Field Notes

010

How’s That Sphinx?

Before and After 20th-Century Restorations

In December 1997, conservationists finally removed the scaffolding surrounding the Great Sphinx at Giza, completing the most recent round of repairs (see photo below, taken earier this year). Restoration work on the 65-foot-tall, 290-foot-long sculpture began in 1988 when a chunk of the great cat’s right shoulder broke off—creating such a furor over the future of Egypt’s most prominent symbol that the director of antiquities lost his job.

The Sphinx was built by Pharaoh Khafre of the Fourth Dynasty (c. 2613–2494 B.C.). Khafre’s workmen sculpted the colossal statue, which probably bears a likeness of the king’s own face, out of a stone mound left behind by quarrying during the reign of the earlier Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu (also known as Cheops).

A millennium later, the Sphinx had 011problems. The first known repairs were made by Pharaoh Thutmose IV (1400–1390 B.C.), who left an engraved stone celebrating his reign between the lion’s paws. (It’s still there.) Further repairs were made by the rulers of Egypt’s 26th Dynasty (664–525 B.C.) and by the Romans, who, in the first and second centuries A.D., reinforced the Sphinx’s paws and sides by inserting small stones.

By the 19th century, the monument was buried in—and protected by—drifting desert sands. (The first photo, showing Scottish soldiers clambering over the Sphinx’s shoulders, was taken by Turkish photographer J. Pascal Sebah in the 1880s.) In the 1920s, Frenchman Emile Baraize cleared away the accumulated sand and tried to reattach fallen blocks and patch holes with cement—but this only succeeded in further weakening the great animal.

In the latest restoration, conservationists relied on photos from the 1850s and a color-coded, stone-by-stone blueprint to repair damage to the Sphinx’s paws and chest. Each damaged stone was removed, weighed and sketched. New stones—100,000 of them—were handcut and then fixed in place with a mortar made of lime and sand.

The missing nose and beard on the Sphinx’s face, however, were left unrestored—since this damage dates back to at least the 14th century A.D. What happened to the missing nose and beard is a mystery. But a small section of the beard resides in the British Museum, where it was taken in the 19th century after it was found buried between the monument’s paws.

011

The Iceman Sleepeth

A Bronze Age Corpse Finds a Home

Seven years ago, a spellbound world watched as an ancient huntsman, frozen for 5,000 years, was chiseled out of his bed of ice in the Alps.

Found near Italy’s border with Austria, the 35-year-old frozen man was still wearing a fur hat, a deerskin tunic and leather boots stitched together with animal tendons. His belongings, lying nearby, showed that he was a hunter: a wooden bow, feathered arrows with flint arrowheads, a copper hatchet and a rucksack filled with herbs.

After the iceman was moved to Innsbruck, Austria, the ruckus began. First, Italy claimed him, since the iceman was found within Italy’s borders. Soon, terrorist threats, written in German, warned against returning the iceman to the Tyrol’s Italian “occupiers.” And women began making requests for DNA samples from the iceman—hoping to bear his child.

Now maybe he’ll find some peace. In January the iceman returned to Italy in a refrigerated truck followed by hordes of photographers. He will be housed in a special new museum in Bolzano, northern Italy—to sleep off eternity in a computer-controlled, refrigerated casket.

012

The Oldest Profession

Archaeologists Uncover 2,100-Year-Old Bordello

A red clay pot with a phallic spout, a glass container bearing an image of Aphrodite, a clay phallus with a moveable part—when archaeologists excavating Salonika, a port city in northern Greece, recently discovered these objects, they knew they had stumbled across a pleasure palace: a brothel dating back to the first century B.C.

For several months, a team of Greek archaeologists led by Polyxeni Veleni had been digging at Salonika’s agora, the city’s ancient open-air marketplace. Then they discovered a large building that functioned as a bathhouse-cum-tavern. Veleni believes that the structure may have been part of a palestra, where wrestling contests and other sporting events were held. But it was the discovery of numerous sexual artifacts in a 450-square-foot room adjacent to the circular bathhouse that clued Veleni in to the building’s salacious past. Similar bathhouse-brothels have been found at Gortyna in the Peloponnese, on the island of Delos in the Cyclades and at Turkish Ephesus.

In its halcyon days, the building, with its 25 baths and two swimming pools, offered patrons a complete sensual experience. Attendants would have poured water over heated stones, producing a steam bath to rival any Finnish sauna. And judging from the clay cooking utensils, cauldrons, wine jugs and amphorae found on the building’s ground floor, visitors could first enjoy a sumptuous main course before heading upstairs for dessert.

012

The First False Tooth

Were Iron Choppers All the Rage in the Roman Period?

Toward the end of the first century A.D., a man living in the Gallo-Roman conclave at Essone, France, found it hard to eat. He was over 30 years old, and he had lost all the molars from the left side of his mouth. The man’s right molars weren’t doing so well either; one was loose and about to fall out. So he decided to visit the ancient equivalent of a dentist.

The skull of just such a man, complete with the world’s earliest known artificial tooth (the third tooth from the left in the photo), is being studied by four French scientists, Eric Crubézy of Toulouse University, Pascal Murail and Louis Girard of Bordeaux University, and Jean-Pierre Bernadou of the French National School for Aeronautics and Space. Using radiocarbon tests and associated pottery, the scientists have dated the skull to the late first or early second century A.D.

The false tooth, made of wrought iron, fit perfectly into the socket of the man’s right second upper molar—leading the scientists to conclude that the false tooth had been hammered into shape by using the man’s original molar as a model. The growth of the bone around the implanted tooth indicates that the man must have lived at least a year after the dental work was done, though he may have lived longer.

This is the only known instance from ancient times of what scientists call osseointegration—the process by which an artificial implant comes to adhere to the living bone. Once firmly attached to the bone, an artificial tooth can become as functional as its living counterparts. However, scientist Pascal Murail said that although he believes the false tooth was functional (not just ornamental), it shows no signs of wear and tear. “We don’t have any evidence that the individual actually chewed with this prosthesis,” Murail told Archaeology Odyssey.

013

Where on Earth is Atlantis?

Following New Clues, Adventurers Search in Surprising Places

Ever since Plato reported the existence of Atlantis 2,400 years ago, the “lost” continent has fired the imaginations of thoughtful scholars as well as ardent chasers of wild geese. Today, Atlantis Studies is a thriving industry, having produced nearly 500 books and an endless stream of Internet gossip.

Myth has it that Atlantis was a large island near the Straits of Gibraltar, whose inhabitants ruled over northwest Africa and southwest Europe. According to Plato, after “earthquakes and floods of extraordinary violence … in a single dreadful day and night,” Atlantis was “swallowed up by the sea” (Timaeus, 25c–d).

For years, people associated the legend of Atlantis with the sudden disappearance of the Greek island of Thera (modern Santorini)—which was nearly annihilated by massive volcanic eruptions around 1500 B.C. But other candidates keep popping up, so to speak: Mexico, Nigeria, the Bermuda Triangle, central Asia—every place but outer space.

Now, after an exhaustive study of geology and climatology and a close reading of Plato’s texts, a Russian history professor thinks Atlantis is … on the Celtic Shelf, which surrounds a good portion of England. This June, Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev, funded by the Moscow Institute of Metahistory, will dive into the ocean in search of ancient ruins. His target: an underwater hill known as Little Sole Bank.

But not everyone is convinced. British explorer and adventurer Colonel John Blashford-Snell is planning his own expedition—to Bolivia. The colonel believes that satellite photographs reveal a hidden canal with dimensions that match those of Plato’s Atlantis. He intends to explore beneath Lake Poopo, an inland Bolivian sea that sits 12,000 feet above sea level.

Still, the more things change … In 1975, marble pillars were reportedly found off the coast of Bimini in the Bahamas. Ancient pillars from sunken Atlantis? No, it was later learned, just discarded barrels of cement.

014

Recent Finds

Statues from Egypt’s Old Kingdom

Egyptian Museum, Cairo
Sixth Dynasty (c. 2345–2180 B.C.)
copper
large statue: life size; small statue: 20 inches high

After lying in storage for a century, one of the world’s oldest metal statues is now prominently displayed in Egypt’s Cairo Museum and another is about to receive a proper cleaning.

A life-size, copper statue of Pharaoh Pepi I (above), of Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty (c. 2345–2180 B.C.), was discovered in 1897 by British archaeologist James Quibell at Hierakonpolis, 400 miles south of Cairo. Pepi was found buried in sand in a room beneath a temple. Inside the large statue of Pepi, Quibell found a smaller copper statue, about 20 inches high, believed to be Pepi’s son Merenre (below). Both statues were so badly corroded, however, that they could not be shown to the public.

Last year, Christian Eckmann of the Romisch-Germanisch Zentralmuseum in Mainz, Germany, began restoring the statues. Working on tiny square-centimeter segments, Echmann gradually cleaned the sculpture of young Merenre—using an ultrasonic machine, similar to an instrument dentists use to remove plaque. The shining Merenre was put on display on January 18, 1998. Echmann is currently restoring the large statue of Pepi I.

Echmann has also been able to identify the original technique used to sculpt the statues: Artisans built a model—out of wood or some other hard material—and then hammered copper sheets against the model; they then nailed the sheets together with metal nails, still visible today on the restored statue.

015

Roman Lion Redux

An Update from the Firth of Forth

Virtue’s not its only own reward.

In late 1996, when Scottish ferryman Rab Graham (below) first spotted the carving of a Roman lioness featured in the Premiere Issue of Archaeology Odyssey (see Field Notes, AO 01:01), he “thought it was just a bit of statue, thrown away by somebody.” Then the tides in the River Almond, just west of Edinburgh at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, washed away more of the thick silt engulfing the sculpture. So Graham alerted the archaeological authorities—who pulled the 5-foot-long sandstone statue from the mud with ropes and cranes. They had found a magnificent Roman-period carving of a vicious lioness consuming her human prey.

The lioness has now been declared a national treasure (or Treasure Trove, as the Scots say). According to Scottish law, whoever finds a Treasure Trove is to be rewarded. In January 1998, Rab Graham was granted £50,000 (about $83,000) for his discovery. He told Archaeology Odyssey that he had not expected any reward and was “stunned” by the amount.

The statue will be on display in the Edinburgh City Art Center through November 1998; then it will find a permanent home in the new Museum of Scotland.

015

Rocks of Ages

Archaeologists Sniff Out Chips of Ancient Frankincense

Sifting through debris in the cellar of a 1,600-year-old house in Qasr Ibrim, in Upper Egypt, archaeologists from the Egypt Exploration Society recently found pea-sized chips resembling bits of blackened amber. They sent the chips to England’s Bristol University, where tests proved some of the fragments to be that spice of spices, the wildly coveted frankincense.

The shiny, bitter drops of frankincense resin are secreted by the leaves of the shrublike Boswellia tree. When the resin is burned, it gives off a highly fragrant aroma.

In Egypt, archaeologists have found spoon-shaped incense burners dating to the third millennium B.C., suggesting that the practice of burning incense goes back some 5,000 years. The Hebrew Bible describes a joyous wedding procession that mysteriously appears “like a column of smoke,/ perfumed with myrhh and frankincense” (Song of Solomon 3:6). In the New Testament, the Wise Men from the East give the infant Jesus, among other things, “gold, frankincense and myrhh” (Matthew 2:11).

Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, the Bristol University scientists determined that the molecular structure of the Qasr Ibrim resin closely resembles that of modern frankincense.

The Boswellia shrubs that produce the resin are not indigenous to Egypt. In ancient times, frankincense was caravanned into Egypt from hundreds of miles away—either from northern Somalia or from Arabia.

014

OddiFacts

Public Works

In about 497 B.C., a quarter century after the Persians conquered Egypt, the Persian king Darius built the first Suez Canal. Completing a project begun by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II (610–595 B.C.), Darius cut a 53-mile-long canal from Tell el-Maskuta, in the eastern Nile Delta, to the Gulf of Suez. To commemorate this engineering achievement, Darius laid down a series of stelae—at least three of which have been recovered—showing us the course of the ancient waterway.

012

Current Exhibitions

“A Victorian’s Passion: Lithographs of Egypt and the Near East”

English artist David Roberts’s 19th-century lithographs faithfully recorded countless ancient monuments, many of which have since been badly damaged.

“Roman Glass: Reflections on Cultural Change”

The development of the Roman Empire’s extensive glass industry is demonstrated by more than 200 examples of Roman glass and glassmaking materials.

“Beyond Beauty: Antiquities as Evidence”

This exhibition explores the cultural, historical and technological data embedded in Greek and Roman antiquities.

“Ancient Cyprus: The Cesnola Collection at the Semitic Museum”

Cyprus’s role as an ancient trading and cultural center is illustrated by over 1,300 artifacts, including pottery, glass vessels, lamps, figurines and bronzes.

013

“Splendors of Ancient Egypt”

Assembled from the world-renowned collection at the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum in Germany, this exhibition features more than 200 objects from nearly every period of ancient Egyptian history.

The Shumei Collection

The Miho Museum designed by I.M. Pei, houses more than 1,000 western and Oriental antiquities. The collection includes a stunning Assyrian relief recently bought at auction for $11.86 million.

Permanent Collection

After two years of restoration, the National Museum of Lebanon, closed from 1975 to 1990, is ready for visitors again. The museum’s treasures have been recovered from its basement, where they were stored during the war.

Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian Antiquities

For over 16 years, the Louvre has been renovating its galleries. Recently 2.5 acres of exhibition space were reopened, featuring nearly 10,000 artifacts—including the pink granite sphinx pictured here.

How’s That Sphinx?