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Cyrenaican Funerary Portraits in Malta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

A. Bonanno
A. Bonanno
Affiliation:
Royal University of Malta
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Extract

The Museum Department of Malta possesses among its rich collection of antiquities, both local and foreign, a set of six portraits which should be appended to the remarkable series of Cyrenaican funerary busts studied and published by Miss Elizabeth Rosenbaum. Four of these busts (I–IV) are exhibited among the sculptures in the ‘Roman Villa’ Museum at Rabat and the other two (V and VI) are stored in the basement of the National Museum in Valletta.

It is not in the least surprising that Miss Rosenbaum omitted these busts in her otherwise most comprehensive catalogue of Cyrenaican portraits, which included those scattered in various European collections. The reason for this omission is that these sculptures have either been classified incorrectly or never published. The first to publish four of these portraits (I–IV) was Thomas Ashby, who gave only a short description of them without attempting a typological classification; he even called one ‘a little Phoenician in character’ and another ‘rather Etruscan-looking’. Shortly after, T. Zammit repeated, almost verbatim, Ashby's captions for I, II and IV, while omitting III.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 66 , November 1976 , pp. 39 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © A. Bonanno 1976. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Rosenbaum, E., A Catalogue of Cyrenaican Portrait Sculpture (1960)Google Scholar (hereafter Rosenbaum).

2 I am indebted to the Director and Curator of the Museum Department for providing me with every facility to study, photograph and publish these sculptures.

3 Now Mrs. Alföldi.

4 Ashby, T., ‘Roman Malta’ in JRS v (1915), 77, nos. 8–11 (hereafter Ashby)Google Scholar.

5 ibid. 77, no. 11.

6 ibid. 77, no. 8.

7 Zammit, T., Guide to the Valletta Museum (1919) 25Google Scholar (hereafter Zammit).

8 Sestieri, P. C., ‘Sculture Maltesi II’, Archivio Storico di Malta x (1939), 231–8Google Scholar (hereafter Sestieri).

9 ibid. 233.

10 ibid. 238.

11 ibid. 232, n. 3.

12 Abela, G. F., Della descrittione di Malta isola nel mare siciliano, con le sue antichità, ed altre notitie, libri quattro (1647)Google Scholar.

13 Abela, G. F.—Ciantar, G. A., Malta Illustrata (1772–1780)Google Scholar.

14 Houel, J., Voyage pittoresque des isles de Sicile, Lipari et Malte (1782–1787)Google Scholar.

15 Caruana, A. A., Report on the Phoenician and Roman Antiquities in the group of the islands of Malta (1882)Google Scholar.

16 On Vattier de Bourville and his correspondence, see Rosenbaum, 1–2.

17 Murdoch Smith, Captain R.PorcherR.E., and Commander E. A. R.E., and Commander E. A. R.N., History of the Recent Discoveries at Cyrene made during an Expedition to the Cyrenaica in 1860–61 (1864)Google Scholar. They only say (84) that the sculpture collected was transferred from one ship to another in Malta and ‘soon afterwards safely conveyed to England’.

18 Smith and Porcher, op. cit. 16, speak of an old Arab who spent his time digging in the ancient necropolis in Benghazi and used to sell his finds to Maltese merchants in the town.

19 In fact two of these funerary busts were donated to the Department in the first decade of this century. Annual Report for the Museum Department, 1906–7, p. E 1; 1908–9, p. E 1.

20 See Rosenbaum 13–28, 101–23; nos. 185–283, 299–318, pls. LXXIX–C, CV. Until Rosenbaum's publication these funerary portraits seem to have escaped the attention of archaeologists completely. In fact only one such portrait had been published, In 1933 by S. Ferri, in order to illustrate the difference between Roman Art in a northern province (Pannonia) and that in a former Greek colony— Ferri, S., L'arte romana sul Danubio (1933), 137–8, fig. 160Google Scholar.

21 Rosenbaum 21–3.

22 For an example see EAA ii (1959), fig. 902Google Scholar; cf. now Beschi, L., ‘Divinità funerarie cirenaiche’, AS Atene xxxi–ii (1969–1970), 132–341Google Scholar.

23 Rosenbaum 26 ff.

24 There is still no inventory of the Classical sculpture in the Maltese national collections. The numbers appearing here are those marked on the bases of the busts.

25 Sestieri 233, 336.

26 Rosenbaum pl. XCIV, 3.

27 See, for example, Poulsen, V. H., ‘Studies in Julio-Claudian Iconography’, in Acta Archaeologica xvii (1946), 8, fig. 6Google Scholar; id. Les Portraits Romains i (Copenhagen, 1962), 77 ff., no. 42, pls. LXX–LXXI.

28 Rosenbaum pl. LXXXIV, 1–2.

29 ibid. pls. XCH, 1; XCIV, 3.

30 ibid. pls. LXXXIX–XC.

31 ibid. pl. LXXXI.

32 Paribeni, R., Il Ritratto nell'Arte Antica (1934), pl. CXXXIIGoogle Scholar; Giuliano, A., Catalogo dei Ritratti Romani del Museo Profano Lateranense (1957), pl. 10Google Scholar.

33 Felletti Maj, B. M., Museo Nazionale Romano. I Ritratti (1953), no. 108Google Scholar.

34 Hekler, A., Bildniskunst d. Griechen u. Römer (1912), pl. 183Google Scholar.

35 Paribeni op. cit. (n. 32), pl. CLV.

36 See previous portrait and nn. 32–5.

37 Rosenbaum 103, pl. LXXXI.

38 ibid. 19.

39 Gross, W. H., Bildnisse Trajans (1940), 85–98Google Scholar; B. M. Felletti Maj, s.v. ‘Traiano’ in EAA vii (1966), 963–5.

40 Poulsen, F., Catalogue of Ancient Sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (1951)Google Scholar; Bianchi Bandinelli, R., Rome: The Centre of Power (1970), fig. 244Google Scholar; Giuliano op. cit. (n. 32) nos. 51–2, however, dates the portraits to the Trajanic or early Hadrianic period.

41 Rosenbaum nos. 186–90, pls. LXXIX–LXXX.

42 Lippold, G., Die Skulpturen des Vaticanischen Museums (1936–1956), iii 2, pl. 14, no. 4Google Scholar.

43 Wegner, M., Das Römische Herrscherbild, Die Flavier (1966), pl. 14 a–bGoogle Scholar.

44 Such as nos. 188–90.

45 See Poulsen, V., Les Portraits Romains i, no. 114, pl. CLXXXIXGoogle Scholar; Giuliano, op. cit. (n. 32), pl. I, 2a; pl. II, 2b.

46 Bianchi Bandinelli, op. cit. (n. 40) fig. 92.

47 Felletti Maj, op. cit. (n. 33) no. 145.

48 See, for example, Felletti Maj, op. cit. (n. 33), no. 130; Stuart Jones, H., The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservators (1926), 65, pl. 16Google Scholar.

49 Lippold, op. cit. (n. 42), iii 1, no. 570, pl. 63.

50 Rosenbaum no. 58, pl. XXXVIII, 2–4.

51 See ibid. nos. 251, 255, 282.

52 No marble is found in Cyrenaica itself. See Rosenbaum 5.

53 Bianchi Bandinelli, op. cit. (n. 40), 74, fig. 82; id. s.v. ‘Ritratto’ in EAA vi (1965), fig. 822; P. Pensabene, Röm. Mitt. lxxxii (1975), 263 ff.

54 Sestieri 232, 238.

55 Rosenbaum 15 ff.