Friends, Romans and Classicists: Is This the Head of Julius Caesar?
The conqueror of French archaeologists
Photo: French Ministry of Culture
Has Julius Caesar been dredged up from a French riverbed? CBC News reports:
Agence France-Presse reports that the marble sculpture "was found with other artifacts" during excavations directed by French archaeologist Luc Long. And the French Ministry of Culture quickly put its imprimatur on the purported identity of the bust's illustrious sitter. The French news agency quotes a ministry statement that this is "the oldest representation yet known of Caesar" and "typical of a series of realistic portraits from the period of the [Roman] republic."A bust found at the bottom of a river in Arles, France, may be the truest representation of Julius Caesar ever found. The marble sculpture of a man in his 50s, with facial wrinkles and a receding hairline, may have been carved from life. Archeologists say the bust dates from 49 to 46 B.C. when Caesar reigned and the town of Arles was founded. It also resembles official portraits of Julius Caesar from coins struck in his lifetime.
Mary Beard, Cambridge classics professor and A Don's Life blogger, is not convinced:
This sculpture is, I should say, a very nice piece of work---and looks remarkably good for something that has been at the bottom of the Rhone for a couple of thousand years. There is, I suppose, a remote possibility that it does represent Julius Caesar, but no particular reason at all to think that it does---still less to think that it was done from life....I'm afraid it's "start again" time on the explanations for this one.Mary's wit and wisdom have attracted her usual coterie of erudite commentators: Some 78 classicists and would-be classicists. have weighed in so far. One wag said of the homely mug:
If I had a face like that, would I want it immortalised in stone for all time?I came, I saw, I guffawed.
May 30, 2008 11:52 AM
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LEE ROSENBAUM I'm a veteran cultural journalist with many pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and major art magazines. I have been a cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC and WQXR) and have provided arts commentary on NPR and public radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. I am a HuffPost Arts writer. I've been profiled on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer's Art Beat and in the Chicago Reader. I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at at Investigative Reporters and Editors 2011 Annual Meeting, Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and a conference of the Museum Association of New York, on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University, on arts blogging at American University and on Smithsonian exhibition controversies at Rutgers University.
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Photo © by Jill Krementz
CULTUREGRRL SPEAKS on museum issues and ethics, arts journalism.
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________________________
moreLEE ROSENBAUM I'm a veteran cultural journalist with many pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and major art magazines. I have been a cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC and WQXR) and have provided arts commentary on NPR and public radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. I am a HuffPost Arts writer. I've been profiled on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer's Art Beat and in the Chicago Reader. I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at at Investigative Reporters and Editors 2011 Annual Meeting, Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and a conference of the Museum Association of New York, on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University, on arts blogging at American University and on Smithsonian exhibition controversies at Rutgers University.
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