Katherine Moretti

New Orleans couple discovers ancient Roman grave marker in their yard Discovery of 1,900-year-old headstone dedicated to Roman sailor sets off effort to repatriate item to Italy

Well this is interesting
“..:the stone fit the description of one reported missing from the city museum of Civitavecchia, Italy, near where it had originally been found…” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Obverse of a Roman as: Head of Drusus, bare, left.

Reverse of a Roman as: Legend surrounding large S C.

#OnThisDay - 7 October - ca. 14 BC Drusus the Younger, son of the Emperor Tiberius, was born. His death in AD 23 was thought natural, though it was later alleged that he had been poisoned by Sejanus. #AncientHistory 🏺

Image: RIC Tiberius 45; ANS 1957.172.1519. Link - numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric....

So interesting! Great clip

YouTube video by Alliterative Thin/Tent/Tension #Etymology

The surprisingly connected origins of "thin", "tent", and "tension". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #thin #tent #tense #tension

www.youtube.com/shorts/JbMGW...

Obverse of a Roman denarius: Head of Venus, right, wearing diadem. Border of dots.

Reverse of a Roman denarius: Aeneas, left, carrying palladium in right hand and Anchises on left shoulder. Border of dots.

#OnThisDay - 26 September - in 46 BC Julius Caesar dedicated a Temple to Venus Genetrix in his Forum at Rome. As early as 68 BC, Caesar was publicly claiming that his family descended from Venus. #AncientHistory 🏺

Image: RRC 458/1; ANS 1937.158.262. Link - numismatics.org/crro/id/rrc-...

“Injured” in “battle” (he was fixed)

Prince Hector of Troy

Roman villa with swimming pool marked out in Hemel Hempstead - BBC News An expert says the Roman villa has "the second largest swimming pool in England".

Roman villa with swimming pool marked out in Hemel Hempstead - BBC News
www.bbc.com/news/article...

My photo shows a painted advertisement depicting four different coloured wine jugs shown in profile (L to R: green, blue, red, grey) on a cream painted plaster background. The spout of the green and grey jugs point right. The blue and red point left. They are all the same shape; round body with a long neck with pouring spout and a long handle which attaches from the middle of the vessel and has a downward curve as it attaches to the top of the neck. Beneath each jug is red text showing a different price ranging from two to four and a half asses per sextarius (a unit equal to just over half a litre). Red painted text above the jugs reads: Ad cucumas/ To the vessels.

Roman advertisement for wine! 🍷

At the entrance to a bar in ancient Herculaneum, this fresco with four coloured jugs, and the text ‘Ad Cucumas’ / ‘To the vessels’, was preserved by volcanic ash from the eruption of Mt Vesuvius almost 2,000 years ago!

📷 by me

#AncientSiteSunday
#Archaeology

View of Rome with the Tiber in foreground, St Peter's and Castel Sant'Angelo in background, c.1665/7
By Lievin Cruyl b. #otd 5 Sept 1634 (British Museum)

WALL FRESCO, C1 CE. PALAZZO MASSIMO ALLE TERME This huge damaged fresco comes from an œcus in the long-lived villa called "delle Colonnacce" outside of Rome almost 17 km outside of the city walls along the via Aurelia at a place called Castel di Guido. It became a spacious villa where the emperor Antoninus Pius was born and where he died in 161 CE. These frescoes are made in the Third Style, with figural pictures, much faded, within frames. The work here dates from the early Julio-Claudian period, when the villa belonged to one L. Cælius, a magistrate during the reign of Tiberius. A fragmentary scene of Mars and Venus can be seen at left, and a deep cinnabar red panel matches it at right, but the really interesting part is at centre, a stylised doubled vine twisted into one, with an Eros climbing up it and leaves growing from it.

#FrescoFriday takes us into a ruined #imperial #villa at #CasteldiGuido along the via #Aurelia outside #Rome. This room's #fresco work is 5 metres tall, and dates from the early C1 CE. The best-surviving part is the #frame at centre, a black background with a twisted #vine.

#ReliefWednesday - From my recent travels, we're back to the Ephesos Museum and the so-called 'Parthian Monument': ca. 2nd Century AD. Here's a scene of the Emperor mounting into a triumphal quadriga, attended by Victory and other divine personifications, including Virtus. #AncientStuff 🏺

📸 My own

Pompeii’s Secret Second Life Revealed by Latest Archaeological Finds New excavations at Pompeii show people rebuilt out of the city's ruins after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E.

Pompeii’s Secret Second Life Revealed by Latest Archaeological Finds
news.artnet.com/art-world/pe...

ClassicsBluesky 🏺🧵

#LatinForTheDay – 11 August #Catullus

“ille mi par esse deo videtur,
ille, si fas est, superare divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
spectat et audit...

YouTube video by WIRED Ancient Rome Expert Answers Roman Empire Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

so, i love this wired series where experts answer internet questions.

but i had no idea that @laurenginsberg.bsky.social did one! it's great and you should watch it. you're already thinking about rome, right?

OUP's Women in Antiquity is such a good idea - with recent additions on Balthild, Radegund and Theodora.
global.oup.com/academic/con...

National cat day: I present Polly (b&w) and Hector (yes named after that Hector)

My photo shows a Roman ornamental fountain spout in the shape of a frog excavated from the vesuvian area. Made of glazed terracotta, the frog is viewed from the side. It is sitting with its head to the right and raised upwards with mouth slightly ajar for water to pass through. In colour it is creamy-beige with darker greeny-brown bumps. The glaze is missing from the throat and mouth area. The glaze on the surface of the body appears bumpy like that of a toad although the museum describe it as a ‘rana’ / frog.

Roman fountain spout in the shape of a frog. Glazed terracotta. From Pompeii, 1st century AD.

Great to see ornamental froggie fountain spouts have been popular for 2,000 years! 🐸❤️

MAN Napoli 📷 by me

#Archaeology

My photo collage shows a Roman gold body chain from the Hoxne Hoard Left photo: close up of the jewelled mount at the front of the body chain. It is a roughly oval gold setting for nine gems. The centre oval cell contains a cabochon amethyst surrounded by four almond-shaped garnets (one damaged) which alternate with four empty circular cells still containing some sulphur. These may have contained pearls. The chain terminals are decorated with lion heads. Top right photo: view of the front of the body chain displayed on a mannequin at the British Museum. The body chain is composed of four chains which are joined to form an upper-body decoration which passes over the shoulders and under the arms of the wearer, crossing at the front and back. Bottom right photo: view of the back of the body chain which has a clasp with octagonal mount set with a gold coin of Gratian. Discovered in 1992, the Hoxne Hoard was buried some time after AD407/8 when Roman rule was breaking down in Britain. Made up of gold jewellery, silver tableware and more than 15,000 gold and silver coins.

Fabulous Roman gold body chain with jewelled mount set with amethyst & garnets. Rear clasp set with a gold solidus coin of Gratian (AD 367-83). Late 4th century.

From the Hoxne Hoard which was discovered by a metal detectorist in Suffolk in 1992.

British Museum 📷 by me

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology

Happy first day of August!
Originally called Sextilis (the 6th month), August was renamed in honour of Augustus in 8 BC.

“I often say to myself, ‘You alone are wretched; all others are happy; none are distressed like you.’ Then I read a passage of an ancient poet, and it is as if I looked into my own heart.” - Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

MOSAIC EMBLEMA, 1-50 CE. MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NAZIONALE DI NAPOLI This emblema or mosaic floor centrepiece comes from a house (IX.2.27) confusingly called the House of the Wedding of Neptune and Amphitrite, the House of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the House of Princess Margherita. It was excavated in 1849 and 1869, and was found in a cubiculum on the east side of a peristyle, but it seems more suited to a triclinium. Against a white background surrounded by a black frame is this mosaic in opus vermiculatum. The upper half has a display of fish, a sea bass above three red mullets. A branch with leaves and berries divides the two registers and below it is a group of marsh birds bound together with a string: two mallards and an Egyptian goose. The colours and shading of the emblema are delicate, and the birds are shown in a credible depth of field.

There's something fishy this #MosaicMonday, in this #emblema from #Pompeii via #Naples. This food-focused #mosaic was found in a #cubiculum or bedroom, but it really seems to belong to a #triclinium or dining room. #AncientBluesky 🏺

MOSAIC WITH CRUSTAE, C. 50 BCE. HADRIAN'S VILLA The nucleus of Hadrian's immense villa in the valley below the town of Tibur was a Republican villa, possibly belonging to his wife Vibia Sabina. This was incorporated into the main residential and display area of the rebuilt villa, the "Imperial Palace". Though most of the older villa was transformed beyond recognition, some parts, like a cryptoporticus with a mosaic ceiling and a peristyle, were left relatively untouched. This white marble mosaic floor, of which only small sections remain, comes from the peristyle. It's a simpler version of the old mosaic style "a stuoia" ("woven mat") in which pairs of white rectangular tesserae alternated to create a woven pattern. Here the woven pattern has been abandoned in favour of square white tesserae with a scattering of black, but, to liven it up a bit, irregular tiles of coloured marble called "crustae" have been inserted, giving a pleasantly costly impression.

For #MosaicMonday in the heat of summer, we seek in vain for somewhere cool and shady in the ruins of #VillaAdriana at #Tivoli outside #Rome, but in the C1 BCE a #peristyle offered protection from the sun, and it survived its rebuilding by #Hadrian, along with its floor #mosaic. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Some of y’all decry AI yet you use Duolingo which replaced their contractors with AI and whose CEO stated that AI is a better teacher than humans.

A photograph of a pair of Roman earrings made of gold and glass suspended from a grey display stand against a grey background. Part of the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago. Each earring is made of a hollow spherical ball of gold, surmounted by an inset circle of deep-blue glass, which mimics the semi-precious blue stone lapis lazuli. Earring height 4.5cm. Gold ball diameter 2 cm. Gold ball jewellery was popular amongst the Roman elite during the 1st century AD. Over ninety examples of gold ball and disc type jewellery have been excavated from the area of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

A pair of 2,000 year-old Roman earrings. Gold and glass.

A simple yet stylish design with timeless appeal!

#Archaeology

Does anyone have any good recommendations for archaeological digs happening next year? I’d like to “celebrate” my master’s degree by finally getting to a dig! Anything Pompeii related is ideal, although I’m sure anything Pompeii is highly sought after and requires previous dig experience … !

Looks so lovely!

Roman stucco relief ceiling, decorated with interlaced meanders and roundels, painted in blue-green and red. In the open space between the scrollwork, a diaphanously-clad female figure holds a cornucopia.

#ReliefWednesday - You want stucco relief? You want ancient polychromy? Well, the vestibule ceiling connecting to the men's apodyterium from the Stabian Baths at Pompeii has got you covered. Utterly gorgeous! #Pompeii #Art 🏺

📸 Matt Brisher. Link - flickr.com/photos/70589...

In this mosaic scene a lion stands dominantly over a leopard. The leopard has been injured by the lion and is gazing up fearfully towards the lion. The lion stares out of the frame at the viewer. The two big cats are in a varied landscape of trees and water’s edge. Now held at MAN Napoli (inv. no. 114282).

🦁🐆 It’s lion versus leopard this #MosaicMonday! This stunning scene comes from the Casa delle Colombe a mosaico at Pompeii.

It seems the lion truly has the upper hand, standing over the prone leopard. The power of the lion’s claws are matched by its direct stare at the viewer.

#AncientBluesky🏺

Friday night tour of @isawnyu.bsky.social exhibit Rethinking Etruria! I highly recommend a visit especially the free exhibit tour on Friday evenings 🏺