This article examines the incised drawings of Early Phrygian Gordion, and in particular those of Megaton 2. Aspects of their iconographic and archaeological contexts are taken in to consideration, as well as literary sources and especially the story of the Gordian knot. The focus of the study is a series of incised labyrinths, which have hitherto not been recognized as such, but which are of particular interest for the analysis of this building. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in the labyrinth helps to throw light on both the images of Megaton 2 but also on the story of the Gordion knot, and how these are interlinked with each other. It is suggested that Ariadne's ball of thread and the Gordian knot are two different expressions of a similar concept; both represent sovereignty provided by a Goddess. Megaron 2 seems to have been a building that was intimately connected with both the king and the Phrygian Mother Goddess.

The material evidence left from the cult of Sabazios is meagre, apart from sculpted bronze hands dating to the Roman Empire. The hand is held in a certain pose, the so-called benedictio Latina gesture, and the hand was often covered with depictions of various objects and symbols. The bronze hands were probably attached to staffs and carried around in processions. This practice most likely spread via the channels of the Roman army during the Early Imperial period, but the gesture existed much earlier. The gesture is found on Attic black- and red-figured pottery, and is frequently associated with Hermes in his role as instructor and Psychopompos. From the beginning of the Hellenistic period the gesture was mainly used as an indication of speech, and for knowledge transmitted through speech. There are several examples of how the gesture was used to indicate the knowledge revealed through the initiations of mystery cults. Hermes is closely associated with Sabazios and is represented on the bronze hands, probably because of his role as instructor and Psychopompos; i.e. the position played by the mystagogue in the Sabazian mysteries. The gesture of the hands simply denoted the knowledge acquired through the initiation. The symbols on the hands are often associated with the Underworld, and it is suggested that knowledge acquired in the Sabazian mysteries dealt with life after death and the Underworld.

This volume contains studies on Classical Antiquity presented to Professor Pontus Hellström on his 75th birthday in January 2014. The 41 papers cover subjects ranging from the Etruscans and Rome in the west, to Greece, the landscape of Karia, and to the Sanctuary of Zeus at Labraunda. Many papers deal with new discoveries at Labraunda, but sites in the surrounding area, such as Alabanda, Iasos, and Halikarnassos are well represented, as well as Ephesos and Smyrna. Many architectural studies are included, and these examine both Labraundan buildings and topics such as masonry, Vitruvius, the Erechtheion, stoas, watermills, and Lelegian houses. Other papers deal with ancient coins, ancient music, Greek meatballs, and Karian theories on the origin of ancient Greece.

Sacred movement to the Karian sanctuary of Labraunda in Late Antiquity is here for the first time closely examined. The focus is set on scrutinizing the material remains that emerged from these journeys, and this will be further supplemented by a brief survey of what is known about the equivalent occur- rence in the Imperial period. It is argued that Labraunda's strategic location along the mountain passage between the Mylasa plain and the Karian inland provided safe over-night accommodation and trade opportunities, which consequently stimulated the economy of the sanctuary. Two churches have been excavated immediately outside of the ancient temenoswall, dating from the foundation of Labraunda as a Christian locus sanctus during the early fifth century. The topography of Labraunda with its rich water sources and fertile terraces, along with the eco- nomically fortunate locality, formed an appealing milieu that kept the site's importance also during the Byzantine Middle period.

This paper discusses the results from recent archaeological investigations at the Monastery of St Antony in Egypt, including the remains of a number of building phases predating the current church, locally produced pottery, and manuscript fragments written in Coptic, Arabic, Hebrew, and Ge'ez.

The report presents a summary and preliminary discussion on the workcarried out by the Swedish Institute at ancient Kalaureia between 2015 and2018 in Area L. The excavations were focused on this area with the hopes ofgaining a better understanding of the settlement which was situated southof the Sanctuary of Poseidon in antiquity. The excavations show that a largebuilding was constructed probably around the middle of the 4th centuryBC in the western part of Area L. The full outline and functional use ofthe building has not yet been fully established but the building seems tohave been in use in several subsequent phases. The excavated remains further suggest that dining activities were carried out in the southern part ofthe building. A stone laid feature (Feature 3) excavated immediately to theeast, together with charcoal deposits, also provide indications of cookingin the 3rd century BC at least. The feature was, however, covered by the2nd century BC when a new wall was constructed which seems to connectthe building with a broader structural complex to the south. During thisperiod parts of Area L seem to have been used for olive oil production,identifiable through archaeobotanical remains, multiple pithoi, and a pressinstallation excavated in the central part of Area L. In the Late Hellenisticto Early Roman phase (either in the 1st century BC or 1st century AD)much of the building complex was again covered by a new construction fill,raising the level of the building.

Suomella on 17 ulkomailla toimivaa instituuttia, joista neljän tehtävänä on tehdä tutkimusta ja edistää suomalaisen tieteen tuntemusta maailmalla. Tieteen kansainvälistymisestä on puhuttu paljon, mutta instituuteissa tutkimuksen tekeminen kotimaan ulkopuolella on ollut normaalia arkea jo yli 60 vuoden ajan. Suomen Rooman-instituutti aloitti toimintansa vuonna 1954 ja sen jälkeen perustetut Ateenan, Lähi-idän ja Japanin instituutit ovat nekin jo aikuisiässä. Myös neljän kulttuuri-instituutin, Lontoo, Madrid, Pietari ja Saksa, toiminnassa tiede ja tutkimus ovat tärkeitä, vaikka kulttuuri onkin pääosassa.

This article presents a single fragmentary folio that was recently uncovered in excavations at the Monastery of St Antony (Egypt). This folio was discovered in a secondary deposit below the foundations of a church which was in all likelihood constructed in the 1230s. A radiocarbon dating of the folio has returned a date of 1160–1265. Together, these two data make this fragmentary folio the earliest securely datable specimen of an Ethiopic manuscript. This find, thus, provides a new foundation for the analysis of the paleography of the earliest Ethiopic manuscripts, including the gospel manuscripts from Ǝnda Abba Gärima, which contain paleographic features that seem to predate this fragmentary folio. In addition, this find has implications for the regnant periodization of Ethiopic literature and more specifically the history of Ethiopic monastic literature, especially the Zena Abäw. Finally, this folio is among the earliest surviving Aethiopica for the entirety of Egypt and thus provides new information on the relationship between Ethiopic and Coptic Christianity.

Upon walking toward the entrance of the archaeological site in Delphi, one can today see three drums from an octagonal column of small dimensions. Even if the excavation circumstances of this column remain unpublished, the construction technique and the reconstruction of the column indicate that it has been an Archaic votive column. Polygonal columns are found in Greek architecture from the Geometric period and throughout the Archaic period, during the period when local architectural innovation and design where commonly used. During the 7th and early 6th century BC this developed into a local architectural style of Doric octagonal columns in the eastern Peloponnese, the costal islands and the southern Greek mainland. They were used in secular and religious buildings, as well as freestanding monuments. Most probably these towns made a manifestation of their own identity by using their own architectural style in the Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi, as they had also done by constructing an Archaic treasury with octagonal columns in the Panhellenic sanctuary of Nemea.

Grave columns and pillars are often mentioned in older research publication as a phenomenon of the Archaic period. The Archaic grave columns has been claimed to be Doric, mainly dated in the 6th century BC and used in the entire Greek world. They were a status symbol, used by the rich to symbolize the funerary games, show off a prize standing on top of it or to associate the deceased with the heroes of the past. When examining these statements closer, one realizes that these assumptions are made on a very small number of excavated funerary columns and few researchers have made a comparison of the published Archaic grave columns. Architectural or freestanding columns are by no means common prior to 500 BC, even if this is the century when they are exploding in numbers. The larger part of all columns in the Archaic period were constructed in sanctuaries, but grave columns seem to be a relatively rare phenomenon. 

Smaller grave columns, often defined as pillars or cippis in modern publications, were much more common. They were used from the Geometric period and onwards, but got a large upswing in numbers during the Hellenistic period. Most of these lack inscriptions, especially from the earlier periods. They design varies much, they can be entirely undecorated and quite roughly cut or highly polished with relief decorations, but they seldom include a proper capital as a column should. The main question is therefore if there has been a shift in definition of a grave column between the 19th and early 20th century scholars and modern studies, or if the hypothesis of an Archaic column is yet another myth base on a few randomly excavated examples? Were freestanding columns really used more commonly as funerary markers during the Archaic period? 

The multi-cultural area of ancient Epirus and southern Illyria invented a distinctive local style of architecture in the late Classical and Hellenistic period, by importing previously used shapes from older local styles of Greek architecture, as the decorative elements from western Peloponnese, the prolonged columns from Macedonia and the Archaic octagonal columns from the eastern Peloponnese. Even if many of the town were founded much earlier, some as Greek colonies, others as local settlements, the large urban development and construction happened in the 3rd century BC. The towns made themselves independent from imported material by using the commonly available hard local limestone for column shaft and sandstone for capitals, materials often counted as improper by modern researchers, but not uncommonly used for Greek columns in the Hellenistic period. Their production of Doric octagonal columns held the same high technological quality as columns elsewhere in the Greek world, sometimes used with an upper story of Ionic fluted columns. After WW2 the polygonal shaped columns were downgraded as a second rate phenomenon, while earlier researchers complied with Vitruvius and counted polygonal columns as an alternative Doric shape. The Doric octagonal columns were used in highly visible and prominent locations in Epirus and Illyria, often in stoas in the city centre and was taken up as a manifestation of identity of the unified tribes of the Epirote League. The re-invention of Doric octagonal columns must therefore have been an intentional aesthetical choice of cultural self-identification within the Greek cultural sphere. 

Under renässansen började en idealisk bild av den grekiska arkitekturen byggas upp. Detta utifrån studier av den romerske författaren Vitruvius. En bild av en strikt arkitektonisk “ordning” formades. Vi har den doriska, den joniska och den korintiska stilen med sina olika arkitektoniska element. Men reflekterar den bilden hur man egentligen valde att bygga?

I dagens avsnitt gästas vi av Therese Emanuelsson-Paulson, postdoc vid institutionen för arkeologi och antikens kultur vid Stockholms universitet, som kommer ge oss en snabbkurs i vad grekisk arkitektur egentligen är.

Den här historiepodden handlar om allt mellan Zeus och Hades: arkitektur, slag, sex, enskilda personer, religion och mytologi, mat, bajs, konst och mycket mer. En perfekt podd för dig som vill veta mer om Romarriket, antikens Grekland, Egypten och flera av de andra folk och kulturer som levde och verkade runt Medelhavet under den här perioden.

Archaic polygonal columns are found in Amanthus, Idalion, Kition, Marion and Palaepaphos, where the latter is the only site with numerous examples and the polygonal shape might even be more common than other column shapes. The inspiration for polygonal columns has been sought in Egyptian or Mycenaean architecture, but probably the Assyrian and Hittite use of polygonal columns down to the 7th century BC is a more likely source of inspiration. These columns mainly carries Leaf or Helmet capitals, where the former is inspired by Assyrian or Phoenician capitals, while the later might be a local invention. In the same period similarly shaped polygonal columns with Doric capitals appears in Greece, likely originating from the same inspiration or possibly secondary inspired from Cyprus. Simultaneously in both regions, the polygonal columns vanish around 500 BC, when the war with the Persians escalates. 

A decorated column is not a necessary; a wooden pier would often suffice. Columns and decorated architecture in general, were most often used to express once wealth, status or identity, either within the own group or collectively towards other groups of people. The use of polygonal votive columns dedicated in the open air sanctuary in Palaepaphos seems therefore to be a local religious tradition similar to the Phoenician or Canaanite sanctuaries. The column from Kition also originates in a sanctuary, next to a Phoenician temple. It is therefore possible that the few polygonal columns found in other sites, mainly sanctuaries are also dedicated by either people for Palaepaphos or of a similar tradition, possibly Phoenicians. When polygonal columns disappear around 500 BC likely either the people left or the polygonal columns were for some reason too closely connected to the invading occupying power.

Twenty-sided polygonal columns were incorporated in the Pergamene architecture, a style developed when Eumenes II and his successors monumentalized the capital of their shortly before expanded kingdom in the second century. There were earlier faceted columns in unfinished buildings at Pergamon, whereas finished polygonal columns appear in the Aegean islands at least from the third century onwards in the Doric order, as Vitruvius confirms. The polygonal columns  of the Aegean, the earlier unfinished faceted columns in Pergamon and the lack of proper stone for construction altogether inspired the use of the new shaft shape, the polygonal column, which was easily produced from the local andesite and a quicker economical choice. Therefore, the polygonal column became an inexpensive fashion for a short period of time.