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Chapps Profile picture
Chapps
@chapps
I create digital polychrome reconstructions of ancient Roman sculpture. 🎨 🏳️‍🌈 You can also find me at: https://t.co/DPWWnBK9Ce https://t.co/kd99lg1W8q
Nov 16 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
My recent reconstructions of the busts of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University. I worked on these with Mark Abbe, who performed MSI scans of the original busts and discovered traces of pigments (paper forthcoming). #polychromy 1/ Digital polychrome reconstruction of this magnificent portrait bust of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, who was originally from North Africa. He wears a military cloak - a paludamentum - in a rich purple color, with a reddish fringe and a lighter purple underside (it’s slightly turned over on his left shoulder). These colors were discovered during scientific scans recently. The cloak is fixed with a gilded shield fibula at his right shoulder. His skin is brown, his hair salt-and-pepper, and his eyes brown, all following the example of the Severan tondo portrait. Details of reddish cheek...
Digital polychrome reconstruction of the portrait bust of Julia Domna from the Eskenazi Museum of Art. Her himation/palla (cloak) is a deep purple with a lighter purple underside, identical to that of her husband’s paludamentum. This furthers their well-known close marriage and partnership. Her tunic is a very pale yellow. Her characteristic ‘hair helmet’, parted in the middle and consisting of several rows of crimped hair in a rounded shape, has subtle gilded highlights at the top of each ridge. This highlighting would have caught the light and helped an observer from a distance see the de... The unrestored busts are below (although I’ve digitally added socles). These really are magnificent Imperial portraits. 2/

📸 Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University The original portrait bust of Septimius Severus, unrestored, as one would see it in the Eskenazi Museum (save the digital addition of the socle and tabula - the stand with the little nameplate that it sits on). It’s in fabulous shape, but two of its forehead curls and parts of the forked beard have been broken off. The curls in the hair and beard are chipped but in remarkably good condition. A lot of staining had to be removed digitally for the restoration, though.
Original portrait bust of Julia Domna, as you’d see her in the Eskenazi Museum today (save for the socle and tabula, which I added digitally). She’s in near-perfect condition, save a broken nose.
Aug 11 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
With the discovery of the tomb of Marcus Venerius Secundio in #Pompeii (and his mummified body) came the discovery within his burial enclosure of the tomb of Novia Amabiles, her glass urn preserved together with those of three children, in a bronze container. 1/

📸 me A lidded blue-green glass urn nestled inside a papery bronze egg-like wrapping. The lid is round at its base and has a pointed section in the middle with a knob on top. When found, it had been sealed with plaster and contained a large amount of dark liquid in addition to the cremated bones of the woman and her three children. Photo: my own The tomb of Secundio was an unusual inhumation burial and his mummified body was inside, retaining some hair and an ear.👂Secundio was a freedman, once a public slave, who became one of the Augustales, a well-off priest of the Imperial cult. 2/
Exterior of the tomb of Marcus Venerius Secundio, nestled within his tomb enclosure, which was defined by a low wall. His tomb is essentially a rectangular box with a pediment lid - looking like a house or a temple. We can see faded fresco pigments on the front - whites, blues, and reds. In the background, we can see two cippi - gravestones - within an opened tomb. Photograph © Parco Archeologico di Pompei
Looking inside the tomb of M. Venerius Secundio, which has an arched top. On the left side, the skeletal mummified remains of Secundio have been shoved up against the wall, his head propped up on a stone pillow. Perhaps they had originally intended for the urn and other glass ampullae in the tomb enclosure to be placed on the right side? Photograph © Parco Archeologico di Pompei.
Jul 17 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
The only surviving Roman draco (dragon) standard was this gilded bronze version found in the ruins of the Limes fortress in Niederbieber, Germany. It would have originally had a fabric ‘windsock’ attached which would billow out behind the head. 1/

📸 me
📸 Codrin.B (Wikimedia)
Gilded bronze draco (dragon) standard head. It looks like a stylized crocodile head, with an open mouth displaying many sharp teeth, a furled upper snout, and scales down its length. It also has a crest on top, a bit like a chicken! Quite a bit of the original gilding remains, glinting yellow under the lights. 190-240 CE. GDKE - Direktion Landesarchilologie Außenstelle Koblenz Landesmuseum Koblenz, Germany Photographed at the British Museum’s ‘Legion’ exhibit.
Photo of a draconarius at a Roman Cavalry Reenactment (Roman Festival at Augusta Raurica - August 2013), dressed in replica roman cavalry armor, galloping on a white horse. He carries a shield and a reconstruction draco standard on a long red pole with an attached red windsock, which billows out behind him. In the 2nd c. CE, Arrian writes that the Romans adopted the draco from the Scythians, but he probably meant the Sarmatians/Dacians, as we can see from spolia represented on the base of Trajan’s Column and a relief from the Hadrianeum in Rome. These were more wolf-like. 2/

📸 me
Closeup of the base of Trajan’s Column, which is a large bas-relief on all four sides, depicting piles of spolia, trophies of war. Armor, shields, quivers, lances, spears, helmets, and a very well rendered Dacian draco standard, its windsock deflated. Photo: my own
One of the reliefs from the Hadrianeum, the Temple of Deified Hadrian, depicting a trophy - spoils of war. Within a frame are a Dacian draco standard with a very lively and snaky windsock, and a Dacian tunic and spear. National Archaeological Museum of Naples Photo: my own
Apr 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
One-stop statuette to pray to multiple gods! Silver statuette with gilding, of the Gallo-#Roman goddess Tutela, with a double cornucopia and a mural crown worn as a protector of a city. She holds a patera (libation dish) in her right hand. Let's identify the gods ... 1/ Silver statuette of the Gal...Side view of the statuette,... The double cornucopia holds the heads of Diana and Apollo, and her upright wings carry the busts of the Dioscurii, Castor and Pollux. Above them is a stand with the busts of several other gods ... 2/ Closeup of the middle of th...
Feb 18, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
I'm always interested in how a scene from myth is shown in different media. Here we have Achilles - in women's clothing! - hiding out among the daughters of King Lykomedes on the island of Skyros. Always shown at the moment of discovery by Odysseus (in cap). 1/ Side of a massive sarcophagus, made in Athens, Greece. A youFresco showing the moment that Achilles - clad in women's clImpluvium (a shallow pool in an atrium, designed to capture A tall Roman glass drinking cup, with the chaotic scene of A 1st example: a sarcophagus made in Athens, ca. AD 180-220, depicting scenes from the life of Achilles. On the right side is the scene from Skyros, with Achilles hiding behind his shield, the young, pregnant Deidamia hanging from his neck, pleading him to stay. #GettyVilla 2/ Same scene of the side of the sarcophagus, described in the Front of the Achilles sarcophagus at the Getty Villa, showin
Feb 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Another day, another clusterf**k from Twitter. Apparently, the platform is removing text message two-factor authentication, which will henceforth only be for (snicker) Twitter Blue subscribers. It must be turned off, or you lose access to Twitter. OK, so let's do it ... ah. 😆 I mean, sure, turn off a security feature that's standard on most platforms, just so your CEO can say 'suck it, losers' to all non-Twitter Blue subs. Unbelievable.
Apr 6, 2022 • 11 tweets • 7 min read
The emperor is dead *and* immortal! And a blonde. My newest digital restoration is Augustus as Jupiter, the king of the gods. A melding of Roman realism with Greek Classicism. A lot to unpack here … #polychromy #archaeology #art 1/ ImageImage The statue was unearthed in Cumae, a wealthy Roman city near Naples, once a Greek colony and home to the prophesying sybil. The restorers were able to use ancient coins and cameos depicting the Olympian #Zeus and Augustus as Jupiter to guide their reconstruction work ... 2/ ImageImage
Mar 24, 2022 • 12 tweets • 11 min read
My new digital restoration is this remarkable 2nd c. AD #sculpture of #Eros (Cupid) on a dolphin, approximating how it might have once appeared in the garden of an ancient Roman villa. But who’s captured who here? #polychromy #art #archaeology #romanhistory @MANNapoli 1/ Image The statue is on display at the Nat'l Archaeological Museum in Naples, but I can’t find information on its history or find spot. Once apparently part of the #Farnese Collection, a copy of a bronze #Greek original. 📸@MumblerJamie and Darren Puttoc. 2/ ImageImage
Jan 15, 2022 • 15 tweets • 11 min read
What a party outfit! This new speculative digital restoration is the Roman god #Mithras, from a 2nd c. AD Roman sculpture in the British Museum. I’ve used the fresco from the #Mithraeum in Capua as the inspiration for Mithras’ pseudo-Persian outfit. 1/ #tauroctony The challenge was to interpret and render the colors and designs from the fresco in the #Mithraeum of S. Maria Capua Vetere onto the cult statue of #Mithras. The legging symbols: stars and planets, or rosettes and crowns? 2/
Dec 9, 2021 • 16 tweets • 13 min read
Finally finished! A speculative reconstruction of the 1st c. AD funerary altar of the child Julia Victorina. Beautiful Ionic decorative scheme, with very specific spring flowers. So specific that I think they must have been individually colored. #polychromy #Louvre 1/ The funerary inscription is fairly standard, if not heartbreaking. Julia lived to the age of 10 years and 5 months, and is described as 'sweetest daughter'. My attempt at a translation, below. The letters get wonky on the bottom line! #epigraphy @abby_fecit @Caroline_Barron 2/