Hellenistic Greek gold ring featuring a garnet intaglio of Apollo holding a lyre, dated to the 1st century BCE.

~Ankh-sign. Culture: Egyptian Period: Late Period, Dynasty 26–31 Date: 664–332 B.C.

Hellenistic gold ring with sardonyx intaglio of Nemesis, Eros, and Psyche as a butterfly, dated to the 1st century BCE. Found on Antiquarium, Ltd. 

Processions on the Nile

The annual ancient Egyptian celebration of the Mysteries of Osiris took place in all major cities, including Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus. It was the most important religious event of the year. Osiris, lord of the underworld, was one of the most important and popular gods and all rulers were believed to descend from him. The Mysteries of Osiris were celebrated between the 12th and 30th of the month of Khoiak (mid-October to mid-November), when the Nile retreated, depositing fertile soil ready to be sown. They reenacted Osiris’ murder and rebirth, and culminated in two ritual processions.

The first procession took place on the tenth day of the Mysteries of Osiris (22nd day of Khoaik). Figures of 33 gods accompanied a soil and barley figure of Osiris. Each figure was placed in a papyrus barge measuring 67.5cm. Numerous offering models of these barges have been discovered at the bottom of canals surrounding the Temple of Amun-Gereb at Thonis-Heracleion, particularly the Grand Canal. They range in size from 6 to 67.5cm and are made of lead – a metal associated with Osiris. Their decoration imitates papyrus, mimicking the real boats involved in this ritual. The barges were accompanied by 365 oil lamps illuminating the fleet, one for each day of the year.

The second procession took place on the 29th day of Khoiak. A gilded wooden boat containing both Osiris figures left the Temple of Amun-Gereb for a two-mile journey. It travelled along the Grand Canal from Thonis-Heracleion to the figures’ final resting place in the Osiris temple in Canopus. Standards topped by emblems of a jackal-headed god, either Anubis or Wepwawet (‘he who opens the way’), and the falcon-headed god Horus led the way. The scene is depicted at Abydos, one of the main religious centres for Osiris. The recent underwater finds at Canopus are incredible physical evidence of these celebrations.

During the underwater excavations, numerous ladles, oil lamps, statuettes and other offerings have been found at the bottom of sacred canals. They illustrate the rituals and personal acts of devotion made by participants, including Greeks, along the course of the procession.

The sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion has revealed the largest quantity of bronze ritual equipment ever discovered in Egypt. Metal objects like these were normally melted down in the past, but because the city sank beneath the sea, a vast number of artefacts of unique importance have been astonishingly well preserved. The objects here – ladles, offering dishes and an incense burner – are evidence of the exceptional celebrations that took place.

See spectacular objects excavated from these cities that lay underwater for centuries in the BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds (closing 27 November 2016).

Lead votive barques. Thonis-Heracleion, 400–100 BC. On loan from Maritime Museum, Alexandria. Photo: Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation.

Long-handled ladles. Thonis-Heracleion, 600–100 BC. On loan from Maritime Museum, Alexandria. Photo: Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation.

Offering dishes. Thonis-Heracleion, 600–100 BC. On loan from Maritime Museum, Alexandria. Photo: Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation.

Incense burner and shovel.  Thonis-Heracleion, 400–100 BC. On loan from Maritime Museum, Alexandria. Photo: Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation.

Ancient Greek terracotta statuette of a kriophoros (ram-bearer).  Artist unknown; ca. 650-600 BCE.  Found on Crete; now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

3rd-4th century gold and garnet Roman pendant. From Timeline Auctions.

Julia Flavia (64-91 CE)

The only child of emperor Titus

Source: See page for author [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Vase in the form of a woman’s head, contained ointment for funerary purpose, inscribed Suthina (belonging to the grave)

Etruscan, 3rd century BC

Pair of gold disk earrings (and detail). Etruscan, late 6th century B.C. J. Paul Getty Museum. 

From the Getty:

detail from the gold armlet of Queen/Kandake Amanishaketo (I century BCE) from Her Pyramid (N6) in the northern Royal Necropolis of Meroë (Sudan); now in the Neues Museum of Berlin… The Eye Goddess, the “Eye of Ra”, wearing the Double Crown, with four wings and four arms (holding the ‘Ankh’-signs), standing on a lotus flower. On the top, a row of Uraei wearing the Solar disk

Altar of Augustan Peace, 1st century BC. Rome, Italy

~Detail of the floor mosaic. Date: A.D. 3rd century Provenance: Rome, Vatican Museums, Pius-Clementine Museum, Round Room, 2 (Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio-Clementino)

Pompeii by Paul Bugbee via Flickr.

Oracle of Zeus at Dodona, Greece

Though it never eclipsed the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, Dodona gained a reputation far beyond Greece. In the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, a retelling of an older story of Jason and the Argonauts, Jason’s ship, the “Argo”, had the gift of prophecy, because it contained an oak timber spirited from Dodona.

In c. 290 BCE, King Pyrrhus made Dodona the religious capital of his domain and beautified it by implementing a series of construction projects (i.e. grandly rebuilt the Temple of Zeus, developed many other buildings, added a festival featuring athletic games, musical contests, and drama enacted in a theatre). A wall was built around the oracle itself and the holy tree, as well as temples to Dione and Heracles.

[Source]

 The Albani lion. 1st-century Roman green basalt lion statue with a yellow marble sphere under one paw, in the Albani Collection in the Denon Wing of the Louvre. Paris.    http://hadrian6.tumblr.com

A Phoenician wreck that just keeps giving

A jug unearthed at the oldest shipwreck in the central Mediterranean could prove that the Maltese islands were an integral part of the Phoenician trade network.

“To date, we knew that the Phoenicians lived here, because they died here. And to date, our main archaeological sources came from graves,” marine archaeologist Timmy Gambin told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“We now have a ship that was actually leaving the Maltese Islands before it sank off Gozo, because the island was one of its port calls. A shipwreck without any local items could mean that the ship just happened to sink close to Malta during its voyage.”

Confirming the origin of the jug, he said, could place Malta as an integral part of the trading network of the earliest phase of the Phoenician occupation. Read more.

~Amphora. Place: Moldavia (now Romania) Date: 4th century Archaeological site: Village of Kontseshty, right bank of the River Prut, found in 1812 Material: silver