Tag Archives: Asia Minor

Introducing new gods and new domestic cult practices: on Lar statuettes and bronze figurine assemblages from Roman Greece and Asia Minor

Author: Y. Brokalakis

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The publication of a new bronze statuette kept in the Archaeological Museum of Herakleion on Crete provides the opportunity to collect the testimonies of these figurines from Greece and Asia Minor and address the issues concerning the original use and the patterns of display of the statuettes, as well as the issues regarding the formation of the bronze figurines assemblages. The Lar statuettes attested, either as single finds or as part of bronze statuette groups, are not inevitably connected with the ethnic identity of the household owners. They are rather related to the personal choices made within the framework of adopting a new Roman practice; that is of gathering bronze figurines in order to designate a domestic cult place.

Il ciclo troiano dello Smintheion di Chryse

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.The Great Altar is surely the most magnificent evidence of Attalid propaganda entrusted to the images in order to exalt Pergamon supremacy also in cultural and artistic field. In particular, the Altar sculptural decoration shows the interest of the Attalid dynast in encouraging philological activity, re-elaborating and editing the prestigious Hellenic epic heritage for promoting the dynastic ideology. In order to evaluate the ideological potential of epic themes represented in monumental buildings of Hellenistic Asia Minor, this paper is focused on the Trojan cycle of frieze and columnae caelatae in the temple voted to Apollo Smintheus at Chryse in Troad. The topographical, cultural and chronological (middle of the 2nd cent. B.C.) background of Smintheion, in fact, which emphasizes the link with the Homeric literary tradition, suggests to reconnect the representation of Trojan myth to the fervent activity of philologists at the Pergamon court. In this perspective, the promotion of the Homeric poetry had a central role as well in term of iconography on order to transmit and divulgate the key-concepts of Attalid cultural and religious policy.

Il tempio romano dell’Asklepieion di Kos: nuovi dati per la sua anastilosi

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The contribution retraces the discovery of the Asklepieion of Kos conducted by the Germans Rudolf Herzog and Paul Schazmann, the investigations by the Italian Archaeological Service and, above all, the restoration work made by the archaeologist Luigi Morricone and the architect Mario Paolini, in order to present the Roman temple on the second terrace. This restoration study is described in its different phases, till the last partial realization of the anastylosis, known through the original drawings. During the activity carried out on the site, the author, with new surveys and with the complete catalogue of architectural fragments belonging to the Roman temple of the Asklepieion, has been in position to make the restitution of the building in two-dimensional and three-dimensional visions, verified also through the extensive critical review of the researches previously undertaken.

Finally, the author presents the virtual reconstruction of a new anastylosis project of the Roman temple, developed on the basis of the results of the catalogue of the fragments, the reconstruction through the traditional and digital graphics, the analysis and technical construction, as well as the morphological studies, used as a verification tools and synthesis of the research.