- The Vatican recently re-exhibited the Belvedere Apollo, from whom Michelangelo drew inspiration for his Jesus Christ. A sculptor wanted to mount the hands of the Venus de Milo
- A 4 meter bronze Hercules was struck by lightning and the ancients took it as a sign as he was the son of the thunderer Zeus
- Christians cut off the noses of pagan gods and carved crosses into their foreheads. This is how they punished both adulterers and rulers who had fallen from power
The three recently discovered statues – the two during the excavations of the city of Heraclea Sintika near Petrich and the third in Varna – are not the largest ancient sculptures found in our country. The championship is currently held by Fortuna, which is kept in the Archaeological Museum in Sofia. She is 2.83m tall, but must have been even more majestic as her head is missing.
It was located near the village of Gigen, Plevensko, where the ancient city of Escus was. It was sculpted in the middle of the 2nd century AD. What makes her extremely rare, according to experts, is that the goddess of fate is dressed in a rich chiton to the ankles, and a mantle is draped over her arm and shoulder. It was discovered in the first half of the 20th century. And the most valuable finds after that are from this summer.
However, there are bigger ones in the world. The recorder was sculpted in bronze and has not survived to this day. The Colossus of Rhodes rose to 34.6 m only for 54 years – from 280 BC. to 226 BC It was destroyed by an earthquake.
Parts of a 12-meter-tall colossus depicting Emperor Constantine, who introduced Christianity to Rome, have reached us, and this year it was restored to its original size. The giant figure was commissioned by the ruler himself during his lifetime. Only the legs are over 2 meters and the head is 2.5 m, with eyes disproportionately large. An aquiline nose, a deep jaw and a prominent chin. All the details suggest that the emperor has a divine face. The figure is almost naturalistic – with calloused fingers and bulging forearm veins.
In ancient times, the head, hands and feet were marble. The body was filled with bricks. The bronze pieces were stolen centuries ago. Resin, polyurethane, plaster, marble dust and gold leaf were used in the reconstruction. The inner part is made of aluminum.
Another huge sculpture preserved in its original form is that of the god of regenerating and dying nature and wine Dionysus (10.7 meters high). It is located on the Greek island of Naxos. The figure is roughly carved, with a beard, ears and some hair on the head, which are hardly recognizable. The arms are cut out as rectangles and the legs are just begun. It was found in a horizontal position near the village of Apollonas.
Unlike the crude idol of wine, the god of love Apollo, which was recently exhibited in the Vatican Museums again, is extremely well-formed. It is also one of the most valuable sculptures in the collection of the Roman Catholic Church. It is a marble replica of a famous ancient bronze original that has not survived to this day. According to some experts, the stone spear resembles Michelangelo’s sculptures of Jesus Christ before the Last Judgment. And no wonder – the Renaissance artist studied these statues and was inspired by them.
This masterpiece is from the 2nd century AD. and is 2.35 m high. It was found between 1484 and 1489 in Nero’s villa near Rome. During the reign of Pope Julius II – in 1506, the statue was in the Belvedere Palace in the Vatican, from where it got its name.
It has elements that were not present in the bronze original from the 4th century BC. – for example, the tree on which Apollo rested his right hand. It was found missing the entire right hand and left wrist, but was reworked by Michelangelo’s student Giovanni Montorsoli.
The Vatican did not display this masterpiece for a long time in order to restore it. Broken knees and legs have been repaired, the figure has been laser cleaned and a carbon fiber post has been fitted to the stand to make it more stable.
In the museums of the Roman Catholic capital are some of the most valuable exhibits. So is the gilded bronze Hercules, as much as 4 meters high. The statue was discovered in 1864 in the villa of the banker Righetti in Rome and immediately became part of the papal collection of Pius IX. It is believed to have been exhibited in the theater of Pompeii. It is dated between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD.
She was lying on her back with a slab above her like a tombstone, on which were carved the letters FCS (from Latin – Fulgur Conditum Summanium, “Here is buried the thunder of Sumanus”). Sumanus was a Roman god of thunder. The statue was struck by lightning, and to the ancient Romans this endowed it with divine power. And because Hercules in ancient Greek mythology is the son of Zeus, they took it as a sign that they should bury her with a sacrificial lamb.
And one of the most famous statues in the world – the famous Venus of Milos – is dedicated to Venus, who emerged from the sea naked on a clam shell (according to the ancient Roman legend). It is kept in the Louvre. It is over 2 meters high. It was found on the Greek Cycladic island of Milos in 1820 and immediately achieved stunning success. It was bought by the French ambassador to Greece, the Marquis de Riviere, and a year later he donated it to the Louvre. The sculptor they consulted suggested that it be completely restored, but in the end they refused to put new hands on it.
It is known to have been sculpted around 100 BC. in parts, as was characteristic of the ancient masters. It consists of two marble slabs, each treated separately. The torso, legs and arms are connected by vertical anchors. Holes in the marble suggest that the goddess once “wore” jewelry. Her hands have not been discovered to this day, which gives her a mysterious appearance.
And with the celebrations of the mysteries, another ancient goddess is honored – that of the hunt and female chastity, Artemis. The history of her statue in Ephesus, once considered one of the seven wonders of the world, is very curious. She is the protector of the city and her role is shown through a three-tiered hat. At the top are carved temples, including the one dedicated to her in Ephesus.
Lions, bulls, goats, griffins and sphinxes are depicted on her dress, because she is the mistress of wild animals. On her chest are formed the testicles of bulls sacrificed during the mystery festivals. The inhabitants of the city believed that they gave Artemis the power to help birth the bees, which for them were associated with the souls of the initiates. So they thought that through the death of the bulls, the life of bees and human souls was born.
The sculpture of Artemis in Ephesus is 2.92 m high, but the relief images are more valuable. Other of the ancient statues are remarkable for their weight. Like that of Octavian Augustus of the Primaporta, which is in the Vatican Museums. Its weight is 1 ton, although its height is not unusual – 2.08 m. This is the most famous portrait of the Roman emperor. He is barefoot in order to give him a divine appearance, because in ancient times the standard dictated that gods and heroes should be depicted without sandals.
It was discovered in 1863 during excavations in the villa of Livia Drusilla, his last wife, who retired there after the death of the ruler in 14 AD.
However, museums keep not only divine faces, models of beauty, but also grotesque statues. Like that of the mortal Jeanne de Bourbon Vendome in the Louvre. The aristocrat who lived in the 14th century has wrinkled lips, bared teeth, worms are crawling in her stomach, and her intestines are visible. All these eerie details are related to the fate of the Queen of France, who died 2 days after giving birth and her body parts were buried in different places. The heart – in a monastery, the entrails – in the royal necropolis of the Celestines in Paris, and the other remains – in the Basilica of Saint Denis in Paris. She was married to her second cousin – King Charles V. Because of the incest, their heir Charles VI was sick, but they had 8 more children.
The statue of Jeanne de Bourbon Vendome is marble, as are most of the old sculptures that have survived to this day. There is a definite reason for this, and it is not only in the beauty of this stone. They are usually a copy of an original made of metal. Over the centuries it has been recycled and reused. Bronze ones were very often melted down to make weapons.
Ironically, some of the marble figures were mutilated with these. It is no coincidence that many of them are without noses. During the change of power, the supporters of the new rulers deliberately took them away. This was very characteristic of the rise of Christianity. For example, the statue of Aphrodite, which is kept in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, has no nose and a large cross carved on its forehead.
Apparently it happened during a ritual against a pagan goddess, because the same thing happened to the statue in the British Museum of the nephew of the emperor Tiberius Germanicus. On it, traces of a deliberate cutting off of the nose and an engraved cross on his forehead are clearly visible. According to Mark Bradley, Professor of Classics at the University of Nottingham, the Vandalism dates back to the early Christian years.
But some of these Roman and Greek statues without noses are of much later date. According to Bradley, the explanation lies in the understanding of the people of the time about punishment. Mutilation and removal of the nose was part of the “judicial system”. It was practiced in all kinds of cases – both for adulterers and for fallen rulers.
In the case of Egyptian civilizations, the reason for cutting down was different – they believed that the statue contained some kind of soul of the depicted person. By breaking his nose, they think they have deprived him of his power. In theory, they “prevent” him from breathing and kill his spirit.
When statues are left without a head, arms or legs, the reason, according to experts, is that this happened when they fell or were moved.
But in any case, they have their aesthetic and historical value regardless of the form in which they reached us or their size. Seemingly small artifacts can be very valuable to the period and style of the craftsmen.