Marble Head of Roman Empress Found at the Ancient Site of Sagalassos
[Vlad Jecan is a science journalist and can be contacted via his personal website http://www.vladjecan.com.]
Archaeologists digging at the ancient site of Sagalassos, in Turkey, found a huge marble head of Faustina the Elder, wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius.
Initially, archaeologists have correlated the finding to Vibia Sabina. She was forced at the age of 14 to marry Hadrian and died in 136-137 AD. This assumption was eventually abandoned as the team managed to get a better look at the finding and the real identity of the marble head was revealed. It is a representation of Faustina the Elder, wife of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius.
The immense statue fragment was discovered in an ancient bath house filled with rubble only 6 meters away from the spot where last year the team found the colossal portrait of Hadrian. Faustina’s marble head was found in a room that was probably a frigidarium, a cold water pool where the Romans would go after having a hot bath.
“Just like Hadrians head, leg and right foot last year, Faustina's head was found in the collapse of the bath complex. In the mean time, also one arm, the two feet of Faustina the Elder as most probably the two feet of Antoninus Pius also turned up”, said Marc Waelkens, from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, who directed the excavations.
Waelkens said that the construction work of the Roman baths started under Emperor Hadrian who gave the city a privileged status by appointing it the center of the Imperial cult in the region of Pisidia. Later the building was dedicated to the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus in 165 AD when the room in which Fuastina and Hadrian have been discovered was the ‘Kaisersaal’. “This means that all emperors and empresses from Hadrian to Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina Minor, and Lucius Versu and his wife Lucilla must have stood in that room.”
Faustina the Elder
With Emperor Nerva in 96 AD, a new dynasty was founded, known as the Antonine dynasty that ruled Rome for about one century. The death of Commodus is 192 AD brought the Empire into Civil War and ended the dynasty. Antoninus Pius was adopted by Emperor Hadrian and ruled the Empire between 138 and 161 AD. His reign is known to have been mostly without wars or internal strife.
Antoninus got the epithet ‘pius’, meaning kind, affectionate, after he kindly asked the Senate not to ban the memory of his adoptive father, Emperor Hadrian. Of course he had other means at his disposal but preferred a more diplomatic one.
Quite infrequent for the royal family was a happy marriage, but this is not the case for Antoninus Pius and Faustina the Elder. Their marriage lasted for 31 years until Faustina’s death in 141 AD. It seems that she never interfered with the state’s policies nor did she try to politically influence her husband.
“It is a characteristic of all empresses of the Antonine dynasty that they did not try to influence their husbands’ policies,” said Waelkens.
We find Faustina the Elder to also have had a kind heart. She was well respected and came from a noble family. One aspect of her life that defines her character is her continuous involvement in charity work.
“She took measures in favor of orphaned children, especially girls”, Waelkens added.
After Faustina’s death Antoninus deified her and issued coins in her memory depicting her on one side with the inscription “Diva Faustina” (Divine Faustina).
Sagalassos
Sagalassos is an ancient site with thousands of years of history. The site was actually occupied by the first settlers in around 8000 BC. Millennia later we find various Hittite documents mentioning the site in 1,400 BC.
In Roman Imperial times, Sagalassos became the capital of Pisidia, a region in the western part of the Taurus Mountains, and quickly had economical success.
Waelkens said that this success was due to the building of Roman road ‘via Sabaste’ which was built in 6BC to link the colonies to the ports of Pamphylia. Local aristocrats saw the commercial benefits.
“The aristocrats of Sagalassos, which owned a territory of 1.200 sq. metres, embraced immediately the Roman cause and were rewarded with Roman citizenship, knighthood or even senatorship and became rich as the road allowed them to invest in cash crops export (grain, olives) and in the production and export of high quality red slipped table ware”, Marc Waelkens said.
Unfortunately, in 518 disaster came. A devastating earthquake shook the city and plague was responsible for the lives of many locals. But the city was finally abandoned just one hundred years later, in around 640, after another earthquake almost completely destroyed it.
Archaeologists digging at the ancient site of Sagalassos, in Turkey, found a huge marble head of Faustina the Elder, wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius.
Initially, archaeologists have correlated the finding to Vibia Sabina. She was forced at the age of 14 to marry Hadrian and died in 136-137 AD. This assumption was eventually abandoned as the team managed to get a better look at the finding and the real identity of the marble head was revealed. It is a representation of Faustina the Elder, wife of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius.
The immense statue fragment was discovered in an ancient bath house filled with rubble only 6 meters away from the spot where last year the team found the colossal portrait of Hadrian. Faustina’s marble head was found in a room that was probably a frigidarium, a cold water pool where the Romans would go after having a hot bath.
“Just like Hadrians head, leg and right foot last year, Faustina's head was found in the collapse of the bath complex. In the mean time, also one arm, the two feet of Faustina the Elder as most probably the two feet of Antoninus Pius also turned up”, said Marc Waelkens, from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, who directed the excavations.
Waelkens said that the construction work of the Roman baths started under Emperor Hadrian who gave the city a privileged status by appointing it the center of the Imperial cult in the region of Pisidia. Later the building was dedicated to the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus in 165 AD when the room in which Fuastina and Hadrian have been discovered was the ‘Kaisersaal’. “This means that all emperors and empresses from Hadrian to Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina Minor, and Lucius Versu and his wife Lucilla must have stood in that room.”
Faustina the Elder
With Emperor Nerva in 96 AD, a new dynasty was founded, known as the Antonine dynasty that ruled Rome for about one century. The death of Commodus is 192 AD brought the Empire into Civil War and ended the dynasty. Antoninus Pius was adopted by Emperor Hadrian and ruled the Empire between 138 and 161 AD. His reign is known to have been mostly without wars or internal strife.
Antoninus got the epithet ‘pius’, meaning kind, affectionate, after he kindly asked the Senate not to ban the memory of his adoptive father, Emperor Hadrian. Of course he had other means at his disposal but preferred a more diplomatic one.
Quite infrequent for the royal family was a happy marriage, but this is not the case for Antoninus Pius and Faustina the Elder. Their marriage lasted for 31 years until Faustina’s death in 141 AD. It seems that she never interfered with the state’s policies nor did she try to politically influence her husband.
“It is a characteristic of all empresses of the Antonine dynasty that they did not try to influence their husbands’ policies,” said Waelkens.
We find Faustina the Elder to also have had a kind heart. She was well respected and came from a noble family. One aspect of her life that defines her character is her continuous involvement in charity work.
“She took measures in favor of orphaned children, especially girls”, Waelkens added.
After Faustina’s death Antoninus deified her and issued coins in her memory depicting her on one side with the inscription “Diva Faustina” (Divine Faustina).
Sagalassos
Sagalassos is an ancient site with thousands of years of history. The site was actually occupied by the first settlers in around 8000 BC. Millennia later we find various Hittite documents mentioning the site in 1,400 BC.
In Roman Imperial times, Sagalassos became the capital of Pisidia, a region in the western part of the Taurus Mountains, and quickly had economical success.
Waelkens said that this success was due to the building of Roman road ‘via Sabaste’ which was built in 6BC to link the colonies to the ports of Pamphylia. Local aristocrats saw the commercial benefits.
“The aristocrats of Sagalassos, which owned a territory of 1.200 sq. metres, embraced immediately the Roman cause and were rewarded with Roman citizenship, knighthood or even senatorship and became rich as the road allowed them to invest in cash crops export (grain, olives) and in the production and export of high quality red slipped table ware”, Marc Waelkens said.
Unfortunately, in 518 disaster came. A devastating earthquake shook the city and plague was responsible for the lives of many locals. But the city was finally abandoned just one hundred years later, in around 640, after another earthquake almost completely destroyed it.