Research and Innovation

This article examines an important wall painting fragment purportedly found in the megaron of the Late Bronze Age palace at Mycenae in 1893. Originally published in Russian in 1897, the fragment depicts a right-facing mid-size male figure with stylistic affinities to processional figures subsequently excavated on Crete and the Greek mainland. Despite its apparent iconographic and historical significance, the painting has received limited attention in Aegean literature. Below, the thrilling yet murky history of the fragment’s discovery is assembled from public and private testimonies by the eminent individuals involved. Possible reconstructions of the fragment are presented, and its iconography is explored in light of current chronologies and known comparanda. It is argued that, while many details of the fragment’s biography remain ambiguous, the potential value of the find as a rare representation of a processing man in a mainland palatial context is substantial.

This paper explores one of the most exciting and unexpected discoveries in Aegean art in recent years: a Naval Scene from Hall 64 of the Southwestern Building of the Palace of Nestor. The publication of this collection of papers allows us to bring these finds to the attention of a broad audience and to present for the first time high quality images that illustrate the composition. Assembling the many fragments of this work has in itself been a laborious task that has occupied us for nearly a decade, but, even so, the restoration of the Naval Scene constitutes only one part of a much larger project: the reconstruction of the entire iconographic program of Hall 64. Pylos is unique in the Mycenaean world in that it permits such an approach. It is one of a very few places in the prehistoric Aegean where the archaeological record is so complete and the excavation history so well documented.

In the art of the prehistoric Aegean, the argonaut, often referred to in modern scholarship by its ancient Greek name, ναυτίλος, is a familiar figural motif. Widely represented in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, the argonaut design has been studied extensively on portable objects. Its more limited appearance in fixed wall paintings, however, has been accorded less scholarly attention. In this paper, we begin to redress this lacuna by examining the argonaut motif as it appears in the Late Helladic wall paintings of the Mycenaean Palace of Nestor at Pylos in southwestern Messenia. Using details of the animals’ iconography and contextual associations, we conclude that the Pylian argonauts, long considered to be simple decorative border elements, had a strong emblematic character, communicating the naval prowess, political strength, and perhaps piety of the occupant(s) of the Pylian throne.

This paper presents a new interpretation of the inscribed "mini grids" discovered inside squares of the painted floors of the megaron of the Palace of Nestor, Pylos. In 1966, a number of these mini grids were tentatively identified by their excavators as marking places for persons to stand during important state ceremonies. New evidence, however, now suggests that these lines were artists' grids. These orthogonal guidelines, well-known from depictions of textiles in Minoan wall painting, are the first of their kind to be identified on a Bronze Age Greek floor and raise questions about how and why they were employed. This article addresses these questions, and demonstrates how observations about the mini grids help to reinterpret the unusual diagonal in the Throne Room's floor design, long presumed to be a "mistake," as an intentional visual stimulus.

In three field seasons, between 2010 and 2012, the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (BUPAP) conducted a diachronic archaeological survey of the northern hinterland of Petra, Jordan. While regional reconnaissance has a long history in Jordan, it has rarely been conducted with the “intensive” methodologies today characteristic of projects elsewhere, most proximately in the Mediterranean. Such an approach is ideally suited for the territory north of Petra, the setting for a wide-ranging variety of human activity from the Lower Paleolithic to the present. The survey component of BUPAP, the Petra Area and Wadi Silaysil Survey (or PAWS), covered some 1,000 ha (10 km2), most of which was traversed by closely spaced (10 m) fieldwalking in 1,321 individual survey units. In the course of this work, PAWS recorded patterns in the distribution of tens of thousands of artifacts. In addition, more than 1,000 individual archaeological features were identified and documented; geophysical survey was conducted in several areas; and test excavations were carried out in 10 locations of particular interest. This article provides an overview of the PAWS survey and related activity—discussing motivations, methods, and results—and touches on key issues concerning the long-term human history of the study area. This article is also available as open access on AJA Online. Additional figures and an appendix appear under this article’s abstract on AJA Online.

This article looks at the history of the University of Cambridge's ancient coin collection.

This is a review of a publication of a late Roman coin hoard.

This article discusses the water systems of the Great Temple in Petra, Jordan.

The fifth volume in “The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art,” Keith Morrison showcases and explores the painting of the Jamaican-born artist from the early 1960s through 2004. Tracing the development of Morrison’s multifaceted career, Ater outlines the styles and complexity of his work. She considers the ways in which Morrison exploits color, humor, ethnicity, and the sacred and profane to render work ranging from abstract compositions to figurative narratives centered on the African diasporic experience.

In this book, I discuss Augustine’s influence on thinkers and humanists, such as Petrarch (1304-1374), as well as his representation in works of art. Augustine fascinated writers and artists in the period; they perceived him to be a conduit of classical and Christian truths and an example of the life of the intellect reconciled to a life of faith. The religious order who claims him as their founder sponsored several major fresco cycles portraying the saint’s life while, in single portraits, artists alluded to Augustine’s aesthetic theory as it was manifest in his concept of divine illumination. The Sistine Chapel represents the fulfillment of his theological and philosophical legacy, one that extended through the completion of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.