Empress Bust Weight, Steelyard, and Collar with Chains, 5th-7th century, Byzantine, Mixed copper alloy; lead and iron fill in bust, weight: 13.6 x 6 x 4.7 cm (1441 g.); chains and hooks: 44 x 5.7 cm; crossbeam with hooks: 39.2 x 1 cm, Cambridge, MA, Harvard Art Museums.
Museum wall text: “Steelyards were used to weigh commodities in the ancient marketplace. The beam, with units of measurement inscribed on three faces, is calibrated for three different scales: one weighed objects up to 13 pounds, another up to 34, and the third up to 85 pounds. The steelyard would be suspended by the short hook (two of the original three remain) appropriate to the scale desired, with the commodity suspended from the hooks on the two long chains. The bust weight was moved along the bar until it balanced. The stylized image, with a simple diadem to indicate rank, does not depict a particular empress. Bust weights often represented gods, heroes, and emperors or empresses. Such imagery evoked imperial authority over weights and measures, guaranteeing fair transactions with a scale calibrated to official standards. The empress’s gestures (holding her cloak and grasping a scroll) indicate her erudition and imperial wisdom.”
Fragment of a Marble Tomb Relief with Christ Giving the Law
Fragment of a Marble Tomb Relief with Christ Giving the Law, Late 300s, Byzantine, Marble, 49.5 x 134 x 15.2 cm, New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Museum wall text: “The authority of the Christian church grew rapidly with emperor Constantine's recognition of the faith as a legal religion within the Roman Empire in 313. Increasingly the most powerful centers of the church were the old imperial capital, Rome; the new imperial capital, Constantinople, the New Rome; Alexandria; Jerusalem/Caesarea; and Antioch. During the late fourth century, the church in Rome developed images stressing the importance of Saint Peter to whom Christ had given the keys to the kingdom (Matt. 16: 18-20). Traditionally considered the first bishop of Rome, Saint Peter was martyred and buried in the city. These Roman images would spread widely among peoples throughout western Europe as they accepted the authority of the church of Rome. One of these images, the traditio legis, Christ Giving the Law to Saint Peter, shows Christ offering an unfurled scroll containing the law to Saint Peter in recognition of his role as the leader of the church. To the left of Christ stands Saint Paul, also martyred in Rome, acknowledging the authority conferred on Peter. Four other apostles survive on this relief. The scene is placed within a traditional Roman sarcophagus form, a series of niches framed by columns decorated with putti in vine scrolls.”
Fol. 18v, MSCod. Vat. Lat. 3225, “The Death of Laocoön” from the Vatican Vergil (Vergilius Vaticanus), c. 400 CE, Roman, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica.
The Vatican Vergil, which contains fragments of Vergil’s Aeneid and Georgics, is one of three surviving illustrated manuscripts of classical literature along with the Vergilius Romanus and the Ambrosian Iliad. Today, the Vatican Vergil consists of 76 leaves with 50 illustrations, but could have originally had about 440 leaves and 280 illustrations. Scholars have identified three different painters, whose artistic quirks and styles are evident throughout their respective work throughout the codex. Conversely, it is thought that almost all of the text (written in capitals with no spaces between words), was written by a single scribe. Text (Aeneid, Book II, lines 191-198): “…[(quod di prius omen in ipsum] convertant!) Priami imperio Phrygibusque futurum; sin manibus vestris vestram ascendisset in urbem, ultro Asiam magno Pelopea ad moenia bello venturam, et nostros ea fata manere nepotes.' Talibus insidiis periurique arte Sinonis credita res, captique dolis lacrimisque coactis quos neque Tydides nec Larisaeus Achilles, non anni domuere decem, non mille carinae." “…[(may the gods first turn that prediction on] themselves!) would come to Priam and the Trojans: yet if it ascended into your citadel, dragged by your hands, Asia would come to the very walls of Pelops, in mighty war, and a like fate would await our children. Through these tricks and the skill of perjured Sinon, the thing was credited, and we were trapped, by his wiliness, and false tears, we, who were not conquered by Diomede, or Larissan Achilles, nor by the ten years of war, nor those thousand ships. -Trans. A. S. Kline
Seuso Platter, late 4th-early 5th century, Late Roman, diam: 70.5 cm, 8.873 kg, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts.
The Seuso Platter is one of the 14 silver objects that make up the Seuso Treasure. This hoard of late Roman silver was at the center of decades worth of debate in the international art market, stemming from falsified documentation with regards to the find site (originally claimed to be Lebanon). A 1990 sale at Sotheby's in New York was stopped after claims to ownership were made by the governments of Hungary, Yugoslavia (Croatia), and Lebanon. Although the exact provenance has not been publicly acknowledged, most evidence supports the belief that the hoard was found by a Hungarian soldier in the 1970s during an illegal treasure hunting dig at a preexisting archeological site. He was subsequently murdered. In 2014, seven of the objects were bought by the government of Hungary, with the remaining seven being purchased in June of 2017 for €28 million. The name of the treasure derives from the inscription on the Seuso Platter, which reads (in Latin): “Hec Seuso tibi durent per saecula multa Posteris ut prosint vascula digna tuis.” “May these, O Seuso, yours for many ages be Small vessels fit to serve your offspring worthily.”
Gold Glass Medallion with a Mother and Child
Gold Glass Medallion with a Mother and Child, early 4th century, Roman, probably Alexandria, Egypt, shown 18th (?) century frame, glass and gold leaf, 4.8 x 0.5 cm, New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Museum Description: "The mother, a fashionably coiffed matron, is shown with her son. He wears a large gold pectoral, or neck ring. Medallions like this one, meant to be worn as jewelry, are closely associated with Alexandria.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 17.190.109a
Fragments of the Colossus of Constantine, c. 312-15, Roman, marble, brick, wood, and gilded bronze, Rome, Musei Capitolini.
The colossal statue of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (r. July 25, 306 – May 22, 337) originally stood in the western apse of the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome. Fragments can now be found in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori of the Musei Capitolini. Based on the scale of the surviving pieces (in marble) the full-sized figure, which was seated and enthroned, would have been about 12 meters (40 feet) tall. The head is about 2.5 meters tall. Curiously, there are two right hands, both with pointed index fingers although with other slight differences, which suggests that the hand was replaced and reworked at some point during Late Antiquity, perhaps as required by a desire to substitute a scepter with a Christian attribute. The marble fragments of the statue (head, arms, and legs, the rest was a wooden frame over a brick core, possibly gilded) were rediscovered in 1486.
https://www.arctron.de/referenzen/2006/kaiser-konstantin/ (in German)
Fragment of Lamp: Dove carrying a Branch
Fragment of Lamp: Dove carrying a Branch, c. 400-500 CE, Late Roman, Tunis, mold-made terracotta, 8 x 11cm., Cambridge, MA, Harvard Art Museums.
Mummy Portrait of a Man, c. 140-60 CE, Roman, Fayum: Hawara, wax on lime wood, 42.5 x 22.2 x 0.4 cm, London, The British Museum.
Museum Description: “Portrait, perhaps of a priest, in encaustic on limewood: the panel is cracked through the right side from the upper edge to the subject's proper left ear. A row of four nail holes indicative of reuse, or perhaps of attachment to a frame, runs across the panel 6.3 cm below the upper edge, and a row of three holes 9-9.5 cm above the lower edge. The background is a greenish cream. The subject, a man of mature years, wears a creamy-white tunic with violet/pink clavus on the proper right shoulder. A mantle with brownish folds with cream highlights is worn over the proper left shoulder and around the back of the neck, but does not appear on the other side. The upper edge of the tunic and the central fold below the neck is rather clumsily drawn with a thick cream line. A shoulder seam appears as diagonal hatching across the clavus, lined up with the corner of the neck of the tunic. In his hair the subject wears a narrow fillet, with a central gold star with seven points laid on a purple ground. The rest of the fillet is grey with cream highlights, perhaps representing an original in silver. Below the fillet the dark brown hair falls in three locks on the brow in an arrangement typical of individuals associated with the cult of Sarapis. The hair is curly and even, the outer strands are tidily arranged. The beard and moustache are straight. The flesh is sunburned, with pink and cream highlights. The close-set, light brown eyes stare at the viewer; the impression of a severe intensity is heightened by the narrow down-turned mouth. The arched eyebrows are rendered with diagonal strokes.”