Author: Mark Cartwright
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7 Stunning Roman Mosaics
The following seven Roman mosaics are all currently on display in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme National Museum, Rome. Mosaics were a common feature of Roman private homes and public buildings across the empire from Africa to Antioch. Mosaics, otherwise known as opus tesellatum, were made with small black, white, and coloured squares typically measuring between…
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8 Ancient Greek Temples
The temple in the ancient Greek world was perhaps the most recognisable building in the urban landscape. Typically constructed in an eye-catching location using the finest of marble, they were the focus of Greek religious practices and could house magnificent treasures and monumental stautes of the Greek gods on the inside and display some of…
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Visiting the National Archaeological Museum of Athens
The National Archaeological Museum of Athens can effortlessly lay claim to being one of the very greatest museums in the world. It can do that because it is literally jam-packed with most of the most famous art objects from ancient Greece, so much so, a first-time visit here is a strangely familiar experience. From the towering…
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10 Greek Pottery Details
The pottery of ancient Greece has provided us with some of the most distinctive pottery shapes and striking decoration from antiquity. This collection begins with the Minoans whose love of the sea and flowing, vibrant forms can be seen on the famous Marine Style askos. In the archaic period geometric designs gained popularity until designers…
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10 Greek & Roman Frescoes
As a technique, true fresco painting (buon fresco) is the painting of colour pigments on wet lime plaster without a binding agent, and when the paint is absorbed by the plaster, it is fixed and protected from fading. Inherent problems with frescoes for historians are their fragility, incompleteness, and artistic anonymity. In addition, at archaeological…
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10 Coins of Ancient Greece
The first Greek coins were minted in Aegina from 560 BCE, and then Athens and Corinth also began their own coin production shortly after. Each city used an easily identifiable symbol: a turtle for Aegina, an owl for Athens and a winged-horse for Corinth. The turtle was an apt choice for the Mediterranean trading power,…
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10 Ancient Gold Jewellery Pieces
Malleable, lustrous, resistant to corrosion, and high in value, gold has always been a favourite material for jewellers going back to earliest antiquity. The following jewellery pieces are all from the ancient Mediterranean and have nothing more in common than their excellent craftsmanship and striking designs. For more on the history of ancient gold see…
