“The chance to recover another group of lifesize statues associated with the wreck is extraordinary, because bronzes are usually encountered randomly under the sea, picked up by fishing nets or chanced upon by divers,” he said. Jens Daehner, associate curator of antiquities at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, said the Antikythera wreck had already yielded significant bronze statues. Both date to the 4th century BC, raising the question of how they came to be aboard the ill-fated ship 300 years later. ![]() The statue now stands in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens alongside an impressive bronze head named the Antikythera philosopher, also hauled from the wreck. In the 1900s, archaeologists working at the site surfaced pieces of a beautiful Hellenistic bronze, named the Antikythera Youth. During the 2017 excavations, divers recovered a bronze disc that may be a missing part of the ancient device.īut it is the statues that made the wreck famous. Archaeologists have since pulled up spectacular bronze and marble statues, ornate glass and pottery, stunning pieces of jewellery, and a remarkable geared device – the Antikythera mechanism – which modelled the motion of the heavens. The Antikythera wreck first came to light in 1900 when Greek sponge divers happened on the scene in 50 metres of water. Until those results are published, the person is known as Pamphilos after divers found the name, meaning “friend of all”, carved on a buried cup that had been decorated with an erotic scene. They have since extracted DNA from the skull and from it learned the individual’s sex and where they came from. Last year, the team found the skull, teeth, ribs and other bones of an individual who perished on the wreck. ![]() Among other objects the divers recovered are a patterned slab of red marble the size of a tea tray, a silver tankard, sections of joined wood from the ship’s frame, and a human bone. The bronze arm, probably from a statue of a male, is the highlight of the team’s 2017 excavation season. “We think it means a minimum of seven, and potentially nine, bronze sculptures still waiting for us down there.” The boulders that overlie the metal objects weigh several tonnes and may have tumbled onto the wreck during a massive earthquake that shook Antikythera and surrounding islands in the 4th century AD. “What we’re finding is these sculptures are in among and under the boulders,” said Brendan Foley, co-director of the excavations team at Lund University. Detail of the arm discovered under half a metre of sediment by the ancient shipwreck.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |