Web Portal Arhicup
DESCRIPTION
1. ARHICUP Selective bibliography of the Black Sea
2. Web Portal
3. 3D Scanning: Lamp with Phrygian mask
4. 3D Scanning: Byzantine amphora
6. 3D Scanning: Bronze vessel with bacchic representations (oinochoe)
7. 3D Scanning: Binoculars-shaped vessel from Ciulucani
8. 3D Scanning: Bronze sarmatian casserola, Cobusca Veche
9. 3D Scanning: Bronze finial from Răscăieții Noi
12. Digital Library
14. 3D Adamclisi
Web Portal
Represents the main product of the project Black Sea Archaeology, History and Culture Portal – ARHICUP (BSB867), which will be accessible to the public from November 2022 at https://arhicup.net/en/.
Through it, information on the archaeological, historical and cultural heritage of the western region of the Black Sea will be widely disseminated. The data will be provided by the three project partners, and museums, academic institutions, research groups, NGOs, collectors, and individuals will be invited to participate, whose contributions and involvement will be welcomed and mentioned on the project website, but also on events.
Therefore, the web portal will combine data from different sources, which it will present in different digital formats. This will include:
- an integrated library system (ILS) for collecting bibliographic data;
- a digital library for description and presentation of photo, audio, video data collections;
- an utility for presenting 3D models of archaeological objects, as well as parts of archaeological sites, buildings or monuments;
- a digital collection of old maps from the Black Sea region;
- a Web-GIS for georeferencing the presented objects.
By establishing a thematic bibliographic base, consisting of both scientific and popular books, dedicated to archaeology, history, cartography and culture of the Black Sea region, the web portal will facilitate access for researchers, businesspeople and the general public to the information they contain. Their presentation in the global de facto standard for describing bibliographic data, MARC21, will make automated search possible.
The history of European cartography reveals the evolution of ideas about the region, as well as the political development of today’s states. To this end, a collection of digitized old maps will be created, coming from different sources: local and national archives, libraries and museums, public and private collections, open access repositories. They will be created with standardized metadata descriptions and the georeferencing option.
The project will include 3D scanning stations that will be used to scan archaeological artifacts and monuments, which will be presented in interactive 3D format on the web portal. The scan will be performed by museum specialists from each city participating in the project, an action in which students of the profile faculties will be involved. Three short-term expeditions of a joint team of the three partners will be organized for 3D scanning of selected archaeological sites in each participating country.
The electronic version of the cartographic exhibition catalog will be posted on the web portal, as well as the conference materials on “Black Sea Archeology as a Factor in Cultural Tourism”, which will be organized in Nessebar towards the end of the project.
3D Scanning: Lamp with Phrygian mask
Bronze lamp, with piriform body, made by the “hollow cast” technique. The disc extends on the surface of the beak and around the lighting hole and is framed by a flat outer border, doubled by a curved border. It has a filling hole in the center of the tank, and the foot is tronconic. The handle, flat and curved, ends with a mask with a human figure, styled with curls and tails, wearing a Phrygian hat on his head.
Dimensions: Height = 10.7 cm; Length= 19 cm. It has small damaged surfaces.
Place of discovery: Mamaia (Constanţa, Constanța County), in a tomb of limestone slabs like a sarcophagus. In the Museum of National History and Archeology Constanța Collection; Inv. no. 16.044.
Dated: second half of the 1st century AD. and the first half of the 2nd century AD.
Bibliography: Constantin Iconomu, Opaițe greco-romane [Greco-Roman lampes], Constanța, Muzeul Regional de Arheologie Dobrogea,1967, p. 156-157, fig. 1 at p. 5; Gavrilă Simion, Opaițe greco-romane de bronz din România [Greco-Roman bronze lampes from Romania], Cluj-Napoca – Tulcea, Editura Nereamia Napocae, 2003, p. 55, Pl. XXI.
(After G. Simion, 2003, Pl. XXI, p. 55.)
3D Scanning: Byzantine amphora
Pyriform amphora with a neck like a funnel, an upturned lip, thickened outwards like a collar, and a rounded base. The large handles, oval in section, start a little higher than the middle of the neck and rise obliquely, slightly exceeding the level of the lip (towards the exterior of which they stick), so that after a bend instead of going down vertically on the shoulder of the vessel. The body, ovoid, has thick walls and presents horizontal grooves on the shoulder and at the base. It was made of relatively clean paste, with rare small microparticles. After burning, the vessel became red-orange. On the shoulder a mark was incised after burning, towards one of the legs. It shows no traces of engobe on the outer surface. Type Günsenin IIa.
Dimensions: Height = 46 cm (with handles); Maximum diameter = 25,7 cm. Very good state of conservation.
Place of discovery: Sinoe Lake (Constanța County, Romania). Collection of the Museum of National History and Archaeology Constanța.
Dating: the end of the 10th century – the 11th century AD.
Bibliography: Cristina Paraschiv-Talmaţchi, Gabriel Custurea, Nouvelles données sur les découvertes sous-aquatiques du littoral roumain, Pontica, 48-49, 2015-2016, p. 241-279, no. 10; Cristina Paraschiv-Talmaţchi, Researches of byzantine amphorae discovered in Southern Dobrudja (10th-14th century), Русский Сборник, 8/1, Брянск, 2016, p. 130-143.
3D Scanning: Bronze foot
It comes from a life-size statue, probably depicting a dignitary or prominent citizen, which was made during a prosperous period of the city. The foot is shown wearing sandals (sandalium – solea), with a thick sole and faces made of ribons. The strap heats the ankle and is tied to the front by a prominent knot, from which hang the long ends. The strap that connects the sole to the strap is adorned with a prominent button.
Dimensions: Length = 21 cm; Width = 10.5 cm. It does not retain the heel and has small damaged surfaces.
Place of discovery: Kallatis – Mangalia (Constanța County, Romania); fortuitous discovery, in a sewer ditch. Collection of the Museum of National History and Archaeology Constanța; Inv. no. 4000.
Dating: 2nd – 3rd centuries AD.
Bibliography: Mihai Irimia, Bronzuri figurate [Figured bronzes], Constanța, Muzeul Regional de Arheologie Dobrogea, 1966, p. 43-44.
3D Scanning: Bronze vessel with bacchic representations (oinochoe)
Cup with narrow mouth and arched overflow, narrow neck, body with maximum diameter in the shoulder area and raised pedestal. The handle, raised, shows in the upper part a figurative group, which depicts a satyr with a cheerful face holding in his arms the child Bacchus, and in the lower part a figurine representing a young Bacchus. In length, the handle was decorated with embossed bacchic symbols (kantharos, garlands, leaf and flower vines, a syrinx). The figures and ornaments were made of bronze and are inlaid with silver. Mugs of this type were usually part of a handwashing service, used in the sacred environment before the sacrificial officer and in the profane environment during the meal.
Dimensions: Height = 24 cm; Maximum diameter = 12.8 cm. It has small damaged surfaces.
Place of discovery: Kallatis – Mangalia (Constanța County, Romania); tumulus, in an incineration tomb. Collection of the Museum of National History and Archaeology Constanța; Inv. no. 4186.
Dating: second half of the 1st century AD – 2nd century AD.
Bibliography: Mihai Irimia, Bronzuri figurate [Figured bronzes], Constanța, Muzeul Regional de Arheologie Dobrogea,1966, p. 27-29; Liviu Petculescu (ed.), Antique Bronzes in Romania. Exhibition Catalogue, Bucharest, The National History Museum of Romania, 2003, p.145, no. 212.
3D Scanning: Binoculars-shaped vessel from Ciulucani
The artifact was discovered in 1990 near the village of Ciulucani in the Teleneşti District, Republic of Moldova, during the arrangement of a pond. In the same year, the archaeologist Tatiana Todorova carried out excavations in the settlement, which were meant to save part of its area from imminent destruction. The settlement of Ciulucani I is located on the slope of the valley of a stream, a left tributary of the Ciulucul Mic River, 12 km north of the village of Ciulucani.
The vessel belongs to the Cucuteni culture, one of the oldest civilizations in Europe (5200 to 3200 BC), which was named after the eponymous village near Iaşi, where in 1884 the first its remains were discovered. The Cucuteni culture preceded all human settlements in Sumer and Ancient Egypt by several hundred years. The Cucuteni culture (Ukrainian: Trypillian culture) spread over an area of 350,000 square kilometers, on the current territory of Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.
The Cucuteni settlements had a protourban organization, with houses built of clay on wooden structures. The communities practiced hunting, agriculture and domestic crafts, such as weaving, pottery, and making tools. The predominant colors on Cucuteni ceramics are red, white and black.
The binocular object represents two ceramic tubes joined by means of three bars (bridges) arranged horizontally, being as such composed of two monocles with funnel-shaped ends. The yellow-pink vessel is modeled from a fine clay body and decorated with painted ornament, for which natural black-brown dyes were used. Such a shape had as prototype a similar wooden construction. In some cases, the extremities had holes, i.e. forming a whole with the support tube, in other cases, rarer, such as the Ciulucani object, they represent small phials. The evolution of this type of vessels takes place in the classical period of the Cucuteni culture, until the beginning of the gradual degradation of the quality of the vessels of this culture. So far there are no reliable opinions on the functionality of this type of vessel, which are specific only to the Cucuteni culture, but several researchers opt for the assumption that they were used in ritual practice and are among the best chronological and spatial indicators. Each binoculars-shaped vessel discovered so far do not have the same patterns, all of which are unique.
The object has a height of 188 mm, the diameters of the extremities vary from 111 to 112.5 mm, the width of the vessel is 290 mm. Dating: 4th millennium BC.
3D Scanning: Bronze sarmatian casserola, Cobusca Veche
Truncated bronze casserole, with slightly flared rim, thickened bottom, and the handle finished with a disc with a central round perforation. Inside, the bottom is ornamented with concentric circles, bordered by a register of small straight lines arranged radially.
Such casseroles belong to the most widespread type in the Roman military environment and are represented in the Sarmatian tombs in the North-Pontic area. Regarding the place of their production, it was established that they were made in workshops in southern Italy (Campania or Latium), one of the safe centers being Capua.
Casserole from the destroyed tomb at Cobusca Veche, Anenii Noi district, Republic of Moldova, dates from the second half of the 1st century BC.
Bibliography: Vitalie Bîrcă, Câteva consideraţii privind vasele metalice de import din mediul sarmatic nord–pontic In Near and Beyond the Roman Frontier. Proceedings of a colloquim held in Târgovişte, 16–17 october 2008, Bucureşti, 2009, p. 85–124.
3D Scanning: Bronze finial from Răscăieții Noi
This unusual object of the Scythian period was found in 1953 by a village teacher A.I. Shiryaev at the top of a mound near the village of Răscăieţii Noi in the Ştefan Vodă District, Republic of Moldova. A quarter of a century later, excavations in 1979 revealed that this outstanding mound (about 10 m high and more than 40 m in diameter) was erected in the Early Bronze Age, at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Then, two thousand years later, there were buried Scythians, with which, apparently, other finds are associated, a cauldron and a finial, cast in bronze.
The finial from Răscăieţii Noi is one of the items made in the Scythian animal style, a special manner of decoration that spread along with the culture of the early nomads of Eurasia from Central Europe to the Black Sea region and the Caucasus, from the Volga region to southern Siberia, from Central Asia to Mongolia and northern China. However, in spite of the general Eurasian coverage, the artifact from Răscăieţii Noi contains features characteristic mainly of Eastern Europe. Firstly, it was the Eastern European nomads who preferred to portray both daytime birds of prey (Falconiformes) and individual parts of their body: their head or beak. Secondly, the “European” bestiary of the Scythian animal style (as opposed to the “Asian” Scythian-Siberian bestiary) often includes fantastic animals (and their various “artistic transformations”) that came here under the influence of the cultures of the Middle East. Thus, the “fantastic” image of the Răscăieţii Noi artifact is given by a beak bent in one and a half turns, which does not happen in nature. Thirdly, the very shape of the object is characteristic only for the North Caucasus, the steppes of the Black Sea region and the Ukrainian forest-steppe.
Such finials were interpreted as symbols of power, as a kind of standard banners, and even as decorations for the masts of ships. However, most researchers consider them to be associated with funeral processions, most likely to decorate funeral canopies, carts or chariots. The latter version seems to be the most preferable, especially since similar decorations are found on the images of the chariots of the Middle East. In terms of style, the artifact from Răscăieţii Noi is associated with finials from the mounds of the Ukrainian forest-steppe and the North Caucasus, however, performed in a more realistic manner. It seems that the specimen from Răscăieţii Noi shows further stylization of the image, reaching its highest stage, when the beak is only guessed in the curls of the upper part of the finial, but the pronounced cere and relief eye still emphasize the resemblance to the head of a bird of prey. From the middle of the 5th century BC things made in such a stylized manner penetrate into the steppes of the Black Sea region, including the bank of the Dniester in its lower reaches, where the finial was found near the village of Răscăieţii Noi.