Nina Willburger

@drnwillburger.bsky.social

Archaeologist | Permanent Representative of the Director, Archäologisches Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg | Adjunct lecturer State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart | Private account, views are mine 🖖

@chapps.bsky.socialReposted by @drnwillburger.bsky.social

A remarkable ancient Iberian silver patera (offering dish) with a wolf devouring a human head (!), encircled with snakes. It’s surrounded by two friezes: one showing nine hunting scenes, the other a procession of male and female centaurs. In Iberian culture, the wolf was a psychopomp … 🏺 1/ 📸 me

This silver patera features a sculptural central medallion depicting a wolf’s head with gaping jaws devouring a human head, all encircled by thick snakes. Surrounding this are two friezes: one showing hunting scenes divided into nine sections, and another, separated from the first by a border of dots, depicting a procession of male and female centaurs arranged in a metope-like layout. A gilded running-scroll pattern (<i>postas</i>) around the rim frames the entire scene. Numerous gilded highlights accentuate the figures. Iconographically, the piece combines Hellenistic and Iberian elements.
@fotofacade.bsky.socialReposted by @drnwillburger.bsky.social

👻 I do love it when I stumble across the ghost of a house within a house - here at Much Wenlock - time and continuity in wood, bricks and mortar.

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#TilesOnTuesday
Despite echoing Temple Church's medieval origins, Minton tiles from Victorian restoration not always appreciated.
After WWII London bombing, Inner Temple's treasurer said: "To have got rid of their.... hideous encaustic tiles.... will be almost a blessing in disguise."
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Temple district in London was bombed 10 May 1941. Damage across the area was horrific and repairs to Temple Church took 17 years to complete. Probably much to dismay of Inner Temple treasurer, hundreds of Victorian Minton tiles were retained, but they were installed up in the less public clerestory gallery of the Round - the original early medieval structure. From Temple Church website: "Sir Frank MacKinnon (Treasurer of Inner Temple in 1945) compiled a report in 1944 which reveals how far and fast taste had changed since the nineteenth-century refurbishments. For my own part, seeing how dreadfully the Church had been despoiled by its pretended friends a century before, I do not grieve so very acutely for the havoc now wrought by its avowed enemies …. If the Church is now once again truly restored, it can hardly fail to be far more beautiful than the Victorian vandals made it for us. To have got rid of their awful stained glass windows, their ghastly pulpit, their hideous encaustic tiles, their abominable pews and seats (on which alone they spent over £10,000), will be almost a blessing in disguise. An ancient text about the first Temple may even, I hope, be apposite. ‘The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of Hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts.’
@wittspat.bsky.socialReposted by @drnwillburger.bsky.social

For this #MosaicMonday, a strip of guilloche looking like mosaic but actually painted. This is the piece I mentioned in the recent post about mosaicists/painters. In Winchester City Museum.
#AncientBlueSky🏺

A fragment resembling Roman mosaic. It shows two strips of simple guilloche vertically side by side with plain tessellation in white to left and right, and a strip of red on the extreme right.
@kpw1453.bsky.socialReposted by @drnwillburger.bsky.social

Part of a 4th century mosaic floor depicting the head of the Roman sea god Neptune. Originally from Hemsworth Villa at Witchampton in Dorset, the mosaic is now part of the collections at Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in Dorchester. 📸 My own. #MosaicMonday #RomanBritain

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@drnwillburger.bsky.socialReposted by @drnwillburger.bsky.social

We all need a timeline cleanse, so here is the most adorable #chess piece ever!

A knight, made of antler. Dating 11/12th century.

Found at the Burgstein, Lichtenstein-Holzelfingen.

📷️ me

A carved chess piece representing a knight, depicted in an abstract, stylized form with a triangular head, amd wide circular eyes,. The figure has a hunched, cylindrical body and is displayed on a dark surface with an other game pieces and a die nearby.
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