#antinoupolis

The ancient Egyptians famously gave us paper and the pyramids, but were also early adopters of the stripy sock.

Scientists at the British Museum have developed pioneering imaging to discover how enterprising Egyptians used dyes on a child’s sock, recovered from a rubbish dump in ancient Antinoupolis in Roman Egypt, and dating from 300AD.

New multispectral imaging can establish which dyes were used – madder (red), woad (blue) and weld (yellow) – but also how people of the late antiquity period used double and sequential dying and weaving, and twisting fibres to create myriad colours from their scarce resources.

Rising sun at dawn at Antinoupolis

By Erin Peters

I arrived at Sheikh Abada for Egypt’s Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) and the Istituto Papirologico “G. Vitelli” of the University of Florence’s (Istituto) Italian Mission at Antinoupolis under direction of Rosario Pintaudi, PhD. I am thrilled to join the team here at this famous ancient city, which has been important since pharaonic times (there is a temple built by Ramses II that I will return to in a future post) and especially after its founding under the Roman emperor Hadrian as a Greek poleis in Egypt (administrative center of a nome, or district) for his companion, Antinous. Antinous is said to have drowned in the Nile River in 130 BCE. According to Egyptian tradition, he was affiliated with the god Osiris and thus deified after his death; Hadrian founded the city as the cult center of the new god—Osir-Antinous. The Istituto’s mission, along with The Antinoupolis Foundation (TAF) under President James Heidel, is to build a complete archaeological picture of the city, cult center, and its inhabitants.

You can read all the latest news, history of the city, and its archaeological campaigns at The Antinoupolis Foundation’s website and blog.

In my last blog post, I mentioned the vast archaeological site that is home to the ancient city’s remains on the Nile River. The site, along with its street grid, was documented by Edmé Francois Jomard, one of the scholars who accompanied Napoleon’s army to Egypt in 1798­–1801, and published in the massive Description de l’Egypte. The engraving shows the city plan with a large hippodrome to the east of the Nile, a “wadi” that runs from the east to the Nile, and three major streets: the “cardo” that runs north-south and is parallel to the Nile and two “decumani” that run east-west and are perpendicular to the Nile. In ancient Roman cities, the “cardo” refers to the primary north-south street, and a “decumanus” is a primary street that runs east-west.

Jomard’s topographic city plan of Antinoupolis (1818)

Because the official founding of the city occurred under the Roman emperor Hadrian, the Roman period city included urban elements similar to the rest of the empire. These features are still visible today and can be seen from Google satellite images. I have included small red dots near the “wadi,” the “cardo,” and the “decumani.”

Google satellite image of the remains of ancient Antinoupolis

Now on site, I cannot wait to see the town plan in person and begin the first full day at Antinoupolis with the rising sun at dawn.

For me to get a sense of the site, TAF’s President Jay Heidel (who invited me to join the mission) and the mission’s Director Rosario Pintaudi kindly showed one of the main attractions in person: the “cardo” complete with some of the granite column shafts in situ. The “cardo” was paved with large limestone blocks that gleam in the Egyptian sun, and it is possible to see the stones along the “cardo” far across the site.

Remains of limestone paving and granite Doric column shafts on the “cardo”

When Jomard visited the site at the turn of the 19th century, there were many more columns and shafts along the main streets—he even recorded some large pilasters and complete columns with Corinthian capitals.

Jomard’s view of main streets with columns at Antinoupolis (1818)

But today it is quite rare to see shafts of any size still in situ, and it is more common to see them fallen at the side of the limestone pavement, if at all.

TAF’s President Jay Heidel standing on the “cardo” with fallen column shafts

Walking on the “cardo” at Antinoupolis

It was an amazing experience to walk along the street that Hadrian built for Antinous and sets the tone for my stay at Antinoupolis.

by Erin Peters Here at Antinoupolis, the Italian mission has been excavating since the 1930s and has a long and productive residence at the site. There are a number of publications resulting from the mission’s work and two recent volumes that include scientific publications of the team’s work since 2000–for these resources and more, see The Antinoupolis Foundation’s bibliography. For this 2017 season, the mission has three active excavation areas open, and today I write about one that is in the east of the ancient city near what was once a monumental gate facing the Via Hadriana. Hadrian built this impressive road through the desert as a new trade route, which ran through Antinoupolis to the Nile for river transport.

The east gate was monumentalized by huge red granite columns, of which fragments are extant. Two column bases (one upright and one overturned) and three column shaft fragments were known before this season and are an impressive sight to see.

Monumental fragments of red granite column bases and shafts at the east edge of the city

Under supervision of the mission’s architect, Peter Grossman, another section of a column shaft was unearthed this season. This shaft indicates there could be more fragments nearby, possibly under the 4-5th century CE church that Peter’s team is currently excavating, the remains of which you can see above.

View of column shaft fragment excavated this season

Hopefully some of these shafts will be more visible in the near future and draw visitors to the site as recorded in The Antinoupolis Foundation’s February 10 blog post. The mission’s director, Rosario Pintaudi, has put in an application to the Ministry of Antiquities to re-erect the column. If approved, perhaps the column shaft will be soaring at the east edge of the city by the time I return next year!

Fallen column shaft fragments that may be re-erected in the near future

Triumphal Arch at Antinopolis, Edme-François Jomard, 1798. Image source: X

When Jomard visited Antinopolis as part of Napoleon’s Commission d’Egypte, two colonnaded streets were still visible, along with a Triumphal Arch, a theatre, a pavilion or temple dedicated to Fortuna, a hippodrome, and more than 1,000 statues.

Today, October 30, the modern cult of Antinous celebrates Foundation Day, the founding of the city of Antinoopolis by Hadrian on this date in 130 CE - and the founding of the modern cult of Antinous on this same date in 2002.

October 20, 2017

Greetings from Hadrian's city on the Nile!

We are very excited to be back at the site for a shortened two-week excavation this autumn.  In the first week of work we have focused on removing layers above what we believe to be the other half of the rectangular temple we were uncovering last season (in February).  This is necessary to determine if it is a free-standing rectangular temple in the middle of the much larger court, or if it is connected in some way architecturally with the surrounding peristyle.  The excavation may also reveal additional fragments similar to the diagnostic torus molding block we found last season.

Cobra Frieze on block in mixed Classical/Pharaonic style, Antinoupolis Temple Complex. Photo: The Antinoupolis Foundation, 2017: X

The shape of things to come...

We are already planning our work at the site this autumn and for February of 2018.  The spectacular finds, fragments and architecture we've uncovered so far are strong indications that we are beginning to uncover major monuments in the city that Hadrian built for Antinous and are possibly working in the precinct of the temple of Osir-Antinous itself.  But a "beginning" is all that it is; there is so much more to be done.  If you are impressed with our results so far, please help us.   Click here - Donate! - to go to the donation page on our website (or click  "Donate Today!") on any page on the website to make a donation by credit card or to find the address where you can send a check.  If you are unable to make a donation, you can help by spreading the word to friends and colleagues who might also be interested in our work and able to help.  Thank you very much to those of you who have already sent a contribution this year.

We don't have a large budget or paid employees, so your donations go directly to supporting excavation needs.  In the past donations have been used not only for large items like paying for the geophysical survey, but also for excavation equipment like trowels, the stone moving cart, computer hard drives, a camera, etc.  Our needs are for items large and small; any size donation will help.  With all the architectural fragments we are finding, the dig house courtyard is bursting at the seams with them, with more coming up in the excavation every day.  Our goal for the coming year with the largest cost will be constructing a fragment storage yard behind the dig house which will be a 19 x 40 meter 2-meter-tall stuccoed concrete wall topped with barbed wire containing brick and stucco platforms to permanently house all the architectural fragments we are finding.  We are working now to get estimates for this project which will likely be between ten and twenty thousand dollars.  If you can help us achieve this goal it will push forward our knowledge of this monument.  Let's all pull together to make this happen!  I promise we won't pester you often with funding requests.  Thank you very much in advance for your support.

Jay posing with the new discovery

BLOCKbuster news from Antinoupolis!

The inscription on the recently-discovered cornice block has been partially translated!

The first two cartouches on the far left name Hadrian, and call him “beloved of Hapi and all the gods.” This is the first mention found of Hadrian’s name at the site. The next two cartouches name Sabina, describing her as “Augusta” and “royal wife”. This suggests the temple was built before her death in late 136 or early 137. It is also important to note that only the three cartouches in hieroglyphic inscriptions have been found which name the wife of a Roman Emperor - and Diva Sabina’s name is on two of them, the one here at Antinoupolis and the one on the Barberini Obelisk, also known as the Obelisk of Antinous.

The first column of inscription on the right of the cornice names Hathor - and in the next column, the first inscription naming Osir-Antinous at the site! The team hopes further analysis will show whether this temple was dedicated to Hathor, to Osir-Antinous, or perhaps a combination.

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We've been quiet for a few days with no blogs posts, but that's only because amazing discoveries are taking place.

OVERALL VIEW OF PROGRESS ON FEBRUARY 27 WITH THE TEMPLE (SITTING ON ROMAN PAVEMENT LEVEL) AT LEFT, THE UNDERGROUND SLOPING PASSAGE UNDER THE GROUP OF MEN AT CENTER AND THE WELL AT RIGHT.

The big news today is that we can finally say with certainty that the structure we are excavating is, in fact, a temple. The reason this is so exciting is that "New" temples are rarely discovered in Egypt and also because the rest of the hypothesis stands - we may have a Hadrianic-period temple of Osir-Antinous. 

And we've learned more information about the temple since my last post on this area of the excavation.  As you can see from the above photograph at the top of this post, our men are excavating down inside the temple's exterior walls.  You can just see three eroded steps at the front of the structure which would have led at the top to a pavement outside the temple's cella (sanctuary). The blocks showing are the first course of the ashlars of the temple's superstructure, and the stair platform and cella floor were likely at the level of the top of the missing second course of blocks. 

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