Cesnola Collection Research Articles

Membra disiecta of historic information concerning the necropoleis of Kition

This paper deals with historical information from the 19th century relating to various aspects of the necropoleis of ancient Kition. Although the diary entries of Lorenzo Warriner Pease from 1834 to 1839 are not specifically concerned with the study of ancient remains, they provide interesting information on the distribution of rock‑cut chamber tombs, particularly in the area of Sotiros and further west. During his visit to Cyprus in 1845, Ludwig Ross carried out a small excavation in essentially the same area. The two contributions therefore shed additional light on the extent and furnishings of these characteristic burials. A short passage from Paul Schröder’s travel diaries reports the discovery of a richly decorated sarcophagus in March 1870. As this object is a well-known specimen from the Cesnola collection, Schröder’s description is important because it allows a fairly accurate contextualisation of the sarcophagus. Finally, unpublished archive material by Max Ohnefalsch-Richter describing his excavations of three built chamber tombs offers the opportunity to reconsider the number and location of these elite burials.

From the Editor

Next article FreeFrom the EditorStephanie L. BudinStephanie L. Budin Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreHello, Readers! This summer brings a new and fascinatingly diverse issue of Near Eastern Archaeology to your mail-box or in-box (or both). The word “diversity” has been seeing a lot of use in the Humanities and Social Sciences lately. Usually it refers to the ethnic make-up of a student body, or the racial make-up of a faculty, or some such combination of human capital. In this instance, however, “diversity” refers to the range of times, places, methodologies, and topics of significance within the over-arching category of Near Eastern archaeology. Most basic to this field is digging, and in this issue we have two articles on what came out of the ground from such “dirt archaeology.” A magnificent hoard of silver and jewelry from Bronze Age Megiddo graces the pages, giving a taste of ANE aesthetics and elite (if perhaps atypical) storing practices. Much later in time is evidence for Greek influence in the religion of Roman Ashkelon, specifically a cult of Dionysos the Releaser in local funerary cult (“grapes and panthers and bottles, oh my!”)Objects make up half the story of the ancient Near East; the other half is words, a field often associated with philologists. But writing, “words that stay,” must also be appreciated for its physicality, and the cross-over between iconography and epigraphy is never so strong as with hieroglyphics. In a study of the tomb of a Middle Kingdom functionary named Henenu in Thebes, we get the opportunity to see in practice modern techniques of Egyptian paleography, from the study of different “hands” and the processes of rendering official inscriptions to the modern practice of creating databases.Digging in the dirt gets us so far. Lately, there has also been a focus on digging in museums. A recent trend in studying dinosaurs is “Drawer Paleontology”— going through the thousands of shelves and files and cases of bones dug up throughout the century to see what was found and hidden and that now may shed new light. A longstanding meme in classical archaeology was that the greatest discoveries of the century would be when someone went through the apothekê (basement) of the Thebes Museum in Greece. All due respect to Thebes, but such a find has come to light closer to home in Philadelphia, where two stunning Punic stelae from North Africa emerged from the basement of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. An even greater basement emergence occurred in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when the Cesnola collection of Cypriot Art was granted its lovely new exhibit space. How that collection was gathered and became the foundation of the Met’s international prestige in the Gilded Age is another of this issue’s topics.Finally, one might ask to what end archaeology, if not for the edification, understanding, and preservation of the present. Thus here we present the ongoing restoration of a medieval shrine to the biblical patriarch Joseph, including the research that went into understanding its manifestations throughout history and the methods now being used to preserve this priceless cultural artifact for posterity.From Egypt and Israel to Philadelphia and New York; from the Bronze Age to the Gilded Age to the Silicon Age. Near Eastern archaeology has a breadth and range that covers the globe, really, allowing us to understand where we came from, how we got to where we are, and how to persevere into the future. More likely than not, the answers are in the basement. Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Near Eastern Archaeology Volume 82, Number 2June 2019 A journal of ASOR Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/704707 Copyright 2019 American Schools of Oriental ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

A Possible Cypriot Origin for an Assyrian Stone Mixing Bowl in the Cesnola Collection

A Possible Cypriot Origin for an Assyrian Stone Mixing Bowl in the Cesnola Collection

The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Stone Sculpture. 1st rev. ed. By Antoine Hermary and Joan R. Mertens. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. 435 pp., color photos and maps. Available as PDF download.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Stone Sculpture. 1st rev. ed. By Antoine Hermary and Joan R. Mertens. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. 435 pp., color photos and maps. Available as PDF download.Derek B. CountsDerek B. CountsUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, [email protected] Search for more articles by this author University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, [email protected] PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research Volume 378November 2017 A journal of the American Schools of Oriental Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5615/bullamerschoorie.378.0242 Views: 14Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in the Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research (1921-2021), which is continued by the Bulletin of the American Schools of Overseas Research (2022-present). Copyright 2017 American Schools of Oriental ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Cesnola Collection at the Turin University Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography

Abstract A previously unpublished marble fragment from the Cesnola collection at the Turin University Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography bears an incomplete Phoenician inscription, a dedication to Eshmun-Melqart considered lost since 1869 (CIS I 26). The inscription allows to interpret the object bearing the dedication as a votive stone bowl from the late Classical Phoenician sanctuary of Kition-Batsalos in Cyprus, and it provides the opportunity to retrace the history of the Cesnola collection of Cypriote antiquities at the University Museum of Turin.

Ancient art from Cyprus: the Cesnola collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ancient art from Cyprus: the Cesnola collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1. A NEAR EASTERN BRIDLE BIT OF THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C. IN NEW YORK

In a recent issue of this journal we published a bronze horse bit with a solid bar mouthpiece and circular cheekpieces, pre~ently in the Israel Museum, j erusalem.1 Although the provenance and history of the object are unknown, it was presumably made during the second half of the second millennium B.C., somewhere in the Near East, and possibly in the Levant. Since then another cast bronze bit of related type has come to light in the collection of the Department of Classics of New York University (PI. XLII).2 Although the provenance of this bit is also unknown, it is suggested that it came from the Cesnola Collection. It may have been among the Nine small objects, implements etc. of bronze acquired among other (identified) itenlS by the University from the Cesnola Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1925. They are listed under Cypriot duplicate sales in the Museum's records.3 Since Cesnola was collecting during the second half of the nineteenth century, when no bits of this type had been published, it is most unlikely that it is a forgery or a pastiche. Moveover, its utilitarian character with only simple decoration would not be apt to tempt a forger. Autopsy appears to show that the piece is genuine and as originally assembled. The analysis (see Appendix) indicates that both cheekpieces and the mouthpiece are low tin bronzes; this is a standard second millennium B.C. bronze composition. The bit is composed of a solid-bar mouthpiece and two circular cheekpieces. The mouthpiece (overall L.: c. 0'19 m., within cheekpieces: c. 0'135 m.; Diam. at centre: c. o· 006 m.) is round in section and relatively thick. It displays a slight curvature in the same

The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Cesnola Collection

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Phoenician Inscriptions of the Cesnola CollectionJavier TeixidorJavier Teixidor Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Metropolitan Museum Journal Volume 111976 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/1512684 Views: 6Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1977 The Metropolitan Museum of ArtPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Philippa M. Steele Writing and Society in Ancient Cyprus, 41 (Oct 2018).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316729977

Three Chalcolithic Figures from Cyprus

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, between 1874 and 1876, Metropolitan Museum purchased Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities. Today, after disposal of duplicates in I92os, there remain approximately five thousand objects that range in date from Bronze Age to Roman times and that represent major forms and styles of ancient Cypriot art pretty much as it was known until 1927.I In that year Swedish Cyprus Expedition began a four-year program of intensive excavation at eighteen sites ;2 it marks beginning of modern archaeology on island, and its efforts have been followed up ever since by Cypriot and foreign investigators. One of most important results of this activity has been to reveal Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures, which seem to span a period of about 3500 years before beginning of Early Bronze Age (about 2300 B.C.)3 At Khirokitia, Sotira, and Erimi, to name only major settlements, architectural remains, pottery, and small objects, especially of stone, have disprovedJohn L. Myres' statement that the Stone Age has left but few traces in Cyprus.4 Among very few additions to Museum's Cypriot collection within past century are three stone figures of Chalcolithic period (about 30002300 B.C.). As Christine Alexander, Dietrich von Bothmer, and others have recognized, they belong to wellestablished types, yet they deserve to be better known. All three represent stylized human forms and are made of what is commonly called steatite.5 The most important piece is preserved intact and measures 7.9 cm. in height and 4.8 cm. across arms (Figures I, 2). As is best seen in head, stone is layered into different shades of green; chin, knees, toes, and back were cut into a band of dark green while rest of body has a lighter, slightly grayish color.6 The cross-shaped figure is composed of a horizontal axis formed by extended arms intersected by long neck, short torso, and bent legs that mark vertical axis; rectangular head is set at an angle above neck. While front of body, especially neck and arms, has a rounded surface, back-from top of head

Some Inscribed Iron-Age Vases from Cyprus

MYREs, in his Handbook of the Cesnola Collection (pp. 58ff), distinguished a group of Cypriot vases of the Early Iron which he ascribed to what he called Bucchero Wares. In defining these wares, he states that range in time from the beginning of the Iron Age-where they succeed the wheelmade Red Ware of the Late Bronze Age -down to the eighth or seventh century, by which time they appear to have been as completely superseded by the Painted Red Ware. . He distinguished in this ware two groups: a) the True Bucchero with red clay throughout which he described as follows: standard fabric has a bright red clay of the same colour throughout, capable of receiving a high polish; and b) the Bucchero fabric with painted ornaments on a lighter clay. The fact that some of these vases bear inscriptions makes them especially interesting, and they are often referred to by historians and epigraphists. Gjerstad, in his classification of the geometric pottery of Cyprus, has included this group,2 but without any references to Myres' Bucchero Wares.

The Dates and Origins of Cypriote Sculpture

Since the publication of my Handbook to the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1914) there have been three revisions both of the chronology there suggested—which was essentially that outlined by Colonna-Ceccaldi Monuments antiques de Cypre, Paris, 1882—and of the estimate of the debt of Cypriote sculptors to Asiatic, Egyptian, and Hellenic models and influences. All three regard Hellenic influences as primary, and Oriental influences as relatively unimportant; and consequently all bring down the beginnings of sculpture in Cyprus within the archaic period of Greek sculpture, and the period of easy access to Cyprus from the Greek treaty port of Naucratis, during the Egyptian occupation of the island between 560 and 525 B.C.The same distractions which postponed the publication of the sanctuary site excavated at Levkoniko in 1913, and described at last on pp. 61–8 above, prevented me from replying earlier to these criticisms.

The Amathus bowl

The masterpiece of Oriental craftsmanship reproduced in Plates I—III is said by General L. P. di Cesnola to have been found in April 1875, in a rich but partially despoiled chamber-tomb at Amathus in Cyprus. Cesnola's account of the discovery exaggerates the depth at which chamber-tombs are found in Cyprus, but his plan corresponds fairly well with that of a large tomb (still accessible in 1894, and probably to-day) in the low ground north of the acropolis of Amathus. The silver bowl, already broken, and other objects, are said to have been found in a ‘copper cauldron,’ as if discarded by an earlier tomb-robber.The ‘Amathus Bowl’ and a bronze shield-boss (rondache) said to have been found with it were published by G. Colonna-Ceccaldi in 1876 and republished in 1882 in his collected papers. The copper-plate illustration is signed S. Dardel, and was printed by Ch. Chardon ainé in Paris. If the ‘patère et rondache’ were brought separately to Paris, this may account for their alienation from the main Cesnola Collection. Dardel's engraving does not include the long ends of the rim, and is inaccurate in several details, as appears from the reproduction in fig. 1. It was reproduced on a smaller scale in Helbig, Homerisches Epos, 1884, Plate I, and repeatedly elsewhere.

The Primitive Sculpture of Cyprus

The chronology of early Cypriote sculpture has only once been treated in detail, when Professor J. L. Myres, in his Handbook of the Cesnola Collection, attempted to distinguish styles and arrange them in an intelligible sequence. His conclusions cannot be neglected by the student of ancient art, for if they are correct some of the most ambitious statues date from the first half of the seventh century B.C., which means that sculpture is at least a century older in Cyprus than in other Greek lands. (It must be remembered that the island was as Greek then as it ever was; an Assyrian inscription records the names of ten Greek kings reigning in it at this time. The object of this paper is to examine how far his distinctions are accurate and to put forward an alternative arrangement.Foreign influence is evident in a large number of statues in native limestone, and Myres' view is that one influence is Assyrian and contemporary with Assyrian domination, which began in 709 B.C., and the next Egyptian. It was Amasis, 570–526 B.C., who actually effected the annexation, but Myres ascribes the earliest imitations of Egyptian art to the end of the seventh century, thereby making the duration of the two periods more alike. The Persian conquest, which is not later than the time of Darius, results in a decline of pure Egyptian style and the rise of an eclectic art based on Egyptian and older traditions that passes insensibly into a variety of late archaic Greek. In the next few pages I shall endeavour to show that he has been too definite in describing the Oriental influence as mainly Assyrian, and so there is no proof that it is as old as the seventh century, and that he has grouped as Oriental certain sculptures which are early archaic Greek.

Metropolitan Museum of Art. Handbook No. 3. Sculptures of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the East Entrance Hall and North Aisle

Metropolitan Museum of Art. Handbook No. 3. Sculptures of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the East Entrance Hall and North Aisle

The cesnola collection and its relation to art-history

The cesnola collection and its relation to art-history

The Cypriote Inscriptions of the Di Cesnola Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City

The Cypriote Inscriptions of the Di Cesnola Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City