirs, so what Marcus writes about Pius is a deeply personal assessment of his father’s many strengths and virtues. For Marcus, Pius was the Stoic ideal as man and emperor.

XIII. In my father, I observed his meekness; his constancy without wavering in those things, which after a due examination and deliberation, he had determined. How free from all vanity he carried himself in matter of honour and dignity, (as they are esteemed:) his laboriousness and assiduity, his readiness to hear any man, that had aught to say tending to any common good: how generally and impartially he would give every man his due; his skill and knowledge, when rigour or extremity, or when remissness or moderation was in season; how he did abstain from all unchaste love of youths; his moderate condescending to other men’s occasions as an ordinary man, neither absolutely requiring of his friends, that they should wait upon him at his ordinary meals, nor that they should of necessity accompany him in his journeys; and that whensoever any business upon some necessary occasions was to be put off and omitted before it could be ended, he was ever found when he went about it again, the same man that he was before.

His accurate examination of things in consultations, and patient hearing of others. He would not hastily give over the search of the matter, as one easy to be satisfied with sudden notions and apprehensions. His care to preserve his friends; how neither at any time he would carry himself towards them with disdainful neglect, and grow weary of them; nor yet at any time be madly fond of them. His contented mind in all things, his cheerful countenance, his care to foresee things afar off, and to take order for the least, without any noise or clamour.

Moreover how all acclamations and flattery were repressed by him: how carefully he observed all things necessary to the government, and kept an account of the common expenses, and how patiently he did abide that he was reprehended by some for this his strict and rigid kind of dealing. How he was neither a superstitious worshipper of the gods, nor an ambitious pleaser of men, or studious of popular applause; but sober in all things, and everywhere observant of that which was fitting; no affecter of novelties: in those things which conduced to his ease and convenience, (plenty whereof his fortune did afford him,) without pride and bragging, yet with all freedom and liberty: so that as he did freely enjoy them without any anxiety or affectation when they were present; so when absent, he found no want of them.

Moreover, that he was never commended by any man, as either a learned acute man, or an obsequious officious man, or a fine orator; but as a ripe mature man, a perfect sound man; one that could not endure to be flattered; able to govern both himself and others. Moreover, how much he did honour all true philosophers, without upbraiding those that were not so; his sociableness, his gracious and delightful conversation, but never unto satiety; his care of his body within bounds and measure, not as one that desired to live long, or over-studious of neatness, and elegancy; and yet not as one that did not regard it: so that through his own care and providence, he seldom needed any inward physic, or outward applications: but especially how ingeniously he would yield to any that had obtained any peculiar faculty, as either eloquence, or the knowledge of the laws, or of ancient customs, or the like; and how he concurred with them, in his best care and endeavour that every one of them might in his kind, for that wherein he excelled, be regarded and esteemed: and although he did all things carefully after the ancient customs of his forefathers, yet even of this was he not desirous that men should take notice, that he did imitate ancient customs.

Again, how he was not easily moved and tossed up and down, but loved to be constant, both in the same places and businesses; and how after his great fits of headache he would return fresh and vigorous to his wonted affairs. Again, that secrets he neither had many, nor often, and such only as concerned public matters: his discretion and moderation, in exhibiting of the public sights and shows for the pleasure and pastime of the people: in public buildings, congiaries, and the like.

In all these things, having a respect unto men only as men, and to the equity of the things themselves, and not unto the glory that might follow. Never wont to use the baths at unseasonable hours; no builder; never curious, or solicitous, either about his meat, or about the workmanship, or colour of his clothes, or about anything that belonged to external beauty. In all his conversation, far from all inhumanity, all boldness, and incivility, all greediness and impetuosity; never doing anything with such earnestness, and intention, that a man could say of him, that he did sweat about it: but contrariwise, all things distinctly, as at leisure; without trouble; orderly, soundly, and agreeably.

A man might have applied that to him, which is recorded of Socrates, that he knew how to want, and to enjoy those things, in the want whereof, most men show themselves weak; and in the fruition, intemperate: but to hold out firm and constant, and to keep within the compass of true moderation and sobriety in either estate, is proper to a man, who hath a perfect and invincible soul.

14th c. synagogue found in Andalucian bar

Medieval

Archaeologists in Utrera, near Seville in southwestern Spain have discovered the remains of a 14th century synagogue. It is one of only five synagogues (two in Toledo, one in Segovia, one in Cordoba) in Spain known to have survived the expulsion of Jews in 1492. Even in a state of partial conservation it is exceptional for how much of it still stands, absorbed into later reconstructions.

The building on Niño Perdido Street was known as the site of the Hospital de la Misericordia, built in 1492, the same year King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled all Jews from their realm. Historian Rodrigo Caro had referenced its history in his 1604 history of Utrera, noting the hospital was in the former Jewish quarter and had been built over the remains of a synagogue. Since then it was converted to many other uses including a Catholic church, a school and a bar/night club.

The Utrera City Council decided to buy the building in 2016, a decision that was not universally applauded at the time. Critics questioned whether the 460,000 euros ($494,766) purchase price was worth it, considering there was no hard evidence that the synagogue had ever been at that site. Because Jewish communities in pre-expulsion Spain had a significant degree of autonomy, down to their own law courts and taxation systems, there were no maps or government records documenting the synagogue of medieval Utrera. Besides, even if the hospital had been built over the synagogue, nothing might be left of the original. The expulsion of the Jews was often accompanied by violent pogroms, and unconstrained development in the 20th century had destroyed much of Utrera’s medieval city.

The city moved forward with the purchase, critics be damned, and in November 2021 commissioned an archaeological investigation of the building. They were able to confirm Caro’s story with archaeological evidence, identifying the prayer hall of the synagogue, the perimeter bench and the Hechal, the Sephardic term for the ark of the Torah, the small chamber or niche where the scripture scrolls were kept.

Centuries of reuse and reconstruction have altered the building, but a surprising amount of the synagogue’s original structure remains. The city will be able to restore the original floorplan and walls and convey the volume of its spaces without damaging any of the all-important archaeological material.

The plan is to open for public visits in parallel with the continuing archaeological works. Although the women’s area and the ritual bath have yet to be discovered, the site could yet give up many more secrets, according to de Dios. The next phase of the investigation would be looking to see if there was a rabbinical house nearby and perhaps a religious school.

But the significance of the find exceeds the merely architectural, he said.

“Apart from the heritage value – this is a building with an important history that was once a synagogue – the thing that makes me happiest is knowing that we can get back a very, very important part of not just Utrera’s history, but also the history of the Iberian peninsula,” he said. “The story of the Sephardic Jews was practically erased or hidden for a long time.”

Florence Baptistery’s dome mosaics to be restored

Medieval

The resplendent 13th century mosaics that cover the cupola of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence are undergoing a comprehensive six-year restoration that will repair hundreds of square feet of detaching tesserae, prevent future deterioration and revive the shine and color of the glass tesserae. This is the final phase in the restoration of the Baptistery of Florence that began in 2014 with repairs to the external façade and roof. Between 2017 and 2022, the white and green marble and mosaics on the eight internal walls of the Baptistery were restored. The project is expected to be completed in 2028.

The mosaics were made on preparatory drawings by Gothic masters including Cimabue and Coppo di Marcovaldo. The main theme is the Last Judgment, with a giant figure of Christ the judge presiding between tiers of angels, demons and souls going to heaven or hell. Work on the mosaics of the cupola began around 1225 and in the beginning Florence had no local mosaicists to take on such a huge prestige project. Artists had to be brought in from the outside. Florentine artists worked as assistants on the installation, however, and they learned their trade so effectively that by the end of the century generations of mosaicists had established themselves as some of the most skilled in Italy. Ultimately more than 1,000 square meters (10,764 square feet) of mosaics made using 10 million polychrome tiles varying in size from 5 to 20 mm (.2-.8 inches) per side went into the adornment of the octagonal cupola. There are more than 100 square meters of gold mosaic tiles alone. (Incidentally, they were made using the gold leaf in a glass sandwich technique used to create the recently-discovered gold glass of Rome.)

The six-year restoration project is the first in over a century. It initially involves conducting studies on the current state of the mosaics to determine what needs to be done. The expected work includes addressing any water damage to the mortar , removing decades of grime and reaffixing the stones to prevent them from detaching.

“(This first phase) is a bit like the diagnosis of a patient: a whole series of diagnostic investigations are carried out to understand what pathologies of degradation are present on the mosaic material but also on the whole attachment package that holds this mosaic material to the structure behind it,” Beatrice Agostini, who is in charge of the restoration work, said.

The Baptistry of San Giovanni and its mosaics have undergone previous restorations over the centuries, many of them inefficient or even damaging to the structure. During one botched effort in 1819, an entire section of mosaics detached. Persistent water damage from roof leaks did not get resolved until 2014-2015.

Roberto Nardi, director of the Archaeological Conservation Center, the private company managing the restoration, said the planned work wouldn’t introduce any material that is foreign to the original types of stone and mortar used centuries ago.

To reach the entire surface of the vaulted ceiling without completely filling the comparatively small footprint of the Baptistery with scaffolding, experts designed an innovative mushroom-shaped structure that delivers a massive walkable surface of 618 square meters (6652 square feet) occupying just 63 square meters (678 square feet) of floor area. The stem of the mushroom doubles as a staircase that allows workers and the public easy access to the landing 57 feet above the ground. A construction ladder then leads up to a second landing 97 feet from the ground.

The stairs will be put to the best possible use: to give the public the unique chance to view the mosaics of the dome up close. That means coming eye-to-eye with demons eating damned souls head first, a motif in medieval art that never fails to entertain even from a great distance. These special visits start on February 23rd and must be booked online here.

This video shows a timelapse of the scaffolding being built with connecting aluminum poles that is like the biggest, coolest Erector Set you’ve ever seen. An octagonal mesh screen microprinted with an image of the mosaics is then dropped into place under the working platform so people can still get a sense of what they look like from the ground. That is followed by close-up views of the mosaics, including the demons eating people. (Click “More” for a tiny transcript of the annotations in the video.)

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