Elagabalus was not only "Pontifex Maximus" (head of the Roman religion), he was also "Summus Sacerdos", the "High Priest", head of the religion of...
Very nice coin, probably uncirculated. It was certainly not minted in 222, the emperor's portrait looks too young, and I think the rev. legend and...
In the first decades of Muslim rule in the Near East, Islam was the religion of the military but not of the civilians. When the cities surrendered...
With your slabbed or unslabbed coins, you all remind me of my childhood readings... [ATTACH]
The Elgin Marbles are reclaimed by Greece since the 1840s. Yes at that time Greece was surely broke, as she is today and as she has always been...
[ATTACH] Tetrobol of Arados, 4th c. BC : marine deity holding dolphins / schematic galley over hippocamp (a non-Pegasus, non-sphinx mythical...
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Egypt is Egypt since Narmer in the 33rd c. BC. This is the first country (I mean a sovereign state with a capital where is the central power,...
This bust now in Vatican was in the 18th c. in the Palazzo Nuñez Torlonia and was sold to the Vatican in 1791. The face is much mutilated : the...
[ATTACH] As of Nero: the Temple of Janus in Rome, with closed doors. Opening or closing sacred doors is a religious ritual which has survived...
[ATTACH] The famous Artemis temple ! (under Antoninus Pius) NEXT : famous monument
There is no serious reason to identify this much restored bust (in the Vatican Museum) as Plautianus: nobody knows what Plautianus looked like...
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The Luxor obelisk has not been looted or stolen, it was a diplomatic gift from the Egyptian government to France in 1830. And Egypt was not under...
[ATTACH] NEXT : Fides Militum or Exercitus
The BM has got some Abila coins since 1899... For this city I think the best collections are the collection of the Franciscans in Jerusalem...
In the early 4th c. "pecunia" was also used for "mint". The mint-mark for Londinium (London) was PLN or PLON : P(ecunia) Lon(diniensis).
You mean the Parthenon, not the Pantheon, I suppose :). It is true that the Turks had stored ammunition in the Parthenon in 1687, but there was a...
That's a complex question. A lot of Greek masterpieces were looted by the Romans, but often from Greek cities like Taranto or Syracuse (by...
Will the Horses of Saint Mark be returned to their rightful owner? [ATTACH] These four gilded bronze horses were part of a monumental Greek...
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