Best Art & Archaeology News of 2024
In this special edition of the Crossroads Roundup, we'll look back on my favorite stories from this past year.
This year brought many exciting discoveries, from the ruins of Pompeii to Paul Cézanne’s home in Aix-en-Provence. Today, we’ll look back on some of my favorites.
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From the February 25th Roundup: “A previously unknown mural by Paul Cézanne has been discovered during restorations of Bastide du Jas de Bouffan, the artist’s family home in Aix-en-Provence.”
I was thrilled back in February to learn about this discovery at Paul Cézanne’s family home:
Buried under decades of wallpaper and plaster, the mural Entrée du port depicts what appears to be a port scene; while much of the work has been lost to time, one can make out the masts of ships, sails, and buildings on the edge of the mural. Restorers made the initial discovery this August in the Grand Salon of Bastide du Jas de Bouffan, and after months of research and careful restoration work, the mural’s discovery was announced this week.
The mural was created some time between 1859 and 1864; Cézanne’s father bought the property in 1859, and the artist painted over the mural with another work, Jeu de cache-cache, in 1864. In addition to Jeu de cache-cache and the newly discovered Entrée du port, Cézanne painted eight other murals in the house from the year his father purchased the property up until 1869.
After the Granel-Corsy family bought the house in 1899, all of the murals (except for Entrée du port) were transferred onto canvases and now reside in museums around the world. This fantastic new discovery will be featured in festivities in 2025, when Aix-en-Provence will host a celebration of Paul Cézanne’s life and connection to the region.
If you’d like to learn more about Cézanne, you can read his entry in my Impressionists series here.
Discoveries at Pompeii…
The year also brought exciting progress in the ongoing excavations at Pompeii, including several stunning frescoes.
From the March 3rd Roundup:
The fresco depicts the Greek myth of Phrixus and Helle—siblings who escape their stepmother’s murderous plot when their birth mother’s spirit sends a ram with golden fleece to rescue them. In their flight, Helle falls off the ram and drowns in the sea. (This is the scene depicted in the fresco.) Phrixus survives and marries the daughter of King Aeëtes, who receives the golden fleece in tribute.
As Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of Pompeii Archaeological Park, poignantly observed, “It is a beautiful fresco in an excellent state of conservation. The myth of Phrixus and Helle is widespread at Pompeii but it is topical too. They are two refugees at sea, a brother and sister, forced to flee because their stepmother wants rid of them and she does so with deception and corruption. She [Helle] fell into the water and drowned.”
From the April 15th Roundup:
… archaeologists revealed that they had found a beautiful banquet hall during their ongoing excavations. The hall is decorated with frescoes, and some of the art survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Images include depictions of Helen of Troy and Paris (above), Leda and the Swan, and the Trojan priestess Cassandra, who was doomed by Apollo to speak true prophecies that no one believed.
How were the pyramids of Egypt built?
This is a subject full of controversy and ripe for conspiracy theories. Did aliens build the pyramids? Was it ancient magic inaccessible to us today?
As someone who firmly believes in the enormous potential of human beings, I can confidently say that people, not aliens, built the pyramids. This year, archaeologists came one step closer to discovering how they did it.
From the May 20th Roundup: “A groundbreaking study on the pyramids of ancient Egypt offers new insights into the strategic location of these cherished monuments.”
The study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment used radar satellite imagery, geophysical data, and deep soil coring to analyze the shifts in the branches of the Nile River over the centuries.
Rivers, as you may know, change their course as their currents erode the banks that surround them. The Nile was essential to life in ancient Egypt, both as a means of travel and trade, and as a natural fertilizer for farming communities. It makes sense, then, that the pyramids of ancient Egypt would have been constructed close to the Nile, even though they aren’t nearby today.
Researchers were able to determine that an ancient branch of the Nile, dubbed the Ahramat Branch, once flowed exactly along the pyramids of the Old and Middle Kingdoms (see the above photo). This amazing discovery could offer future researchers insights into how the pyramids were constructed and how the river acted as an essential resource in that process.
Researchers also debated the hypothesis that the ancient Egyptians used hydraulic lifts to construct the pyramids. From the August 12th Roundup:
This week, I came across a related study from PLOS One, in which its authors theorize that hydraulic force may have been used to build the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara. The Step Pyramid is the oldest major stone building in Egypt, designed by the architect and physician Imhotep and constructed from 2670-2650 B.C. (during the Third Dynasty).
The study’s authors argue that ancient Egyptians could have used hydraulic lifts to carry the 650-pound stones (about 300 kilos) in order to construct the Step Pyramid. It is true that the Egyptians used hydraulic power to build other structures, but as this article from the Smithsonian Magazine details, not everyone is convinced.
In reference to the theory of a hydraulic lift system being in use, Cambridge geoarchaeologist Judith Bunbury stated: “While information from this period is sparse, it is not absent, and it is surprising when so many other details of daily life and technologies are recorded in the Old Kingdom tomb scenes and texts like the Red Sea Scrolls, that this type of device is omitted if it were in use.”
Others, like archaeologist Julia Budka of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, expressed skepticism regarding the expertise of the study’s authors: “My biggest concerns about the study are that no Egyptologists or archaeologists were directly involved and that the authors actually question the use of the Djoser Pyramid as a burial site. Scientifically, their hypothesis is not proven at all.”
(This study was conducted not by a university, but by a private research institute called Paleotechnic.)
An emotional discovery under an Armenian dragon stone, featured in the July 8th Roundup: “Rather poignantly, this mighty dragon has spent the past several thousand years watching over two infants buried beneath it.”
… I was touched to read this news that an Armenian vishapakar, or “dragon stone,” was found to be guarding two infant burials. DNA testing of the infants’ remains found that the children were female and second-degree relatives. (Second-degree relatives have one member separating them, so these girls could have been half-sisters, an aunt and niece, etc.) The burials date from the 16th century B.C.
Dragon stones are basalt monoliths found in the Armenian Highlands. They feature carvings of fish heads or serpents that represent vishaps (water dragons in Armenian folklore). Almost all dragon stones can be found near springs or other bodies of water.
However, as the study published in ScienceDirect points out, it’s rare to find burials of children from Late Bronze Age Armenia, especially one accompanied by a dragon stone.
I’ll admit, I grew emotional while reading about this find. Despite the thousands of years between us and the Bronze Age community who created this monolith, I’m struck by our shared humanity. Losing an infant is devastating even if you live in a time period in which child mortality is common, and I can vividly imagine the family who wanted a little guardian to watch over their babies’ final resting place.
Another amazing story from the July 8th Roundup: “This 51,200-year-old rock art found in Indonesia may be the earliest example of visual storytelling.”
While archaeologists have found geometric cave art in southern Africa dating as far back as 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, the above image—which shows three human-like figures interacting with a pig—may be the earliest example of narrative art.
This art was found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers described using laser technology to remove tiny pieces of the art to test its age. Prior to this discovery, the oldest known narrative art dated to about 48,000 years ago.
As early humans did not have a written language at this point, this art provides the oldest known evidence of storytelling. However, oral storytelling traditions likely stretch further back than the development of narrative art. Adhi Agus Oktaviana, one of the study’s authors, explained to the BBC, “Humans have probably been telling stories for much longer than 51,200 years, but as words do not fossilize we can only go by indirect proxies like depictions of scenes in art—and the Sulawesi art is now the oldest such evidence by far that is known to archaeology.”
A story of perseverance from the November 29th Roundup: “Could the ‘sacred arc’ theory of Stone Age-Britain be true?”
I was intrigued by this story in the Smithsonian Magazine by Margherita Bassi about archaeologist Alan Endacott, who has long believed in the “sacred arc” theory, in which “Stone Age people in southwestern England built a ring—not an arc, as the name suggests—of Stonehenge-like circles of rocks in the Devon uplands.” Endacott was the discoverer of the Sittaford stone circle in 2007, which led him to continue looking for Stone Age sites in the area.
In a recent excavation at Dartmoor National Park, Endacott’s findings have brought him one step closer to confirming his theory. He and his team found not one but two stone circles, each about 5,000 years old—making them the same age of the central part of Stonehenge.
Endacott named one of the circles “Metheral” after a nearby hill, and it is composed of twenty stones. Bassi reports: “Significantly, the Metheral circle seems to align with seven other stone monuments in the shape of a half-circle, supporting the sacred arc theory. It sits on the opposite end of the arc from the Sittaford site.”
Endacott is currently finishing his doctorate in archaeology at the University of Exeter. Susan Greaney, a fellow archaeologist at Exeter who was not involved in the project, told Live Science, “This ‘arc’ of circles, measuring more than eight kilometers [five miles] across, is rather extraordinary and suggests the upland area of northern Dartmoor it encloses was particularly special to prehistoric people.”
It’s an extraordinary achievement, one that conveys how much there is still left to be discovered in the world, especially regarding prehistoric sites. I applaud Endacott’s determination and patience in pursuing what appears to be the project of a lifetime.
And finally, the grand reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris:
This month, Notre-Dame Cathedral finally reopened to the public. In anticipation of this wonderful event, I shared the above video in the November 29th Roundup; it profiles the wonderful artists and craftspeople who made the reopening possible.
Especially fascinated by the ancient Egyptian piece. Happy Holidays from us both!