#apollonia

Apollonia van Ravenstein, British Vogue, December 1971.

Apollonia's outfit for the Bloodhaven Ball, sans mask because I don't have hands anymore. Please excuse any messy bits you see; somewhere between doing the lace and the silver, I could feel my hand dexterity flee from my body.

Different lighting/angle below to show the metallics.

Archaeologists have uncovered a well-preserved Byzantine residential city in Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis. The city follows a planned street layout. At the heart of the settlement stands a Christian basilica built in the mid-fourth century CE. The church overlooks one of the city’s main streets and likely served as the center of both worship and community life. Archaeologists uncovered a wide range of buildings linked to daily living. The settlement includes mud-brick houses, bread ovens, kitchens, grain-grinding tools, two watchtowers, and a thick-walled fortress. These finds show a well-organized community with homes, food production, public buildings, and defenses. Two buildings stand out among the homes. One belonged to a church deacon named Tisos and dates to the second half of the fourth century CE. Another belonged to a man named Tabibos and dates to the early fourth century. Researchers believe Tabibos’s house first served as a house church before the larger basilica was built. The building offers rare evidence of how Christian worship developed in the oasis. The excavation also produced many objects used in everyday life. Researchers found cooking and storage pottery, bottles for oils and perfumes, lamps, and stone tools used for grinding grain. These items show how people prepared food, stored supplies, and managed daily household tasks. One of the most important finds is a group of nearly 200 ostraca, broken pieces of pottery used for writing. The texts are written in both Coptic and Greek. They record sales, purchases, business deals, personal letters, and other records from daily life. The team also recovered a large collection of well-preserved bronze coins. Many carry portraits of Byzantine emperors, Latin inscriptions, and Christian symbols. Gold coins dating to the reign of Emperor Constantius II, who ruled from CE 337 to 361, help date the settlement and place its main period of occupation within the Byzantine era. The site now ranks among the most important Byzantine settlements found in Egypt’s Western Desert.

Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Apollonia on Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast have rediscovered a rare Greek hippodrome and identified a previously unknown theater overlooking the sea. Vincent Michel, director of the French Archaeological Mission in Libya, described the Greek racecourse as an exceptional scientific find. According to Michel, no comparable hippodrome is currently known elsewhere in Cyrenaica or across the wider Mediterranean region. Hippodromes were large open-air venues used primarily for horse and chariot racing. They also served as major civic gathering places, where sporting competition, public ceremony and political display could converge. Unlike stone theaters, however, ancient racecourses often leave limited archaeological traces. Their long tracks were usually defined by earthworks, boundary walls and architectural features that could disappear beneath later construction or centuries of sediment. The Apollonia hippodrome may therefore provide unusually important evidence for organized sport and public entertainment in Greek North Africa. Michel said the structure could lead researchers to reconsider Apollonia’s position within the ancient Mediterranean. The mission also announced the discovery of a theater directly overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Apollonia already contains a well-known theater constructed near the shoreline. The newly identified structure therefore appears to represent an additional performance venue rather than a re-examination of the city’s familiar coastal monument. Apollonia developed as the harbor of Cyrene, the major Greek city founded inland by settlers from the Aegean island of Thera during the seventh century BC. Located roughly 16 kilometers from Cyrene, the port connected the agricultural and urban centers of the Green Mountain region with maritime routes across the eastern Mediterranean. Initially dependent on Cyrene, Apollonia became independent toward the end of the Hellenistic period. It later formed part of the Cyrenaican Pentapolis, the network of five leading cities that also included Cyrene, Ptolemais, Taucheira and Berenice. The city continued to prosper under Roman rule and remained occupied into Late Antiquity. Its surviving remains include defensive walls, bath complexes, harbor installations, Christian basilicas, residential areas and religious spaces. Research in the Kallikrateia district previously revealed 19 rock-cut altars and numerous religious objects dating to the fourth and third centuries BC. Archaeologists also uncovered a partially rock-cut building that may have been used for offerings or sacrifices. These finds show that sacred activity occupied an important place in the urban landscape long before Apollonia became a major Roman and Byzantine center. Apollonia’s coastal position made it a successful harbor, but it has also left the ruins vulnerable to erosion and changing sea levels. According to the French Ministry of Culture, approximately one-third of the ancient city is now underwater.

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of an ancient merchant ship carrying hundreds of amphorae off the Greek island of Andros, shedding new light on maritime trade during the late Classical period. Initial surveys revealed about 600 to 650 amphorae scattered around the wreck site, one of the most important underwater discoveries in the Aegean in recent years. The amphorae date to the late 5th and early 4th centuries BC, placing the shipwreck within the late Classical period. Archaeologists also recovered part of a lead anchor stock and identified several stones that may have formed part of the vessel’s ballast. Researchers believe the find will enhance understanding of commercial networks and maritime navigation in the Aegean during the late Classical era. Further investigation is expected to provide additional information about the ship’s cargo, its route and its place of origin.

The highly controversial bill of handing over the management of Greece’s Cultural Heritage to a private company was approved at the Parliament late on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. The bill entitled “management of cultural heritage, protection of artworks and restructuring of the Organization for the Management and Development of Cultural Resources” passed with the votes of ruling neo-liberal government of New Democracy, while all opposition parties voted against it. According to opposition parties, the legislation paves the way for the privatization of archaeological sites and monuments and handing over archaeological sites and monuments to private interests. Culture Minister Lina Mendoni rejected these accusations, saying at the Parliament “under no circumstances does this bill affect ownership issues. Ownership of monuments remains entirely with the Greek state, exactly as stipulated by the Constitution, and our cultural heritage continues to be fully protected by archaeological law.” Although the political management of cultural heritage is a constitutionally guaranteed state obligation, the ND government is promoting the establishment of the “Hellenic Heritage Organisation SA”, a public limited liability company that will manage, without substantial public control, the movable and immovable property of the Ministry of Culture and all income from tickets, shops, refreshments, exact copies, publications. The planned concession is initially for 50 years with the possibility of renewal for another 50 years.

Sources:

Archaeology News Online Magazine

arkeonews.net

Heritage Daily

I'm in Mary Magdalene's studio! (No, not really.)

MM's stock photos remain a constant source of inspiration and also mild nostalgia for me, although by the time I started getting into lolita, the brand was already on the decline. I especially liked the combination of OP over JSK shown in their Rose Basket JSK blog post, and I am lucky enough to own almost all of the same items, so recreated the aforementioned photo as well as and the full body (ish) stock photo (15 years later!)

Getting the posing and look right was difficult as it was just me and my camera! Every time I took a few photos, I had to get up and cross check the pose beside the original on my phone before sitting down and rearranging my skirt for a whole new attempt. So the pose has quite a lot of differences! The lighting is also much more shadowy since I use natural light from my window (on one side), whilst the original likely has some kind of studio floodlight going on. Regardless, hopefully I managed to evoke the original well enough.

Of course, as a constant nitpicker I can see so many (albeit minor) differences between the photos that I couldn't overcome...I am slightly taller, as well as less slim than the original model 😂 the JSK is actually handmade (blog post on that soon) and I believe it is a cm or two shorter than the original due to a lack of bodice fabric. I really cannot figure out for the life of me how the model managed to have so much fabric pooling at the bottom in her sitting pose, though--can I really chalk it up to body proportions?

The shoe colour is also obviously different (someone please sell me the framboise Sylphid shoes) aand if you look really closely, the background pattern is upside-down! (50% chance of hanging it the same way as MM and I got it wrong 😳)