After looking at the long relationship between humans, rabbits, hares, and the Easter bunny in the last episode, we now turn to twelve objects that carry these animals into very different places, materials, and stories. Some are small and intimate, like a hare-shaped Greek oil flask or a tiny bone bead from a Clovis context. Others appear in manuscripts, textiles, masks, jade ornaments, and decorated ceramics, where rabbits and hares become symbols, companions, hunted animals, tricksters, decorative motifs, or strangely powerful figures.

Together, these objects show how one animal can move through many worlds. A hare can be food, a material, an image, a joke, a luxury motif, a protective sign, or a character in a visual story. By looking closely at these objects, we ask what happens when humans do not only live alongside animals, but also shape them into things, images, and meanings.

So, join us as we continue down the rabbit hole, this time through twelve archaeological and historical objects that show how rabbits and hares travelled across cultures, collections, and imagination.

1. Vase handle in the shape of a hare

The little hare was used as a decorative element on a bronze vessel, possibly a lebes or a tripod vase. It’s 6cm tall and can be dated to the 6th century BC. The hare is portrayed in a running pose.

2. Ancient Greek hare aryballos

This small terracotta aryballos (an oil or perfume flask) was probably made in Corinth between 650 and 600 BCE. It is shaped like a crouching hare, with orange and dark-brown slip details over a pale terracotta body.

3. Drawing, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies

This drawing by Beatrix Potter is part of her story “The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies”. It is one of the sequels to the Peter Rabbit stories. We see six bunnies asleep around a lettuce patch, this is the Flopsy family. The drawing is from 1909 and now part of the British Museum collection.

4. Medieval manuscript, Breviary of Renaud de Bar

The Breviary of Renaud de Bar is a parchment manuscript made in Metz between 1302 and 1303. On it are devotional text with lively animal scenes in between, one of them shows an armed dog on the shoulders of a rabbit fighting against an armed rabbit riding a man with a snail body.

5. Bone Bead

This tiny tubular bone bead from the La Prele Mammoth site in Wyoming dates to about 12.940 BP and was recovered from a hearth-centred Clovis-age activity area. ZooMS collagen analysis identified the raw material as lagomorph bone, most closely matching hare, making it evidence for the use of hares by Clovis foragers.

6. Tsuba with a hare, dragon, and tiger

This item is attributed to the Umetada School (16th to 19th century) from Japan and is dated to the 1st half of the 18th century. The oval outline is formed by the long ears of the hare. Inside the shape, there is a dragon and a tiger. It was bequeathed to the museum in 1929 by Dame Jemima Church.

7. Plaque in the shape of a rabbit

This small jade plaque from China dates to the Shang to Western Zhou period and is among the earliest known rabbit representations from China’s Bronze Age. Its compact size and small perforation suggest that it was probably worn or suspended as a pendant.

8. Rabbit Chariot Mosaic

This Roman mosaic shows a hare riding a chariot, pulled by two ducks. The provenance is uncertain, but most likely it came from Italy to the Louvre. It measures 57 x 61.5cm.

9. “Caster Ware” vase with hunt scene

This mid-second-century CE Gallo-Roman ceramic vessel from Cologne (Germany) is reddish ware made with black burnished slip and barbotine decoration. It shows three animals that wrap around the vessel with a stag, doe, hare, and hound, appearing in that way as a kind of “endless” hunting scene. The animals were piped by hand rather than applied from a mould.

10. Brocade with Hares

This silk brocade from Northern China dates to the 1200s to mid-1300s CE, which is the Yuan dynasty. It is woven in tabby with brocaded gold thread. The hares among bushes may refer to Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongol hunting practices, while the textile structure also shows eastern Iranian craft influence within a Mongol-period object.

11. Red-figure Chous, showing a child with hare

This red-figure vase (most likely a chous) shows a child wearing amulets trying to reach out to a hare. The hare seems to mimic the child’s pose by also stretching its front legs towards the child. The vase can be dated to 475-425 BC.

12. Rabbit (Dyommo) Mask

This Dogon rabbit mask, or dyommo, was made from wood and pigment in Mali’s Bandiagara region and dates broadly from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Its narrow face and tall ears translate the rabbit into a mask form within a wider Dogon masquerade tradition, where rabbit figures may appear as agile and cunning counterparts to hunter masks.

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel and Stefanie Ulrich

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@layers.of.the.past): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

At the beginning we start with a presumable simple question: what is a rabbit, a bunny and a hare? Followed by what is the difference between a rabbit and a hare? From skeletal remains and burrowing behaviour to domestication and hunting practices, we explore how biology, zoology, archaeology and other disciplines help us figuring out these animals and their complex interaction with humans through time. In that connection, we take a closer look at the different roles of rabbits and hares as food, fur resources, and symbolic animals, and trace how they appear in mythology, seasonal traditions, and cultural beliefs across different periods and places.

Finally, we follow one of the most familiar rabbit traditions of all: the Easter bunny. Where did it come from, and how did rabbits become tied to eggs, spring, and morality?

Join us as we hop down the rabbit hole of archaeology, folklore, and the long entangled history between humans and hares.

Further References

* Encyclopaedia Britannica. n.d. What’s the difference between rabbits and hares? Available at: https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-rabbits-and-hares (accessed 03 March 2026).

* Irving-Pease, E.K., Frantz, L.A.F., Sykes, N., Callou, C. & Larson, G. 2018. Rabbits and the specious origins of domestication. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 33(3): 149–152.

* Ohio Thoughts. 2015. Rabbits: natural and cultural history. Available at: https://ohiothoughtsblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/rabbits-natural-and-cultural-history.html (accessed 03 March 2026).

* University of Oxford. 2018. The history of domestication: a rabbit’s tale. Available at: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-02-14-history-domestication-rabbit%E2%80%99s-tale-0 (accessed 03 March 2026).

* Wikipedia. n.d. Lagomorpha. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagomorpha (accessed 03 March 2026).

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel and Stefanie Ulrich

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

Naturally occurring glass, such as volcanic glass or obsidian, was used as early as the Stone Age. But what about man-made glass?

One question that came up was: What is glass, and how is it made?

Making Glass: from Sand to Object

To make glass, three main things are needed: the vitrier, the flux and the stabiliser.

The vitrier provides the body and is usually silica (sand). The flux is needed to lower the melting temperature of the silica, which means temperatures need to be high, but not as high as inside a volcano. Ancient glassmakers used sodic plant ash or mineral natron. The stabiliser is in the name. It makes the glass durable so it does not dissolve in water. The classic one is lime.

Origin of glassmaking

Glassmaking, following the ingredients mentioned above, goes back to Mesopotamia more than 3600 years ago. There is evidence that glass technology started in India as early as 1730 BC. Most likely, Phoenician traders brought perfume vessels that were core-formed during the Iron Age to the rest of the Mediterranean. During the Hellenistic period, mosaic glass became popular, where small pieces are put into creative designs and patterns and are then fused together.

There are different ways of making glass: 1. Casting: placing the liquid glass in an open mould; 2. Core forming: a core of mud is covered with glass, and after the glass has dried, the core is removed; 3. Glassblowing.

Glassmaking recipe

There are several cuneiform tablets which provide us with recipes on how to make glass. One such example is a tablet which is now in the British Museum. It came to the museum in 1929.

The clay tablet with Akkadian writing is perfectly preserved. It’s 8.25cm x 5.23cm. According to an article from 1936 (see below), the tablet was found in Tell Umar /Tall ‘Umar, which was confirmed by a “trustworthy vendor”. The site is located in today’s Iraq.

In 1936, the tablet contained the “earliest record known of the actual formulae for the making of glazes.” This specific recipe refers to making red glass. Allegedly, written in some kind of code, his specific recipe refers to making red glass. “Written in a slightly obscure style so as to be understood only by skilled craftsmen” (British Museum website) and “the writer, guarding his secrets with true professional jealousy [...] has purposely disguised his meaning by artifices of writing which amount to a form of cryptography” (Gadd & Campbell Thompson, 87). How accurate this assumption is is doubtful, as we modern readers are able to decipher it.

A short excerpt of the translation (taken from Gadd & Campbell Thompson):

(1) To a mina of zukû-glass (thou shalt add) 10 shekels of lead (2) 15 shekels of copper, half (a shekel) of saltpetre, half (a shekel) of lime: (3) thou shalt put (it) down into the kiln, (and) shalt take out ‘copper of lead’

(4) To a mina of zukû-glass (thou shalt add) 1/6th (mina = 10 shekels) of lead (5) 14 (shekels) of copper, 2 shekels of lime, a shekel of saltpetre: (6) thou shalt put (it) down into the kiln, (and) shalt take out “Akkadian copper”

Mina and shekels are measurements; one mina is roughly 500g, and 1 shekel is ca. 8.3g.

While the last lines of the tablet seem to provide a date, referring to the reign of Gulkishar, the Sixth Sealand Dynasty King who lived in the 16th century BC, it seems more likely that the recipe was written down in clay between the 14th and 16th century BC (Oppenheim and Thavapalan).

Glassblowing

The consensus seems to be that glassblowing originated in Syria in the areas of “Sidon, Aleppo, Hama, and Palmyra in the 1st century BC” (Britannica), from where the vessels for everyday and luxury use were exported into the known world.

The process has not changed much over time: “the molten glass is gathered on the end of a hollow pipe, inflated to a bubble and formed into a vessel by blowing, swinging, or rolling on a smooth stone or iron surface.”

In 2023, UNESCO added the “knowledge, craft and skills of handmade glass production on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” Adding glassblowing to this list will help to preserve it for future generations. Here, experimental archaeology plays an important role: The Borg Furnace Project (Glasofenprojekt Römische Villa Borg) is one example.

Types of Glass

Medieval Glass Myths and Crown Glass

A longstanding, popular story during the Middle Ages was that medieval window glass is thicker at the bottom because glass slowly flows like a liquid under gravity. According to the tale, the panes were originally uniform, but over the centuries, the glass supposedly ‘poured downward’, creating the thicker lower edge that can still be observed in many old buildings and cathedrals (see middle image).

However, the variation in thickness has a different explanation. First, the glassblower created a hollow sphere of molten glass. The sphere was then reheated and spun rapidly, causing centrifugal forces to flatten it into a circular disk and thereby creating the “bull’s eye” or so-called crown glass. The production process was first described in detail by Johannes Mathesius in 1562 in his “sermon of glassmaking.”

When glaziers then installed the panes in a window frame, they typically placed the thicker edge downward. This made the pane more stable and reduced the risk of breakage. At first, the plates were placed in even rows (bottom image) as it can be seen in the painting by Jan van Eyck, Annunciation from 1436/37. Later, the plates were staggered (see upper image).

This type of glass window was used in Europe since the 14th century, with the centre being in Normandy “where a few glassblowers monopolized the trade and enjoyed a kind of aristocratic status.” The earliest document mentioning this type of glass is from 1330: Philipp V of France grants permission to Philippe de Cacqueray, Sieur de Saint Immes, to erect a building for making this type of glass.

Crown glass from Masada

Crown glass was already known in antiquity, as the example from Masada will show.

Masada was located on a flat-topped hill (450m) in the Judean Desert, west of the Dead Sea and 62km south of Jericho. The city was first occupied by the Hasmonean kings of Judea, who ruled from 140 BC to 37 BC. However, the city was rebuilt by King Herod the Great from 37 BC until Herod’s death in 4 BC, using material and craftsmanship from Rome.

During the excavations in 1963 and 1965 by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Exploration Society, 7 partly restorable round glass windows, blown with the crown glass technique, were uncovered in Masada. Four come from the large bath house, and the three from the entrance rooms. They vary in diameter (37cm to 43cm) and thickness (1.8mm to 3.7mm). The exact function of the crown glass windows is unknown because the ceilings in all the contexts did not survive. Most likely, there was an oculus somewhere in the caldarium, but it is not confirmed.

Interestingly, it is not clear whether the glass was ordered to fit the windows or whether the window was built to fit the glass panel. Likely, the glass windows were not made in Masada because the “fabrication of such a quantity of melt requires special facilities”, which did not exist. But Herod was a client king of the Romans, and would therefore have had access to craftsmen and material from Rome. The glass shards found during the excavations are dated to the reign of Herod because there were no other major reconstructions in later periods of the city. This type of glass is very fragile, and the only reason it survived in Masada was because of an earthquake that buried them.

(Hollow) Glass Vessels

These are probably the objects we think of when thinking of glass. Glass objects can be anything from drinking glasses, vases, salad bowls, glass bottles or even bananas. Most of the objects on display in the Allard Pierson Glass exhibition are glass. We both brought one example of a glass object, but of course, there are many more to discover.

Oldest dateable glass object?

For a long time, the glass chalice was considered the oldest dateable glass object. However, with research continuing, there may be other objects that carry this title. Beads mentioning Queen Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BC) were discovered (Nicholson, p.11), which could be interpreted as the oldest dateable objects.

Nevertheless, the chalice is a fascinating artefact. The chalice has the shape of a lotus. It is light blue with dark blue and yellow thread like decoration. It’s ca. 8cm tall and has a diameter of 6cm. The coloured rods are embedded in the body of the glass (are not a mosaic); the same goes for the cartouche with the pharaoh’s name.

It was bought in 1825 by the English archaeologist and collector Edward Dodwell who lived in Rome at that point and had decided to expand his collection. Dodwell died in 1832 and the chalice “passed into the possession of Munich” (Newberry 154). But there are conflicting information when the item came to Munich. The Bavarikon website (see below) states that the object was bought in 1830 by Ludwig I and Nicholson (15) states that the chalice was part of the “Dodwell collection and was purchased in 1832, probably at Thebes.” The artefact is now in the Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst in Munich.

The date of the object comes from the name of the pharaoh embedded on the surface. It refers to Thutmose III who lived frim 1481 to 1425 BC. This led egyptologists to the conclusion that the artefact is from around 1450 BC.

Glass cicada

During the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) in China, jade was used in funerary practices, especially in creating suits (see upper image above). The burial suits were primarily used for emperors, princes, and high-ranking aristocrats due to jade being an expensive material. They are made of thousand of small plaques, shaped to follow the human body. The plaques are commonly made from bephrite jade and they can be square, rectangular, triangular, trapezoid or rhomboid plaques. Tiny holes are then drilled into the corners, allowing them to be stitched together. Jade was used because it was believed that it would protect the body and prevent decay. The suit formed part of a ritual system aimed at achieving immoritatlity or transformation after death because it was thought to absorb natural energy and repel evil spirits.

Jade was exremely valuable and scarce, so glass was sometimes used to imitate jade in funerary objects. One example are glass cicadas. They are called ‘imitation jade’ (仿玉) and could replicate the colour or appearance of jade. These substitutions indicate technological experimentation with glass during the Han Dynasty and attempts to replicate the symbolic value of jade when real jade was too expensive or not available.

It is important to note that most complete burial suits that were discovered in archaeological excavations were made from jade, not glass. Glass imitations usually appear in smaller ritual objects.

Recycling and Re-use

Broken glass or glass cullet (broken scrap glass) was seen as valuable as the raw material and not just considered trash. In 1331 in Marseille, it was actually illegal to export broken glass because local workshops needed it to make the melting process easier and cheaper. There is evidence of re-melting, mixed recipes, and composite chemical signatures. Glass was widely traded for re-melting and mixing.

One such evidence of trade can be seen in the image above. It shows raw blue glass indigos from a shipwreck. The ship sank during the Late Bronze Age (1330-1300 BC) near Uluburun (Kaş, Antalya Province, Turkey). It was excavated between 1984-1994 by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology under George F. Bass and later Cemal Pulak.

Approximately 175 raw glass ingots were recovered from the ship with a total weight of 350kg. The most common colour was cobalt blue but there are also turquoise, lavender/purple and amber ingots. They are flat and circular “bun-shaped” or truncated-cone ingots; they are between 10-15cm in diametre. The rough surface is due to cooling in moulds or shallow containers.The semi-finished raw material would then be used to produce objects such as beads, inlays, small vessels and jewellery.

The finds from the shipwreck are important because they confirm an important and extensive international trade network. The primary production of the raw glass found was most likely in Egypt (chemical compositions of trace-element signatures suggest Egypt) or the Levant with secondary workships across the Mediterranean.

Breaking and Throwing Away

After centuries in the ground, glass is not always clear. It can suffer from ‘pests’ or ‘decay’. While glass is chemically stable, it is physically fragile and therefore, can survice ‘perfectly’ as a fragment, but ‘badly’ as a whole object.

There are five diseases.

* “Rainbow Sickness” (Iridescence)

At first glance, it does not look like a disease but like a shimmering rainbow, almost like mother-of-pearl. The effect comes from ‘de-alkalization’ or ‘leaching’. This means that the water in the soil where the object was found acts like a sponge, pulling out the soluble alkalis (e.g. sodium and potassium) to leave behind a brittle, silica-rich skeleton. The process creates microscopic, flaky layers that reflect light and create that famous iridescent shine.

* The ‘Pox’ (Pitting and Craters)

The surface of the glass loks like the surface of the moon: full of dull, milky holes and deep craters. This happens when the glass suffers from network dissolution, often driven by highly acidic or alkaline groundwater. Uneven surfaces are more likely to be affected as they decay faster. If the ancient glassblower left ridges or valleys on the vessel, the corrosion factors attack those areas logarithmically faster than sleek, even surfaces

* The “Bug” Attack (Biocorrosion)

Glass beads show weird, alien-looking patterns like concentric circles, dark bands, and tiny, perfectly circular holes. Microorganisms in the burial environment actually interact with and deteriorate the glass surface over time. Bugs can ‘eat’ yourglass windows if left buried long enough.

* “The Dark Stains” (Magnanese Browning)

The glass develops dark, brownish-black spots that look almost like a bad skin rash or mold. Ancient glassmakers often added manganese to the glass batch to act as a decolorizer (to make it clear). But after centuries in wet soil, that manganese oxidizes and precipitates into dark inclusions right inside the leached layers of the glass.

* The “Total” Collapse” (Enemal Weathering)

The glass turns completely opaque white or yellow, looking more like a piece of chalk or thick enamel. This is end-stage glass disease which means that the glass has lost all cohesion and its entire internal structure is gone. It is just a fragile ghost of an object held together by the dirt around it.

Image references

-Cuneiform tablet with red glass recipe: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1929-0715-1

-Transcription of cuneiform tablet: C.J.Gadd & R. Campbell Thompson, A Middle-Babylonian Chemical Text. Iraq 3.1. 1936. 87-96. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4241587

-Chalice with Thumoses III’s name in a cartouche: https://www.bavarikon.de/object/bav:SMA-DDD-0000000000000002?lang=en

-Han Dynasty Burial Suit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Han_jade_burial_suit.JPG

-Glass cicada: https://glasscollection.cmog.org/objects/5231/funerary-object

-Hans Burgkmair the Elder, The Weisskunig in the Painter’s workshop: https://www.mfab.hu/artworks/13696/

-Jan van Eyck, Annunciation: https://www.nga.gov/artworks/46-annunciation

-Medieval crown glass: https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/55XR7LhBxF188D96TVzfNOxwfhg1q_5oUr5dQZVDVD-A4QJbQVd2tM5UetoRpSP9M4WB_XuYWoIG7lKXzG4NMfvVDeLbNbalVghcDXDvK3FtFF-mpcqt18ZVCePe2sxrzq7qsA9IxWpSMEberiiaXT5HrafoLJ8uJbJhs-ewH-NPYcT4NyyLoICqqcLLaXwF?purpose=inline

-Crown glass window from Caldarium, YY. Max, Crown Glass Windows from Masada, Journal of Glass Studies 62. 2020. 23-40. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26951071 , p.31

-Masada, aerial view: https://www.wanderlustmagazine.com/inspiration/masada-israel/

-Rainbow sickness fragments: https://bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dist/9/186/files/2019/05/Capture1.jpg

-Raw glass indigos: https://www.livius.org/site/assets/files/66550/uluburun_wreck_glass_ingots_mus_bodrum.jpg

-Glass cicada: https://glasscollection.cmog.org/objects/5231/funerary-object

-Medieval Crown Glass: https://images.openai.com/static-rsc-4/55XR7LhBxF188D96TVzfNOxwfhg1q_5oUr5dQZVDVD-A4QJbQVd2tM5UetoRpSP9M4WB_XuYWoIG7lKXzG4NMfvVDeLbNbalVghcDXDvK3FtFF-mpcqt18ZVCePe2sxrzq7qsA9IxWpSMEberiiaXT5HrafoLJ8uJbJhs-ewH-NPYcT4NyyLoICqqcLLaXwF?purpose=inline

Bibliography

UNESCO https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/knowledge-craft-and-skills-of-handmade-glass-production-01961

Britannica - Crown glass https://www.britannica.com/technology/crown-glass

Britannica - Glassblowing https://www.britannica.com/technology/glassblowing

RDK Labor - Butzenscheibe https://www.rdklabor.de/wiki/Butzenscheibe

History of Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_glass

Glass and Procedural Knowledge in Cuneiform Cultures https://historyofknowledge.hypotheses.org/10014

Roman Glass Makers https://www.romanglassmakers.de/p_katalog_frei.htm

Archeoglas - Glasofenexperiment https://archeoglas.glasofenexperiment.de/index-en.html

Corning Museum of Glass https://whatson.cmog.org/exhibitions-galleries/origins-glassmaking

Frank Wiesenberg, Das römische Glasofenprojekt im Archäologiepark Römische Villa Borg (“Borg Furnace Project”) -Rekonstruktion und erste Betriebsphasen https://archeoglas.glasofenexperiment.de/downloads/pdfs/books/Wiesenberg_2015_EXAR-Bilanz-14_-_Borg_Furnace_Project.pdf

C.J.Gadd & R. Campbell Thompson, A Middle-Babylonian Chemical Text. Iraq 3.1. 1936. 87-96. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4241587

S. Thavapalan, Keeping Alive Dead Knowledge: Middle Assyrian Glass recipes in the Yale Babylonian Collection, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 73. 2021. 135-178. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48743398?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

P. E. Newberry. A Glass Chalice of Tuthmosis III. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 6.3. 1920. 155-160. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3853912

P. T. Nicholson, Glass Vessels from the Reign of Thutmose III and a Hitherto Unknown Glass Chalice. Journal of Glass Studies. 48. 2006. 11-21. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24191145

Y. Max, Crown Glass Windows from Masada, Journal of Glass Studies 62. 2020. 23-40. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26951071

Europeana - Iridescence - From archaeological glass to Art Nouveau https://www.europeana.eu/en/stories/iridescence-from-archaeological-glass-to-art-nouveau

K. H. A. Janssns (ed.), Modern Methods for Analysing Archaeological and Historical Glass, Band 1. 2013.

P. Bellendorf, H. Roemich, S. Gerlach, P. Mottner, E. López and K. Wittstadt, Archaeological Glass: The Surface and Beyond. 2010.

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

The exhibition features over 200 glass objects, mostly from the museum’s own collection. What strikes us immediately is how well-curated everything is. Each piece has room to breathe, with clear labelling on translucent glass that echoes the exhibition’s colour scheme. The lighting is particularly impressive, neither too bright nor too dim, making the glass surfaces and patterns clearly visible. Every object is numbered sequentially, and the catalogue functions like a workbook with margins for notes, references, and detailed provenance information where available.

We’re surprised by how much is intact. Many pieces show no signs of damage, looking as though you could pick them up and use them today. This connects to something we find fascinating: the continuity of use. Olive oil bottles, wine jugs, and dishes. We still use glass for the same purposes they did in antiquity, even if the shapes look different. The exhibition spans different regions (Roman territories, Eastern Mediterranean, and what is now the UK) and shows how similar vessel types appear across cultures.

There’s also modern glass in the exhibition, including design student projects. Ironically, some of these modern pieces look more fragile than the ancient ones, with shattered edges and missing rims. The exhibition includes research methods, too. They’ve set up an RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) station in one of the display cases, showing how they use light-based imaging for detailed analysis.

For our sketches, we pick three objects divided between us. One chooses a Karcesium, a free-blown translucent beaker from Syria (50-150 AD), appreciating that it was shaped by hand rather than mold. Another picks the banana. Yes, a glass banana from 19th-century Italy (probably), complete with ribs and traces of yellow paint. The label actually says “Banan?” because they’re not entirely sure what it is. The third choice is a shallow dish from the first century AD, completely intact with only minor weathering. It looks exactly like a modern dessert dish (now we want cake). Checking the provenance, we discover it came from the Scheurer Lehr collection, a banker and collector who founded parts of the museum’s holdings, with no connection to the Nazi period.

We both agree the exhibition is worth visiting if you’re in Amsterdam before March 1st. There’s a cafe next door, and you can also see the rest of the museum, including the Kore and the Lion’s Horoscope. We finish our sketches at home, where we feel more comfortable refining the details without blocking other visitors’ views.

Exhibition Details

Title: Van Glas Gemaakt in de Oudheid (Glass Made in Antiquity)Location: Allard Pierson Museum, AmsterdamDates: Through March 1st, 2025Website: allardpiersonmuseum.nl

Objects Featured

Karcesium (Beaker) - 50-150 AD, Syria (Palmyra), free-blown translucent colourless glass, 10 cm high, museum collection since 1950

Object in the Shape of a Banana (Banan?) - 19th century (?), Italy (?), translucent glass with yellow paint traces, 12 cm wide, museum collection since 2008

Shallow Dish - First century AD, transparent green glass, 28 cm wide, intact condition, acquired 1923 (Scheurer Lehr collection), museum collection since 1934

Research Methods Featured

* RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging): Light-based imaging technique for detailed glass analysis, with actual setup displayed in the exhibition

Image references

Images taken by either Jona or Stefanie during the visit.

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

We open with a personal plaster cast story: a medical one from when Jona broke her finger (Image 1). It looks, as she notes, a little bit like a dinosaur. This distinction between medical and archaeological plaster casts helps us understand what plaster cast collections actually are: often a 1:1 scale reproductions of sculptures and architectural features, created using gypsum for study and display. The practice goes back surprisingly far. We found that the earliest evidence is from around 1350 BCE at Tel El Amarna in Egypt, from the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, where there was a cache of plaster masks and casts. Romans also used plaster, especially for mass-producing lamps and making copies of bronze or marble statues as a quicker, cheaper way to share images of emperors. The technique continued through the Byzantine Empire and into Italy and France during the Middle Ages.

Image 1: Personal medical plaster cast. Contemporary medical plaster cast illustrating plaster as an everyday material practice beyond archaeology and art history

But the real story of plaster cast collections begins with their industrial production in the nineteenth century. We found images from museum archives of large rectangular molds, approximately two metres high, that reveal the scale of this enterprise (Image 2). One mold carries a stamp dated 1855, a reminder that these were products of workshops with their own histories. Storage systems resembled archival practices, with massive pieces stored upright like oversized books.

Two techniques dominated production: the waste mold (moule perdu), which was destroyed after single use, and the piece mold (à bon creux), which could be reused for multiple casts. The material itself, the Plaster of Paris, or calcium sulfate hemihydrate, is created by heating raw gypsum to 150-160°C. The name comes from the abundant gypsum deposits found near Paris.

Image 2: Large-scale plaster molds and workshop context. Multi-part plaster molds demonstrating the scale, weight, and infrastructural demands of plaster cast production.

These industrial workshops fed a growing network of museum collections across Europe. We looked at historical photographs from the National Gallery of Ireland that capture this moment (Image 3). In one particularly image, an artist demonstrates drawing techniques before a public audience, the plaster casts serving as both subject and teaching aid. The other black and white photographs have a slightly haunted quality, but they show something important: these collections served dual purposes from their inception, supporting both scholarly research and public education. Major European collections were established in Göttingen (1760s, initially private), Bonn (1820), Berlin, and Munich. The nineteenth century was the era of "plaster mania," with collections facilitating comparative study through extensive exchange networks between institutions.

Image 3: Public engagement with plaster cast collections (historical photograph). Historical photograph showing visitors and artists using plaster cast collections for study and instruction.

This enthusiasm spread beyond Europe. A pre-opening photograph from around 1911 shows the Museo de Copias in Santiago, Chile (Image 4). The Victorian-style architecture, with its glass ceiling and ornamental detailing, could belong to any European museum of the period. Inside were 550 pieces of classical and neoclassical sculpture, all shipped from Parisian workshops around 1900. The collection came from the vision of journalist Daniel Barros-Gres, who proposed it as a means to provide models for Chilean artists. What we found distinctive was the museum's curatorial approach: plaster casts were displayed alongside contemporary Chilean artwork, creating an intentional dialogue between classical forms and local production. This mixing raises complex questions about cultural imperialism and educational intent, both of which seem to be present in the project. The collection's decline came quickly. Educational reforms and military dictatorship in the 1920s-30s led to deaccessioning, and a 1969 fire destroyed many pieces. What remained was dispersed to other institutions or storage. We learned that similar projects occurred in Japan during the same period.

Image 4: Museo de Copias, Santiago de Chile (early 20th century). Archival view of the Museo de Copias displaying plaster casts alongside local artworks within an educational setting.

Back in Europe, the twentieth century brought systematic devaluation. Collections that had been prized became problematic. Part of this was aesthetic: plaster casts were increasingly perceived as “fake,” lacking the artistic “aura” of originals. Photography and affordable travel made the originals themselves more accessible, reducing the educational necessity of reproductions. Storage became an issue as museums reassessed their priorities. But politics played a crucial role as well. We discussed how Munich's Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke, one of the largest collections in the world, was displaced in 1937 to make room for the Nazi "Degenerate Art" exhibition. Allied bombing later destroyed most of the pieces. In East Berlin, collections were deliberately neglected as symbols of an elitist educational system incompatible with socialist values. The Nazi appropriation of classical aesthetics, using Greek sculpture as an ideal of racial perfection, created a post-war ambivalence that extended to the collections themselves.

Yet plaster casts have found new purposes. Stefanie shared photographs from her visit to the Sperlonga museum in Italy, which offers one compelling example (Image 5). The museum displays a modern plaster cast reconstruction of the Polyphemus and Odysseus sculptural group alongside the original Roman marble fragments discovered at Tiberius's villa and grotto. The process involved creating casts from the original fragments, some of which had been filled with plaster in earlier restoration efforts, and then assembling these into a full compositional reconstruction based on archaeological evidence. The result is installed in a way that allows visitors to see both the fragmentary originals and a hypothetical complete scene. This communicates the original scale and narrative composition while maintaining scholarly transparency about what is known and what is interpreted.

Image 5: Sperlonga Museum, Italy. Polyphemus and Odysseus scene.

Pompeii offers another distinctive use of plaster casting, one that emerged from the site's unique preservation conditions (Image 6). A technical illustration shows the process: plaster is poured into voids left by decomposed organic material trapped in volcanic debris, creating detailed negative-space documentation of bodies in their final moments. The results include human figures in various poses, animals, and even a horse discovered just a few years ago. We emphasised that these casts are not human remains but plaster reproductions of body-shaped voids. Current display methods attempt to balance their extraordinary documentary value with respectful presentation of what they represent.

Image 6: Pompeii plaster casting (illustrative reconstruction). Reconstruction illustrating the Pompeii casting method used to record voids left by decomposed bodies and organic material, and a dog plaster cast as the result.

At the end of the episode, we discuss how contemporary scholarship has reframed the value of historical plaster cast collections entirely. Digital 3D scanning now enables comparison between old casts and deteriorated originals, revealing that casts often document sculptures in better condition than their current state. Furthermore, the "Gods in Colour" exhibition used casts as experimental surfaces for colour reconstruction, avoiding intervention on original surfaces. Munich's collection maintains an online digital archive, making pieces accessible for study regardless of their physical display status. Conservation efforts now treat the casts themselves as historical artefacts worthy of preservation. What has changed is the understanding of what these objects are. They are no longer seen merely as copies of originals but as historical documents in their own right, recording collection practices, educational methods, and patterns of cultural exchange across two centuries.

Further References

* Alexandridis, A. & Winkler-Horaček, L. (eds). 2019. Destroy the copy – plaster cast collections in the nineteenth–twentieth centuries: demolition, defacement, disposal in Europe and beyond. Berlin: De Gruyter.

* Art & History Museum. n.d. Plaster cast workshop. Available at: Art & History Museum website (accessed 29 January 2026).

* Britannica. n.d. Plaster of Paris. Available at: Encyclopaedia Britannica website (accessed 29 January 2026).

* Canterbury Christ Church University. n.d. A brief history of casts. Available at: University of Canterbury website (accessed 29 January 2026).

* Frederiksen, R. & Marchand, E. (eds). 2010. Plaster casts: making, collecting and displaying from Classical Antiquity to the present. Berlin: De Gruyter.

* MDPI. 2022. Materials and techniques for the coating of nineteenth-century plaster casts: a review of historical sources. Heritage 5(4): 176. Available at: MDPI website (accessed 29 January 2026).

* National Gallery of Ireland. n.d. Plaster casts gallery. Available at: National Gallery of Ireland website (accessed 29 January 2026).

* Nichols, M.F. 2006. Plaster cast sculpture: a history of touch. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 21(2): 114–130.

* Payne, E.M. 2020. The conservation of plaster casts in the nineteenth century. Studies in Conservation 65(1): 37–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393630.2019.1610845

Image references

* Image 1

* Extended plaster cast. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cast_extended.jpg

* Medical plaster cast on finger. Personal photograph by Jona, c. 23 years ago. Private collection.

* Image 2

* Reverse of cast REPRO.1980-80 showing thinness and wooden armature impression. Heritage 5, no. 4 (2022): 176. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/4/176

* Reverse of cast REPRO.1980-80 showing thinness and wooden armature impression. Heritage 5, no. 4 (2022): 176. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/4/176

* Reverse of cast REPRO.A.1916-3153 showing thickness compared to Pouzadoux casts. Heritage 5, no. 4 (2022): 176. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/4/176

* Reverse of cast REPRO.A.1916-3153 showing thickness compared to Pouzadoux casts. Heritage 5, no. 4 (2022): 176. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/4/176

* Image 3

* Cast collection, Cornell University. Assembled 1890s from funds donated by Henry Sage, trustee. Collection comprises 19th-century casts of Greek, Roman, Near Eastern, Egyptian, medieval, and Renaissance sculptures. Cornell University. Available at: http://static.as.cornell.edu/150/images/canon/drawing.jpg

* Sculpture Hall interior view towards entrance, c. 1890. Attributed to Robert French (1841-1917). Lawrence Collection, National Photographic Archive, National Gallery of Ireland. Available at: https://www.nationalgallery.ie/sites/default/files/styles/content_hero/public/2021-04/plaster-casts-1-no-text.jpg

* Plaster cast study. National Gallery of Ireland. Available at: https://www.nationalgallery.ie/sites/default/files/styles/width_710/public/2021-04/moynan-lion-text.jpg

* Image 4

* N. Keller - The Rise and Fall of the Museo de Copias: On the History of the Collection of Sculpture Replicas in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago de Chile. In: Annetta Alexandridis, Lorenz Winkler-Horaček (Hrsg.): Destroy the Copy – Plaster Cast Collections in the 19th–20th Centuries. Demolition, Defacement, Disposal in Europe and Beyond. De Gruyter. P. 61.

* Image 5

* Polyphemus and Odysseus scene in the Sperlonga Museum, Italy. Photo taken by Stefanie in 2024. Private Collection.

* Image 6

* Architectural drawing of a Pompeian structure. Drawing by U. Cesino. Parco Archeologico di Pompei. Available at: https://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/photo5900180064564262063.jpg

* Plaster cast of a chained dog from Pompeii. Museum of Boscoreale. Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dog_in_chains_cast_Pompeii_Museum_Boscoreale.jpg

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

Fig. 1: Showing the location

The starting point is not the mountain itself, but a plaster cast. It is located at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, and is a coloured replica of the Lion’s Horoscope, which stands near the exit kind of behind a curtain. The lion is large, with an open mouth, exposed tongue, and showing musculature. The recolouring gives it yellow and red tones against a blue background, which makes it quite present and visible in its own way. Across the lion’s body are nineteen eight-pointed stars, while a crescent moon sits beneath the head like a collar or necklace. Above the lion’s back, three larger stars are labelled in Greek as Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter. Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, is placed close to the chest. See for that Fig. 5 and 6.

Fig. 2: Reconstructions

With more than two thousand metres high and located in south-eastern Turkey, the tomb sanctuary is remote and exposed to the weather. At its centre stands an artificial tumulus, roughly fifty metres high, with terraces in the east and west, see FIg. 2. These terraces once carried colossal seated statues of gods and of Antiochus I himself, all carved from limestone. Zeus-Oromasdes, Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles-Artagnes-Ares sit alongside the king at equal height, see Fig. 4.

Fig. 3: Portraits of Otto Puchstein and Theresa Goell

Karl Sester first reported the site in 1881 while surveying roads for the Ottoman administration. Soon after, Karl Humann and Otto Puchstein (Fig. 3) carried out systematic documentation, recognising the astronomical character of the lion relief and producing an early plaster cast, of the one from the western terrace not its sibling from the eastern terrace. Decades later, Theresa Goell (Fig. 3) worked continuously on the mountain, under difficult conditions to document inscriptions, statuary, and the structure of the tumulus. Her work was eventually published in several volumes. Later campaigns, including those led by the University of Amsterdam in the early 2000s, introduced laser scanning and digital documentation. UNESCO recognition followed in 1987.

Fig. 4: Different reliefs and statues

The interpretation of the meaning of the Lion’s Horoscope is based on the several celestial bodies marked down on the relief. The nineteen stars correspond to the constellation Leo, while the three labelled planets must appear together within that constellation, accompanied by a new moon. Astronomical calculations suggest that this configuration occurred only once within the relevant period, on 14 July 109 BCE, shortly after sunset when observed from the summit, shown on Fig. 5. This date has been interpreted as marking the coronation of Antiochus I, or possibly that of his father.

Fig. 5: The relief and the astronomical interpretations

The decision to recolour the plaster cast in Amsterdam was conducted in 2015 and was based partially on pigment traces in the inscriptions (Fig. 6). The result is quite vibrant. But is also raises some questions. The relief now stands alone, detached from the statues, terraces, and sky that once gave it context and meaning. Its placement near the exit, separated by curtains, reinforces this isolation. Fig. 6 documents the colouring process and the finished cast. In the episode, possible alternatives are discussed. Drawings, light projections, or spatial cues could reconnect the object.

Fig. 6: The coloured relief and plaster cast in the Allard Pierson museum

Further References

* CIMRM 31 n.d. The Lion Horoscope of Mount Nemrud. Available at: https://mithras.tertullian.org/display.php?page=cimrm31 (accessed 7 January 2026)

* CRIJNS, M. 2022. The discovery of the colossal coronation horoscope of Antiochus I, King of Commagene on Mt. Nemrud. BABESCH 97: 563-599. https://doi.org/10.2143/BAB.97.0.3290534 (accessed 7 January 2026)

* GOELL, T.B. 1996. Nemrud Dağı: the hierothesion of Antiochus I of Commagene. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Available at: https://archive.org/details/nemruddahierothe0001unse (accessed 7 January 2026)

* GÜNEY, A.Ö. 2008. An iconological study on the Lion Horoscope Relief of Nemrut Dag Hierothesion. Report. Available at: http://nemrut.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/oldwebsite/d/yayin/2008%20GUNEY%20ONGU%20An%20Iconological%20Study%20on%20the%20Lion%20Horoscope%20Relief%20of%20Nemrut%20Dag%20Hierothesion.pdf (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Makedonia-Alexandros. 2014. The Lion Horoscope of Mount Nemrud. Megas Alexandros (blog), 28 March. Available at: https://makedonia-alexandros.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-lion-horoscope-of-mount-nemrud_28.html (accessed 7 January 2026)

* UNESCO World Heritage Centre n.d. Nemrut Dağ (Hierothesion of Antiochus I of Commagene). Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/448 (accessed 7 January 2026)

Image references

Fig. 1

* View of Mount Nemrut showing summit and tumulus. Source: National Geographic, Mount Nemrut Dağ: Wonder of the Ancient World. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/mount-nemrut-dag-wonder-of-the-ancient-world (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Photograph showing summit terraces and surrounding landscape. Source: Beyond Wild Places, How to Explore Mt Nemrut and Şanlıurfa in Turkey. https://beyondwildplaces.com/how-to-explore-mt-nemrut-and-sanliurfa-in-turkey/ (accessed 7 January 2026)

* View towards Mount Nemrut, situating the sanctuary within topography. Source: Acar54, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42042268 (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Schematic site map of terraces and tumulus. Source: Turkish Archaeology News. https://turkisharchaeonews.net/site/mount-nemrut (accessed 7 January 2026)

Fig. 2

* Historic reconstruction of the sanctuary with terraces and seated statues. Source: National Geographic, Mount Nemrut Dağ: Wonder of the Ancient World. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/mount-nemrut-dag-wonder-of-the-ancient-world (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Video frame from 3D animation circling the summit. Source: YouTube (accessed 7 January 2026):

* Artistic reconstruction imagining ritual activity. Source: Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141688606 (accessed 7 January 2026)

Fig. 3

* Otto Puchstein. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5029848 (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Theresa Goell. Source: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. https://hmsc.harvard.edu/online-exhibits/the-groundbreaker/ (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Book cover: Nemrud Dağı: The Hierothesion of Antiochus I of Commagene. Source: Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/nemruddahierothe0001unse (accessed 7 January 2026)

Fig. 4

* Colossal statue fragments from east and west terraces. Source: Turkish Archaeology News. https://turkisharchaeonews.net/site/mount-nemrut (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Relief of an Achaemenid king with Persian attire and Phrygian cap. Source: National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/mount-nemrut-dag-wonder-of-the-ancient-world (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Narrative relief fragments showing human and divine figures. Source: Peretz Partensky, CC BY-SA 2.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24570712 (accessed 7 January 2026)

Fig. 5

* Documentation of the relief in situ during discovery. Source: Güney, 2008. http://nemrut.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/oldwebsite/d/yayin/2008%20GUNEY%20ONGU%20An%20Iconological%20Study%20on%20the%20Lion%20Horoscope%20Relief%20of%20Nemrut%20Dag%20Hierothesion.pdf (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Iconographic detail showing stars, planets, and Leo constellation. Source: CIMRM 31. https://mithras.tertullian.org/display.php?page=cimrm31 (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Animation of proposed stellar alignment (astronomical reconstruction). Source: Nemrud.nl. http://nemrud.nl/index.php/tourist-information/lion-horoscope/ (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Archived Turkish version of alignment animation. Source: Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20251005155934/http://nemrud.nl/index.php/tourist-information/lion-horoscope/?lang=tr (accessed 7 January 2026)

Fig. 6

* Recoloured plaster cast approximating original pigment traces. Source: Mainzer Beobachter. https://mainzerbeobachter.com/2023/05/30/het-koninkrijk-kommagene/ (accessed 7 January 2026)

* Digital animation showing coloured relief under lighting. Source: YouTube (accessed 7 January 2026):

* Video documenting the painting process and interview with the artist. Source: YouTube (accessed 7 January 2026):

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rom

The Chios Kore or Kore from Chios in the museum is a plaster cast. This means the original object is not in the museum.

But when talking about plaster casts of originals, it is important to look at the history of the cast and the history of the original statue.

Image 1: Map of Greece

The Chios Kore, the original, not the cast, is from Greece.

Kore (pl. Korai) means young girl, which is exactly what we see in the image below.

Image 2: original Kore from the Acropolis

The statue was found on the Acropolis in Athens and is currently in the Acropolis Museum under the inventory number 675. Her head was discovered in 1886, east of the Parthenon and her body in 1888, south of the temple. The statue was reassembled, but was in three parts.

The sculpture is made of marble from Paros. Sadly, it is not complete, and what is left measures about 55cm.

Her hair is long and wavy, falls in strands over her shoulders up to her breasts, three on each side. The hair on the forehead is wavy and crowned with a stephane.

The statue wears a chiton with long sleeves and on top a shot himation. The painted sculpture had blue and red palmettes and white blossoms and spirals on the clothing. The colours are now oxidised and are no longer visible to the naked eye.

The Kore can be dated to 510 BC, which makes her an Archaic sculpture. According to Whitley, the archaic period is difficult to define on historical grounds (Whitley 2013, p.60), but the current consensus seems to be 700 BC to 480 BC.

Image 3: Kore plaster cast in the Allard Pierson Museum

The plaster cast in the Allard Pierson museum shows a colourless, white statue. It appears rather yellowish, and some of the features that make the original so special are lost in the cast.

It is not clear when the cast came to the museum. The website gives the date 1870, which does not make sense because the Kore itself was only found in 1886 and 1888. Most casts in the collection date from the end of the 19th /beginning of the 20th century. They come from two different collections:

One from the “small collection of casts collected by professor Allard Pierson which was used in academic education” (van Beek & van den Bercken, p.154) and the other from the Museum of Reproduction in the Hague which opened in 1920, was bought by the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague in 1933 which in returned deaccessioned the casts in the 1970s and many of the sculptures came to Amsterdam in 1975 (van Beek & van den Bercken, p.154)

The Allard Pierson Museum is, according to van Beek and van den Bercken, the “only museum in the Netherlands where a collection of plaster casts after classical sculpture [...] is permanently on display for the museum visitor.” (p.153)

The cast is currently on display, but not in the plaster cast gallery, but in the Greek gallery.

Image 4: Kore in colour, and Kore plaster cast from the Ashmolean Museum

The image on the right shows the cast from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK. The Ashmolean also has, similar to the Allard Pierson, a big plaster cast sculpture section, for students to study (both museums are connected to a university). The object is on view in the Cast Gallery. The date the cast was made is given in a range: between 1901 and 1930, but further down the website, it says “purchased in 1929”. We can probably assume a similar date for the Allard Pierson.

The image on the left shows a coloured reconstruction of what the original Kore may have looked like. There are other versions in colour, for example, the one from the “Gods in Colour” (Painted Gods - the polychromy of ancient sculpture) exhibition, which first opened in 2003.

Short glossary

Chiton: a kind of “dress”, usually full body length, up to the feet. They can have long and short sleeves. They are buttoned on the upper arm (Hölscher, p.384)

Himation: a kind of cloak, triangular in shape (Hölscher, p. 384)

Kore: pl. Is Korai, standing and/or votive figures of young girls. Kore actually means girl in ancient Greek. They are representative of the youth in the cities (as they are set up by men and women, so not representing anyone in particular) (Hölscher, p. 184)

Further References

* The bookend kore in the Dutch Museum giftshop https://dutchmuseumgiftshop.nl/store/allardpierson/product/bookend-core/ [latest visited 12.12.2025, 12:24]

* T. Hölscher, Klassische Archäologie - Grundwissen. 2006.

* J. Whitley, The Archaeology of Ancient Greece. 2013.

* R. van Beek & B. van den Bercken, Collect, Draw and Study. The use and benefit of large and small plaster replicas in the Allard Pierson Museum. 2021. Available at: https://www.persee.fr/doc/camar_0776-1317_2021_num_43_1_1752

* Acropolis Museum, Chios Kore, available at: https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios

* Allard Pierson Museum, Chios Kore replica, available at: https://uvaerfgoed.nl/viewer/image/11245_3_28782/

* Gods in colour exhibition, Wikipedia page, available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_in_Color

* Kore 675, Wikipedia page, available at:

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kore_675

* Kore 675, Arachne Database entry for the original, available at: https://arachne.dainst.org/entity/1131071?fl=20&q=kore%20675&resultIndex=1

* Painted Gods exhibition in Frankfurt a. M. available at:

https://buntegoetter.liebieghaus.de/

Image references

* Image 1: Map of Greece, taken from Wikipedia, available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greece_location_map.svg

* Image 2: Chios Kore, original, taken from the Acropolis Museum website, available at: https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios

* Image 3: full body Kore replica, taken from Allard Pierson Museum website, available at: https://uvaerfgoed.nl/viewer/image/11245_3_28782/ ; Side view: Stefanie’s picture from the museum

* Image 4: full body Kore replica, taken from the Ashmolean Museum website, available at: https://www.ashmolean.org/collections-online#/item/ash-object-779868

* Image 5: Chios Kore in colour, taken from the Acropolis Museum website, available at: https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Research behind the script: Stefanie Ulrich

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

With the help of two examples from two opposite regions in the former Roman Empire, Jona and Stefanie dive into wooden objects that survived for thousands of years. The survival of objects depends on several conditions: 1) the material of the object and 2) the environment.

The first object is part of a larger collection, the so-called Vindolanda Tablets.

Image 1: Google Maps screenshot of the UK with Vindolanda fort highlighted; aerial photo of Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall

The Vindolanda Tablets are named after the location they were found. Vindolanda was a Roman fort and vicus on Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland, United Kingdom.

In March 1973, the first tablet was found. In this first campaign, 200 tablets were uncovered. Robin Birley was part of the first campaign and later the director of the Vindolanda excavations from 1967 to 2015.

This was his reaction when finding the object:

„If I have to spend the rest of my life working in dirty, wet trenches, I doubt whether I shall ever again experience the shock and excitement I felt at my first glimpse of ink hieroglyphics on tiny scrapes of wood” (R. Birley, Vindolanda, p. 132).

What are the Vindolanda Tablets?

The tablets refer to correspondence from the frontier and therefore provide an insight into life at Vindolanda, private and public.

They have roughly the same size as a modern-day postcard and are made out of wood. These tablets can either be ‘ink tablets’, which means thin wood with black ink writing or a ‘stylus tablet,’ which is made of thicker wood and shows traces of wax as the writing was inscribed with a stylus into the wax.

There are more than 1700 tablets in the British Museum collection in London, but many tablets also stayed in the museum at the Vindolanda Trust.

Image 2: Vindolanda Tablet birthday invitation

Image 2 shows one of the probably best-known tablets. The birthday invitation of Claudia Severa to her friend Sulpicia Lepidina.

Its dimensions are 9,6cm times 22,3cm, so really comparable to a modern-day postcard. In 1986, it was purchased from the Vindolanda Trust by the British Museum, where it is currently on display.

The Latin cursive can be transcribed as follows:

Cl(audia) Severa Lepidinae (suae [sa]l[u]tem III Idus Septembr[e]s soror ad diem sollemnem natalem meum rogo libenter facias ut venias ad nos iucundiorem mihi [diem] interventu tuo factura si [.....] (space) Cerial[em t]uum saluta Aelius meus [....] et filiolus salutant (2nd hand) sperabo te soror vale soror anima mea ita valeam karissima et [h]ave (on the back, 1st hand) Sulpiciae Lepedinae Cerialis a S[e]vera (taken from the British Museum website)

The translation says:

Claudia Severa to her Lepidina greetings. On the third day before the Ides of September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present. Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send their greetings. I shall expect you sister. Farewell, sister my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail. To Sulpicia Lepedina, wife of Cerialis, from Severa. (taken from the British Museum website).

This object is special for many reasons:

* The invitation comes from a woman, Claudia Severa (wife of the commander Aelius Brocchus), and was sent to another woman, Sulpicia Lepidina (wife of the Vindolanda fort commander Flavius Cerialis)

* We have a date! The third day before the Ides of September refers to 11 September (according to the British Museum, the tablet dates to around 100 AD)

* There are two separate handwritings on it: one from a scrib,e but the last part probably from Claudia Severa herself

* Seems unspectacular, but Romans seemed to have celebrated birthdays just like we do today

Why did the tablets survive?

From the research project “Making History” (ran from June 2022 to June 2024) we learn that “it appears several attempts were made to burn the tablets, but either the ground was too wet or rain dampened the flames before they could take hold. So we can be grateful that this part of the world is notoriously damp.”

A very British thing to say.

Most tablets were found “in the deepest most waterlogged trenches.” This means that there was no oxygen for bacteria, which otherwise would have destroyed the organic material (other organic material was found on site as well).

The second object is a mummy portrait and it takes us to Egypt!

Image 3: Google Maps screenshot; photo of Al Fayoum oasis; mummy with mummy portrait

Stefanie first came across mummy portraits when she interned in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK, and instantly fell in love with them. It feels like looking the past in the face.

Mummy portraits are also called ‘Fayum portraits’ (named after the location where many of them were found). These portraits were placed on top of the mummified body and show an idealised personalised portrait of the deceased. There are over a 1000 portraits known in the world.

The mummy above belongs to a young Greek man called Artemidorus. The case is cartonnage, and the painting of the face is on lime wood; it’s from the Roman period in Egypt and can be dated to the 2nd century AD. It is currently in the British Museum.

“Realistic paintings of people’s faces on wooden panels became the new trend for burials” in Egypt when it became part of the Roman Empire. They were incredibly popular between the 1st to the 3rd century AD, and they merged two funerary traditions together.

The portraits are often painted on wood. Different types of wood can be used to create the portraits. In a research project conducted by the British Museum and they found that out of the 180 portraits they looked at, 70% were made out of lime tree wood (the article is from 2020, see below). Lime wood is not native to Egypt, and there are hardly any traces of the wood being imported before mummy portraits.

Image 4: Mummy portrait of a woman

The above mummy portrait shows a woman. She has black hair, curly in the front, parted in the middle with a bun in the back. Her face is rather round, with a short nose and a small mouth with red lips. The eyes seem to be covered in dark shades, and the eye colour appears to be green. She is wearing jewellery: golden earrings and a golden necklace.

The portrait can be dated to the 1st century AD. It is painted on lime wood in encaustic. The dimensions are a little bit bigger than a DIN A4 sheet of paper, 33cm x 23cm.

It was found in Hawara by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie in 1911, which is the same year it arrived in the Ashmolean Museum.

Why did it survive?

It is a combination of the technique of painting and the climate in Egypt. Encaustic is a technique that involves mixing pigments with soft wax, which is then painted on the wood. The climate in Egypt is hot and dry. Because they are part of a funerary tradition, they were made to last. The climate and the painting technique just added to it.

Two different wooden objects, both preserved by climate conditions and yet so opposite.

Bibliography

R. BIRLEY, Discoveries at Vindolanda. Newcastle upon Thyne 1975.

R. BIRLEY, Vindolanda: a Roman frontier post on Hadrian’s Wall. London 1977.

A. K. BOWMAN, Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier – Vindolanda and its People. London 1994.

A. BOWMAN and D. THOMAS, The Vindolanda Writing Tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses II), London 1994.

https://www.getty.edu/publications/resources/virtuallibrary/0892360380.pdf

Useful links

http://www.vindolanda.com/

http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/galleries/roman-britain/vindolanda-tablets

https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/projects/making-vindolanda-tablets

Publications on the Vindolanda tablets: https://www.vindolanda.com/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=13cd7fca-3796-411e-bf65-c3a29cfd5397 from 1974 to April 2024

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1986-1001-64

https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/depicting-dead-ancient-egyptian-mummy-portraits

https://www.getty.edu/publications/mummyportraits/

https://www.namuseum.gr/en/collection/fayum-portraits/

https://mikedashhistory.com/2014/12/16/the-fayum-mummy-portraits/

Image credits

Image 1: Vindolanda tablets, available at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/projects/making-vindolanda-tablets

Image 2: Google Maps screenshot, UK map with Vindolanda marked on it

Image 3: Vindolanda Fort from the air via Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindolanda#/media/File:Kastell_und_Vicus_von_Vindolanda,_Luftbild,_2010.jpg

Image 4: Birthday invitation Vindolanda tablet, available at: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/galleries/roman-britain/vindolanda-tablets

Image 5: Compilation of mummy portraits, from Reddit, available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/18k0eq5/fayum_mummy_portraits_naturalistic_portraits_on/

Image 6: Mummy portrait on mummy: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/6033001 © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Image 7: Google Maps screenshot Fayum

Image 8: Fayum oasis, taken from Cairo top tours, available at: https://www.cairotoptours.com/Egypt-Travel-Guide/Nile-Valley-Attractions/El-Fayoum

Image 9: Mummy portrait of a lady, Ashmolean Museum, available at: https://www.ashmolean.org/collections-online#/item/ash-object-741191

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Story interlude/underlying music: “Medieval Ambient” via Pixabay Music by DeusLower

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

Image 1: Map of Italy, showing the location of Herculaneum, and a map of the archaeological excavation.

Herculaneum, an ancient Roman coastal settlement, was among the sites destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. It is located between the cities of Naples and Pompeii. For tourists, the archaeological park is easily accessible by train from Naples (https://www.eavsrl.it/la-storia/circumvesuviana/). It is a short walk downhill from the train station to the entrance.

A section of the ancient town remains buried beneath the modern city. Consequently, the true dimensions at the time of the eruption can only be estimated. However, the current consensus is that the town had roughly 4000 inhabitants, and they lived on around 20 hectares.

Unlike Pompeii, which was covered in ashes, Herculaneum is buried beneath a volcanic deposit of 16 to 30m (Herculaneum guidebook). Herculaneum was hit by pyroclastic clouds in surges, reaching temperatures of over 400 degrees Celsius and ca. 80 km/h. This caused thermal shock to living beings and carbonisation of organic substances.

“Excavations” started as early as the beginning of the 18th century. Someone was trying to dig a well and, by accident, stumbled across the buried town. More systematic excavations (of course, not to our standards today) began in 1738 with Charles III of Bourbon, who wanted to build a palace in Portici (https://the-past.com/feature/wooden-wonders-of-herculaneum/). It was not until 1904 that “an American archaeologist promoted an initiative to restart the excavations of Herculaneum”, but the Italian government did not support it. In 1924, Amedeo Maiuri became Superintendent of the Excavations and Antiquities of Campania and stepped in to protect the area.

The special circumstances in Herculaneum (and Pompeii) preserved many objects of various materials that, under different circumstances, could easily have been lost.

One of those items is a Roman cradle made of wood.

Image 2: Roman cradle from Herculaneum

The Roman cradle (Latin cunabulum) is almost perfectly preserved. Some pieces are missing here and there, but all in all it is in great shape.

Due to the fragile material, the object has undergone multiple restorations since its discovery. The current status shows the original elements put together, the wax and oil from previous restorations removed.

The cradle is made of oak wood and is one of 41 pieces of wooden furniture from Herculaneum (Mols, Wooden Furniture in Herculaneum, p.19). The cradle is rectangular in shape, composed of four vertical elements that are connected by three pieces on each side. The feet have been designed to incorporate a rocking mechanism. The base has six pieces, providing a stable surface for the mattress. It has a height of 46cm, is 50cm wide and ca. 80cm long (https://catalogo.beniculturali.it/detail/ArchaeologicalProperty/1500903605). These dimensions are strikingly similar to modern baby cradles, and even the shape resembles cradles or bassinets that are still in use today.

Prior to the volcanic eruption, the wood was likely to have been of a high aesthetic value; however, it has now undergone carbonisation and blackening. Potential decorations are no longer visible.

Image 3: Screenshot of the 3D project

The cradle forms part of a current project that commenced the 3D scanning of objects and houses in Herculaneum to make them available online (https://ercolano.cultura.gov.it/gallery-3d/?lang=en). The project provides additional information and makes it possible to zoom in on details for further studies and analysis, even without seeing the item or house in person.

Image 4: Floor plan and photo of the house of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus

One of the pieces of information known about the cradle is the provenance. While Herculaneum is undoubtedly the correct response, it is possible to locate it even further.

The cradle was found in the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus, which was discovered in 1940. The map in Image 1 shows where we are located in the archaeological park. The house is connected directly to the House of the Gem and the House of the Telephus Relief.

Sidenote: the house names in Herculaneum, as well as Pompeii and Ostia Antica, derive from the artefacts and features found in the house, e.g. The House of Telephus has a relief which shows Telephus, son of Hercules, being healed by Achilles, or they are named after the assumed owner. However, this does not mean that the house had this name during antiquity.

Compared to other houses in the town, it is on the rather small side. It consists of nine rooms in total. Image 4 shows a floor plan as well as an image of what the house looks like now. Currently, it seems not accessible to the public.

According to Guidobaldi, the house was created by using the lower floor of the southern part of the House of the Gem (Herculaneum, Guidebook, p. 41). Rooms A to E were changed into residential rooms during the Roman Republic. From what we can reconstruct, room A was used as a triclinium, room B as a cubiculum, room C was an exedra, room D was another cubiculum, and room E was used as an oecus.

It appears that the last owner of the house made some recent changes before the eruption. The cradle and the human remains of seven skeletons were discovered in room C, the exedra.

Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus was most likely the final owner of the house. In one of the rooms, archaeologists discovered a bronze signet ring with his name engraved on it (see image 5). He most likely was a freedman who was once the servus communis of two masters, an M. Pilius and a Granius. Sadly, we do not know much about Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus.

However, we can assume, if he actually was the owner of the house, that he had a small family, including a baby and that he had enough money to redecorate his house.

Image 5: Picture of the owner’s ring

As mentioned above, the cradle was found together with seven skeletons. The infant’s remains were discovered inside the cradle, covered in a blanket. It appears that the people in the household, the exact relationships between the individuals are unknown (they are likely the owner of the house, his wife and other children and possibly slaves), were trying to find shelter from what was happening around them during the eruption of the volcano.

What can we learn from this object?

* Provenance (and provenience): the artefact is well-documented, including its exact location of discovery in 1940. Artefacts from sites like Herculaneum demonstrate the importance of context and findspot because only then are we able to draw conclusions that have sustenance

* Material: thanks to scientific research regarding the object, we know that the cradle was made of oak wood

* Familiarity: due to the shape and structure of the object, it looks familiar to us. The shape of a cradle/bassinet has not remained relatively unchanged in almost 2000 years.

* Child soothing: The cradle has a rocking mechanism, one that is still built into cradles today. This suggests that the Romans were aware of the efficacy of rocking as a method of inducing sleep in children.

It is striking how an object that we think of as an artefact from the past can be so familiar to us. It makes it possible for us as visitors to connect with the people in Herculaneum, especially the family in the house who care enough about their child to build/purchase a nice bed to sleep in and cover it in blankets to be warm and comfortable.

Bibliography

* M. P. Guidobaldi, Herculaneum - Guide to the excavations. 2013.

* S. T. A. M. Mols. Wooden Furniture in Herculaneum. 2020. Available online: https://brill.com/display/title/13559

Useful links:

* The Herculaneum Society:

https://herculaneum.classics.ox.ac.uk/

* Herculaneum in Pictures, House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus https://herculaneuminpictures.com/Ins%20Or%201/Herculaneum%20Ins%20Or%201%2001a.htm

* Herculaneum Conservation Project: https://ercolano.cultura.gov.it/herculaneum-conservation-project/?lang=en

* Herculaneum 3D: https://ercolano.cultura.gov.it/herculaneum-3d-scan/?lang=en

* Catagolo Generale dei Beni Culturali: https://catalogo.beniculturali.it/detail/ArchaeologicalProperty/1500903605

* The Past: https://the-past.com/feature/wooden-wonders-of-herculaneum/

For more information on Roman naming conventions, please check out the episode of the Partial Historian Podcast (https://partialhistorians.com/2024/01/04/special-episode-roman-naming-conventions/)

Image Credits

* Image 1: screenshot of map of Italy taken from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/place/Herculaneum; map of the excavations in Herculaneum, taken from Foodie Explorers: https://www.foodieexplorers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Plan-Herculaneum.jpg

* Image 2: Cradle, taken from Please don’t touch the dinosaurs: https://donttouchthedinosaurs.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/british-museum-review-pompeii-and-herculaneum/

* Image 3: Screenshot of cradle in 3D project, taken from: https://ercolano.cultura.gov.it/gallery-3d/?lang=en with the search “culla”

* Image 4: floor plan taken from Herculaneum Guide book, p.41; photography of the house, taken from Herculaneum in Pictures: https://herculaneum.uk/Ins%20Or%201/Herculaneum%20Ins%20Or%201%2001a.htm

* Image 5: ring with owner’s name, taken from Herculaenum in Pictures: https://herculaneum.uk/Ins%20Or%201/Herculaneum%20Ins%20Or%201%2001a.htm

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Story interlude/underlying music: “Medieval Ambient” via Pixabay Music by DeusLower

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome

The conversation follows the axe’s journey from a Bronze Age tool to a sacred medieval object, addressing themes of material reuse, mythological reinterpretation, and object biography. It combines archaeological perspectives with reflections from a museum visit, including approaches to drawing and documenting artefacts, and considers how meaning is continually redefined through human engagement with the material past.

Image 1: On the definition of anachronistic objects, also showing the non-linearity of the Hammer of Saint Martin as an example.

Image 2: Looking again closer at the serpentinite, its texture and colouring.

Image 3: A message between Stefanie and Jona, and the categories presented by Knight et al. 2019

Image 4: The background of the thunderstones, and how they looked – basically prehistoric stone objects.

Image 5: Looking at Saint Martin – the man and the legend, as well as the celebrations of this saint today.

Further References

* on the Hammer of Saint Martin: see the references from episode three

* Hunebed Nieuwscafé. 2023. ‘Donderbijlen: stenen hamer als bescherming tegen de bliksem in de nok van een schuur van de Dreyerschen Hof in Banteln, Duitsland’. Hunebed Nieuwscafé, 2023-01.

* Yarrow, T. 2015. Archaeology, anthropology and the stuff of time. Archaeological Dialogues 22(1): 31–36.

* Knight, M. G., Boughton, D. & Wilkinson, R. E. (eds) 2019. Objects of the Past in the Past: Investigating the Significance of Earlier Artefacts in Later Contexts. Oxford: Archaeopress. ISBN 9781789692488

* Harman, G. & Witmore, C. 2023. Objects Untimely: Object-Oriented Philosophy and Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9781509556540.

* Guillot, S. & Hattori, K. 2013. Serpentinites: essential roles in geodynamics, arc volcanism, sustainable development, and the origin of life. Elements 9(2): 95-98.

Image references

Image 1

* The hammer in the vitrine: image taken by Stefanie Ulrich

* The Hammer of Saint Martin by Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23822667

Image 2

* By James St. John - Chromitic serpentinite (Kraubath Complex; Sommergraben, Murz River Valley area, Styria Province, Austria), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34893163

* By Hermann Hammer (User:Haneburger) - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20747151

* For the serpentinite map (Figure 1 in Guillot & Hattori):“See Figure 1 showing serpentinite occurrences on the seafloor and continents (Guillot & Hattori 2013, fig. 1).”

Image 3

* Screenshot taken by Jona Schlegel on 03.04.2025

* Book cover of Knight, M. G., Boughton, D. & Wilkinson, R. E. (eds) 2019. Objects of the Past in the Past: Investigating the Significance of Earlier Artefacts in Later Contexts. Oxford: Archaeopress. ISBN 9781789692488

Image 4

* By José-Manuel Benito Álvarez (España) —> Locutus Borg - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1927194

* By Joanbanjo - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36548468

* By The Portable Antiquities Scheme/ The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55909228

* For the “stenen hamer” illustration:“Image of a stone hammer used as protection against lightning in the roof ridge of a barn at the Dreyerschen Hof, Banteln, Germany (Hunebed Nieuwscafé 2023).”

Image 5

* By Simone Martini - The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154865

* By Anthony van Dyck - http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/15511, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121337193

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rom

Image 1: Defining what a hammer is and that there are different hammer types.

While talking and observing the hammer from every possible perspective, the two podcast hostesses describe its materials, form, and explore the potential meanings. As Stefanie describes the object in quite detail, from the greenish polished stone, onto the silver casing with the gilded crown, and ending with the Latin inscription, the conversation dives into questions of reuse, symbolism, and ritual.

Image 2: Shows a close look at the serpentinite.

Following these observations, the episode captures their (FIRST TIME!) process of drawing and documenting the hammer, from noting weather and location in their sketchbooks to debating proportions and decorative motifs. Dragons, floral ornaments, and inscriptions add further layers to an artefact that embodies the tension between destruction and transformation: a prehistoric tool recast as the weapon of St. Martin, “the destroyer of idols.”

Image 3: Shows the hammer of Saint Martin from different view points to focus on the medieval modifications.

Image 4: Focuses on the inscription, the little ornaments and the translation.

Further References

* De Hamer van Sint-Maarten – Een klap voor de duivel, Historiek, 29 June 2023, “Het voorwerp dateert ongeveer uit 1000 voor Christus …” Last visited 17 September 2025. https://historiek.net/hamer-van-sint-maartenshamer/87185/ Historiek

* Museum Catharijneconvent, “Details – Collectie 41976: Hamer van Sint-Maarten”, Adlib Internet Server. Last visited 17 September 2025. https://adlib.catharijneconvent.nl/Details/collect/41976 adlib.catharijneconvent.nl+2utrechtaltijd.nl+2

* “Sint-Maarten haalt een man terug uit de dood”, Hunebednieuwscafe, January 2023. Last visited 17 September 2025. https://www.hunebednieuwscafe.nl/2023/01/donderbijlen/ Het Hunebed Nieuwscafé

* “Hamer van Sint-Maarten en Fokker: Utrechtse stukken in Canon van Nederland”, RTV Utrecht. Last visited 17 September 2025. https://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/1679589/hamer-van-sint-maarten-en-fokker-utrechtse-stukken-in-canon-van-nederland adlib.catharijneconvent.nl

* “St. Maarten (ca. 316-397), bisschop van Tours …”, Meertens Instituut / Bedevaart, “Plaats 1060: Utrecht, H. Maarten (Martinus) / andere heiligen”, Bedevaart database. Last visited 17 September 2025. https://bedevaart.meertens.knaw.nl/plaats/1060

Image references

Image 1: Drawing a Hammer

* War Hammer from the online collection of The Met: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/25073

* The Hammer of Saint Martin by Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23822667

Image 2: Serpentinite

* The picture focusing on the axehead by MPhernambucq - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112949413

* Photograph without the silver coating from 1918 by J.J.A. van Wisen, https://hetutrechtsarchief.nl/beeldmateriaal/detail/b5e53d8e-1c60-51b8-aaae-6c3456a8935c/media/17115062-d210-3c34-4859-5b503dbc07ed?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=hamer%20van%20St.%20Maarten&rows=1&page=3

Image 3: The medieval Modifications

* Side view of the hammer of Saint Martin by Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23822667

* Front view of the hammer of Saint Martin by Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23822665

* Back view of the hammer of Saint Martin by Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23822663

Image 3: The inscription

* Drawing of the inscriptions by Jona Schlegel, based on the pictures available on the website of Museum Catharijneconvent, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38433184

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rom

Provenance research tells us “by whom, when and where an artwork/object was created and who has possessed it during its history, including enquiring into and revealing the circumstances and substantive nature of sequential changes of ownership or possession or both.” (Tompkins 2020: 23). From the available information, we are able to piece together the history of the object and understand its significance in the present.

The three main fields in which provenance research is used are: Nazi looted art, colonialism and the antiquities trade.

Nazi-looted art refers to works of art (or any object) that were confiscated by the Nazi regime, or sold under duress, between 1932/1933 and 1945. There are numerous examples, and it is worth checking some of the websites below for detailed case studies of other objects. As a well-researched and positive example of restitution, we looked at the painting by J. M. W. Turner titled Glaucus and Scylla.

The painting was finished in 1841 and then sold to a private owner at the Royal Academy exhibition in London. Around 60 years later, in 1902, the painting was acquired by the Jewish collectors Anna and John Jeffé. In 1943, the pro-Nazi Vichy government forcibly took it from them. It is unknown who owned the painting from 1943 until 1956. The painting resurfaces in 1956 in London, where it is sold to an art gallery in New York. In 1966, it was acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Following the efforts of one of the heirs of the Jeffé family, the painting was discovered online and finally restituted to the heirs on 25 June 2006. A year later, it was repurchased by the Kimbell Art Museum, which has since been very open about the provenance of the painting.

Research into provenance is also used in the context of objects from former European colonies. This is particularly relevant to those who came to Europe under less than clear circumstances or with force.

In this case, we selected an item from the Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam. A significant research project, PPROCE (Pilot Project Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era) was conducted to look into objects in several museums that have no or little provenance. The object in question, a ceremonial kris, was assumed to be from Indonesia. However, research into the object has shown that it could not be determined where it came from exactly or when it entered the Netherlands. There are two theories: 1. The artefact may have belonged to a man named "H. J. Domis" referring to Hendrik Jacob Domis, who was a civil servant in the ports of Semarang, Pasuruan, and Surabaya on the north coast of Java from 1812 to 1834. The second theory is that it was taken by the British in 1812. The object will remain in the Rijksmuseum, as its exact provenance cannot be ascertained. At least for the time being.

The illicit antiquity trade is the final field in which provenance research will be discussed. In this context, it typically refers to objects from the so-called source countries, such as Italy or Greece, as well as from war zones, including objects from Iran or Syria.

The object that forms the case study for this was, for a while at least, part of the collection in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. It is a red-figure pyxis from the 3rd century BC, originally from Centuripe in Sicily. It came to the museum in 1997 through a dealer called Herbert Cahn. An association called SiciliAntica was going through a photo archive and found that the item had been taken out of Sicily illegally. A public prosecutor from Italy sent a letter to the museum in 2017, asking for the object to be returned to Sicily. The item has now been returned to Sicily in 2024.

Topics with References

General

* Looted Art: Provenance Research and Resitution in the Netherlands: https://ahm.uva.nl/content/research-groups/looted-art-provenance-research-and-restitution-in-the-netherlands/looted-art-provenance-research-and-restitution-in-the-netherlands.html?cb

* Tompkins, A. (ed.) 2020. Provenance Research Today - Principles, Practice, Problems.

* Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Provenance Research: https://www.smb.museum/en/research/provenance-research/

* Cultural Heritage Agency, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science: Provenance Research: https://english.cultureelerfgoed.nl/topics/cultural-goods-from-a-colonial-context/provenance-research

* Colonial Collections Committee: https://committee.kolonialecollecties.nl/

* Getty Provenance Index: https://www.getty.edu/databases-tools-and-technologies/provenance/

Case 1: Nazi looted art

* Kimbell Art Museum, Forth Worth Texas: https://kimbellart.org/collection/ap-196611

* Monument Men and Women Foundation Website: https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/resources/art-restitution-cases?srsltid=AfmBOopwozyEUCoapWQWcOFiIV8i12f4EpAhgxjw6wq4hgiDL7GaABw3

Case 2: Colonialism

* PPROCE: https://amsterdam.wereldmuseum.nl/en/about-tropenmuseum/research/provenance-research-colonial-era

* Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Provenance report regarding Staatsiekrissen (Ceremonial Krisses): https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/488924810/RAP_PPROCEprovenanceReport_05_Staatsiekrissen_RV360_5393and5394_v10_202203.pdf

* Final report of the research project: https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/496442096/RAP_PPROCE_FinalReport_ENG_v10_202203.pdf

* Clues, Research into provenance history and significance of cultural objects and collections acquired in colonial situations, NIOD: https://www.niod.nl/en/publications/clues-PPROCE

* Provenance Series, Wereldmuseum Amsterdam: https://amsterdam.wereldmuseum.nl/en/about-wereldmuseum-amsterdam/research/provenance-series

Case 3: Illicit Antiquities

* Scanning for restitution: documenting the Allard Pierson’s Centuripe pyxis using cross-polarisation photogrammetry and RTI: https://uvaauas.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/4DRL_Report_Series_8_-_Scanning_for_restitution_Documenting_the_Allard_Pierson_s_Centuripe_pyxis_using_cross-polarisation_photogrammetry_and_RTI/25620759?file=45698124

* SiciliAntica, Continua la Missione possibile di SiciliAntica Centuripe: https://www.siciliantica.eu/continua-la-missione-possibile-di-siciliantica-centuripe/

* Pyxis information and provenance research Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam: https://www.allardpierson.nl/en/search?q=pyxi

Image references

Image References: Page 1 – J. M. W. Turner

* J.M.W. Turner, Glaucus and Scylla: image taken from the Kimbell Art Gallery, Forth Worth, Texas website: https://kimbellart.org/collection/ap-196611

Image References: Page 2 – Ceremonial Kris

* Ceremonial Kris; T. Quist (2022) Provenance report regarding Staatsiekrissen (Ceremonial Krisses): https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/488924810/RAP_PPROCEprovenanceReport_05_Staatsiekrissen_RV360_5393and5394_v10_202203.pdf

Image References: Page 3 – Pyxis

* Photos taken by Stefanie while visiting the Allard Pierson Museum

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Story interlude/underlying music: “Medieval Ambient” via Pixabay Music by DeusLower

* Research behind the script: Stefanie Ulrich

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rome.

Image 1: Lascaux Cave and Context

The discussion centres on two stories about enthusiasts connected to the Lascaux cave system in France's Dordogne region. The first one tells of Marcel Ravidat (17 year old at that time), his dog and friends who, in September 1940, discovered an archaeological sites, which first he thought was a secret passage way to Lascaux manor. What began as an exploration of a narrow cave opening revealed prehistoric cave paintings of great detail and artistic sophistication, depicting bison, horses, and deer that had remained hidden for thousands of years.

Image 2: Discovery of the Cave

The second story follows Bennett (Ben) Bacon, a London furniture conservator and independent researcher whose interest and diligence for prehistoric cave art led him to notice patterns in these paintings not only tied to Lascaux but also other palaeolithic caves across Europe.

Image 3: The Replica and Public Engagement

Bacon's careful study of small dots and Y-shaped symbols accompanying the painted animals resulted in a revolutionary theory: these marks represent a proto-writing system recording seasonal information about animal behaviour, particularly birthing cycles crucial for hunting and survival.

Image 4: Proto-Writing and Lunar Calendar

In the last part, we introduce the concept of archaeological journaling, which in the way we propose it, is an adaptation of nature journaling. This approach encourages detailed recording of archaeological objects (which could also be done for archaeological sites or contexts) through sketches, notes, diagrams, and even noting down sensory observations like sounds and smells. Like in nature journaling, also in archaeology journaling artistic skill matters less than careful observation and personal engagement with the material. And we want to encourage everyone to take up a pen and a sketchbook and join us on our journey to sketch and explore object biographies in this new podcast series.

Literature references

The Lascaux cave today

* The official virtual tour of the Lascaux cave, including panoramic navigation and detailed views of major chambers: Lascaux Cave Virtual Visit

* A Google Street View 360° experience through parts of the Lascaux cave replica, offering spatial orientation within selected galleries: Lascaux Cave on Google Maps

* A focused art historical analysis of the Hall of Bulls and its stylistic and compositional elements: Hall of Bulls – Lascaux by Mary Beth Looney

* A report on the museum complex adjacent to Lascaux, created to preserve the original site while offering public access through high-fidelity replicas: Next to the Original, France Replicates Prehistoric Cave Paintings

The discovery of Lascaux

* A short timeline entry on the discovery of the Lascaux cave paintings on 12 September 1940, highlighting its historical significance: Lascaux Cave Paintings Discovered – This Day in History

* An overview of the Lascaux cave art, its discovery, and interpretation, including visuals and contextual information: Lascaux Cave Paintings

* A narrative article exploring how a dog named Robot led to the discovery of the cave, alongside details of the teenage boys involved: How Did a Dog Discover the Lascaux Cave Paintings?

* A concise research summary on the artistic and archaeological significance of Lascaux, written for general audiences: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered

* A general encyclopaedia entry on cave art, including Lascaux among key sites discussed, with emphasis on techniques, themes, and chronology: Cave Art

Ben Bacon discovers a proto-writing system

* The published paper on the proto-writing system by Bennett Bacon, Azadeh Khatiri, James Palmer, Tony Freeth, Paul Pettitt and Robert Kentridge

* A blog post with a short description of the proto-writing systemby Liz Goldsmith

* A chapter on gesture and graphic expression in early humans by Leroi-Gourhan (Chapter 6 from Gesture and Speech)

* A brief discussion of a possible fish depiction at La Pileta cave, interpreted as a Paleolithic halibut representation, raising questions about fishing practices and symbolic imagery: Paleolithic Fishing – La Pileta Halibut

* A detailed analysis of narrative structure and spatial composition in Palaeolithic cave art, focusing on sequencing and repetition in the Lascaux Shaft Scene: Cauwe, N. (2013). Narrative and Repetition in Palaeolithic Parietal Art (Palethnologie, 5)

Archaeology Journaling

* A practical guide on how to start and grow a nature journaling practice, including prompts, mindset, and techniques: Nature Journaling – Starting and Growing

* An introductory resource outlining what nature journaling is, its educational value, and its impact on observation and curiosity: What Is Nature Journaling?

* A comprehensive manual combining drawing instruction and journaling tips by John Muir Laws, focusing on engaging with nature through observation: The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling

* A companion volume with practical strategies for teaching nature journaling, suitable for educators, parents, and facilitators: How to Teach Nature Journaling

* A foundational work introducing nature journaling as a personal and scientific practice, co-authored by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth: Nature Journaling

Image references

Image 1: Lascaux Cave and Context

* A schematic map showing the location of the Lascaux cave in France, including an outline of the cave system itself: De Gruyter Brill – Fig. 13.1 [accessed 31 July 2025, 15:03 CEST]

* A detailed photograph of the Unicorn Panel in the Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux Cave, France. Photo by N. Aujoulat © MCC-CNP: De Gruyter Brill – Fig. 13.2 [accessed 1 August 2025, 10:31 CEST]

* A close-up of the bulls on the left wall of the Hall of the Bulls, from Lascaux II (the public replica of the original cave, c. 16,000–14,000 B.C.E.): Khan Academy – Lascaux [accessed 1 August 2025, 10:53 CEST]

Image 2: Discovery of the Cave

* A historic image of Marcel Ravidat (second from left) at the Lascaux cave entrance in 1940: On This Day article [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:05 CEST]; image hosted by: TheCollector – Discovery of Lascaux [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:11 CEST]

* Reunion photograph of Marcel, Simon, Georges, and Jacques, the original discoverers, standing at the Lascaux entrance in 1986: TheCollector – Lascaux Discoverers [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:14 CEST]; original via: Simon Coencas tribute [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:27 CEST]

Image 3: The Replica and Public Engagement

* A photograph of Lascaux II, the replica cave created for public access: France Bleu – Lascaux II [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:34 CEST]

Image 4: Proto-Writing and Lunar Calendar

* A photo of independent researcher Ben Bacon, who analysed notational systems in cave art: Hull Daily Mail – Portrait of Ben Bacon [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:46 CEST]

* A comparative visual plate of animal depictions and dot/line sequences, interpreted as notational markings:

* Aurochs (Lascaux, late period): Wikimedia Commons – Lascaux Aurochs [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:48 CEST]

* Aurochs (La Pasiega): image after Breuil et al. 1913, pl. XVIII

* Horse (Chauvet): Archived image [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:52 CEST]

* Horse (Mayenne-Sciences): Hominidés – Grotte Mayenne-Sciences [accessed 1 August 2025, 11:53 CEST]

* Red Deer (Lascaux): Wellcome Collection – CC BY 4.0 [accessed 1 August 2025, 12:01 CEST]

* Salmon (Abri du Poisson): © The Wendel Collection, Neanderthal Museum

* Salmon (?) and Mammoth (Pindal): images after Berenguer (1994, fig. 63) and H. Breuil in del Rio et al. (1911, fig. 57)

Source reference: Cambridge Archaeological Journal (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S0959774322000415 [accessed 1 August 2025, 12:03 CEST]

Things We Threw Away – Where to Find the Podcast

* TWTA on Substack – Updates, transcripts, and reflections from the project

* TWTA on Spotify – Listen and follow via Spotify

* TWTA on Apple Podcasts – Available through the Apple Podcasts directory

* TWTA on Instagram – Visual updates, behind the scenes, and illustrated content

* TWTA on Bluesky – Public discussions, reflections, and cross-links

Credits

* Intro and outro music: “Meeting for Two – Background Music for Video Vlog (Hip Hop version, 43s)” via Pixabay Music by White_Records

* Story interlude/underlying music: “Medieval Ambient” via Pixabay Music by DeusLower

* Research behind the script: Jona Schlegel

* Editing and post-production: Jona Schlegel

* Cover art: Stefanie Ulrich

Projects by the team members

Jona Schlegel

* Follow on Instagram (@archaeoink): Visual science communication through illustration, websites and archaeology

* jonaschlegel.com: Portfolio and background on archaeological communication, coding, and design

* archaeoink.com: Illustrated archaeology, blog posts, newsletter, and research-based visual storytelling

* pastforwardhub.com: A platform for (freelance) archaeologists who want to create a more sustainable career, be visible, and connect with others

Stefanie Ulrich

* Follow on Instagram (@thepublicarchaeologist): Photography of archaeological objects, and material encounters with a special focus on ancient Rom

Together, we get to explore archaeological objects and tell their stories, in the past and the present. We use research and drawing, including archaeology journaling, to engage with the objects, rethink how we interpret them and raise questions. We'll take a look at an object and the journey it's been on. We'll follow its path through time, starting with how it was made, modified and used - and how it got lost, how it was found again, and what research tells us about its interpretation today.

Music credits: White Records, Meeting for Two

https://pixabay.com/nl/music/beats-meeting-for-two-background-music-for-video-vlog-hip-hop-version-43sec-222254/