Chapps
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chapps.bsky.social
Chapps
@chapps.bsky.social
3.7K followers 360 following 5.2K posts
Former tech drone, living in L.A. I now create digital reconstructions of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. No, really. 🏳️‍🌈

Flickr account (museum photos, mainly, free to use and high res): https://www.flickr.com/photos/125386285@N02/
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chapps.bsky.social
Chapps @chapps.bsky.social · Nov 11
FYI, to anyone interested, I upload all of my high res photos to my Flickr account where they’re organized into albums and tagged with keywords, so they’re easy to search. All free to use, with credit. www.flickr.com/photos/chapp...

I’ll eventually upload my reconstructions! 🏺
Screen cap of my Flickr Photostream. Labeled ‘Stephen Chappell (aka Chapps)’, at the moment I took the pic, it included things like a terracotta figurine of two girls playing ephedrismos, a bronze Roman cavalry parade helmet, a gold Ptolemaic coin, an Egyptian faience vase, etc.
chapps.bsky.social
Happy Boxing Day! 🎁

These thicc boys are basically bare-knuckling it, visibly bloodying one another, while even chonkier gents wrestle above them on the neck of this 6th c. BCE black-figure amphora. Ancient Greek athletics, folks. 🏺 1/

📸 me #BritishMuseum #BoxingDay
On the body of the amphora, two nude boxers wearing himantes (leather thongs wrapped around the hands for protection and support) are about to exchange blows; the boxer on the left bleeds heavily from his nose, while the one on the right has a bloody forehead. Between them is inscribed: NIKOΣΘENEΣEΠOIEΣEN (Νικοσθένης εποίησεν), translated as 'Nikosthenes made (this)'. On the neck of the jar are two thickly muscled and bearded naked wrestlers, with a brabeus (adjudicator) on either side, each bearded, with long hair, a fillet, an embroidered himation (cloak), and a wand in hand.
December 26, 2025 at 4:54 PM
chapps.bsky.social
If you liked the Wilton Diptych that I posted, you should view this fantastic video about this remarkable set of panel paintings. #arthistory
December 25, 2025 at 10:47 PM
chapps.bsky.social
What’s #Christmas without the stunning Wilton Diptych? A rare surviving set of tempera panel paintings, a portable set made for the private use of Richard II, King of England from 1377 to 1399. The brilliant blue garments of the angels are painted with ultramarine, made from lapis lazuli. 🎄 1/

📸 me
On the left panel (the two panels are hinged together, and there are paintings on the exterior panels as well), the young King, sumptuously dressed, kneels in a barren landscape. He is accompanied by three saints: John the Baptist, carrying the Lamb of God; Edward the Confessor, holding a ring; and Edmund with the arrow of his martyrdom in his hand. The saints present the King to the Virgin Mary and Christ Child, shown on the right-hand panel. They stand in a flowery meadow surrounded by angels, one of whom carries a white standard with a red cross. The richness of the tempera paintwork, the meticulously stamped gilding and the refinement of detail is extraordinary. The infant Christ is wrapped in cloth of gold, and stippled within his halo is a crown of thorns and three nails – symbols of the Passion.
December 25, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Chapps
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
#ReliefWednesday gives us this lovely flat disc cut from a larger scene, with a #cameo in white and blue #glass, which in antiquity replaced the original pointed base of the #PortlandVase in the #BritishMuseum. It may show the #Trojan shepherd prince #Paris. 15 BCE - 25 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺
BLUE AND WHITE GLASS CAMEO, 15 BCE - 25 CE. BRITISH MUSEUM The original amphora shape of the Portland Vase was considered inconvenient even in antiquity. The lower, undecorared part of the vase was removed and replaced with another piece of blue and white cameo work contemporary with the vase. Now what we see is the large figure of a handsome young man in profile facing right, sitting with his finger almost to his lips as he is trying to decide something. This must be Paris, son of Priam, prince of Troy, who was chosen to make the impossible choice between Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera for the title of most beautiful. He is wearing shepherd's clothes and a Phrygian cap, and his choice brought Helen, and then doom, to Troy.
December 24, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Reposted by Chapps
drnwillburger.bsky.social
I wish a joyous Christmas to all who celebrate. May you have a truly wonderful time 🎄🎅.

This #Roman glass spherical bottle would make great #Christmas bauble, but it was used to hold perfume and loose powder. The contents were sealed inside the delicate cosmetic container, and...🧵1/2

📷 me
The picture shows a spherical bottle made of blue glass, decorated with a white spiral thread. It is lying on its side on a light surface, with a delicate gold chain and small round pendants spilling from a knob at the top.
December 24, 2025 at 6:43 AM
chapps.bsky.social
What's this? A Christmas miracle at the #BritishMuseum, transforming Dionysos into Father #Christmas? Stranger things have happened.

A very Merry or Happy Christmas to all who celebrate, and a happy holiday to everyone. A toast to you all! 🥂 🏺 1/
A somewhat ... altered photo of a 1st century CE terracotta herm of a bearded Dionysos-Bacchus, thought to be based on a Greek original bronze. The AI alteration has added a red Santa hat trimmed in white fur on top of his scrunchy hat and ivy leaf wreath. Snow is falling and has dusted the sculpture and its hat, along with the display case.
December 25, 2025 at 4:10 AM
chapps.bsky.social
Flickr has notified me that this was my most popular photograph of 2025 - a columniated sarcophagus depicting the Labors of Hercules. In these arcades, we see a youthful Herc battling the Nemean Lion, the Lernaean Hydra, the Erymanthian Boar, the Ceryneian Hind, and the Stymphalian Birds. 🏺 1/

📸 me
Large marble sarcophagus with deeply cut relief figures of a youthful Hercules between the columns of an arcade. In each arch, he's performing - naked, of course - one of his labors, five in all. On the left, he wrestles the Nemean Lion, his club floating above him; in the next archway, Hercules has grabbed the female head of the Lernaean Hydra, about to club it to death, his Nemean Lion skin slung prominently over his left arm; next to that, Hercules is shown with a dead Erymanthian Boar slung over his shoulder, cradling his club in his right arm; next, Hercules has grabbed the antlers of the Ceryneian Hind, forcing it to the ground with his left knee; finally, the final archway shows Hercules, the skin of the Nemean lion over his left arm, taking aim with his bow and arrow at a bird perched atop a column.
December 23, 2025 at 7:57 PM
chapps.bsky.social
My husband and I hide the Elves on the Shelf and come up with wacky situations for them at #Christmas. Well, he made it look like they were escaping, and I told him I accidentally opened the window last night, and they fell out.

Then I texted him these doorbell cam pics ... #elfontheshelf 🎄
Blond Elf on a Shelf is halfway out the open top of the window, and is pulling up his friend, the brunette Elf on a Shelf, attempting to escape Night vision doorbell cam photo, showing a coyote with an Elf on the Shelf in its mouth Doorbell cam pic showing two coyotes tearing apart the Elf on a Shelf Screaming, hysterical, and bloody Elf on a Shelf appears on the nighttime doorbell cam, wanting to come back inside!
December 23, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Chapps
caraacenter.bsky.social
Drusus the Elder. Cameo by Herophilus in turquoise-blue glass paste. Modern setting: gold ring. Height 5.9 cm. Kunst­historisches Museum
December 23, 2025 at 4:40 PM
chapps.bsky.social
When you're serving holiday canapés, only the best serving tray will do. May I suggest the Corbridge Lanx? A beautiful 4th c. CE Roman silver platter depicting a shrine of Apollo and a garden of gods standing beneath the branches of a tree. 🏺 1/

📸 me
Decorated silver platter or lanx. The scene shows, left to right: the goddess Artemis, holding a bow; the helmeted goddess Athena, her hand raised to indicate conversation; a standing female figure; a seated female figure; the god Apollo at the entrance to a shrine, holding a bow, his lyre at his feet. In the foreground stands an altar flanked by Artemis's hound and fallen stag and a griffin, a mythical beast associated with Apollo. The two female figures in the centre are less easily identified than the principles. The entire scene is clearly a shrine of Apollo. The Greek island of Delos was the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and Athena was also worshipped there. If the Delian shrine is depicted then the older woman sitting spinning may be Leto, the mother of the twins, and the standing woman her sister Ortygia, who was transformed into the island of Delos. In the foreground stands an altar flanked by Artemis's hound and fallen stag and a griffin, a mythical beast associated with Apollo. British Museum, London (1993,0401.1)
December 22, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Chapps
chapps.bsky.social
It’s as if you were talking about my Christmas. Every ornament on the tree has a story - some are from my first Christmas without family, over 40 years ago. My husband and I get one or two new ornaments every year - and we have all his family’s 1960s glass ornaments. No tinsel, though.
December 21, 2025 at 3:41 PM
chapps.bsky.social
Men, what's stopping you from dressing like this again? Two Ostrogothic buckles, one gilded silver with an eagle head terminal, the other gilded copper with a field of cloisonné garnets (and a big garnet in the middle). See ALT.🏺

Left, late 6th-early 7th c. CE; Right, 5th c. CE. #BritishMuseum
📸 me
Gilt silver belt buckle with an eagle head terminal in profile: large, oval inclined loop with tongue-rest and cast S-scrolls around sides, empty collets at ends; hollow profiled tongue with five ribs across base; rectangular plate with flanged edge and applied attachment loops, decorated with border of chip-carved scrolls around central field with four scrolls and collared glass cabochon in the middle; at one end a projecting bird's head in profile with three incised zigzags on neck and cabochon glass eye; circular collared glass cabochon at each corner (one missing); secondary attachment rivets and rivet hole under bird's eye. Gothic peoples migrated from the east and settled many parts of Europe between around 340 and 540 CE. Initially groups settled around the Black Sea and the Crimea and later many migrated further west. The Ostrogoths took power in Italy and adopted Roman traditions which strongly influenced their impressive art and architecture. In Spain the Visigoths developed their own style inspired by the arts of the Byzantine Empire and Christianity. The rectangular plate of this buckle derives from Roman forms, but the decoration reveals the regional fashion of the northern Black Sea area, which was settled by Crimean Goths. Ostrogothic, late-6th-early 7th c. CE. Found at Kerch, Crimea. Gilded silver, millefiori glass inlay at center, brass rivets, cabochons at corners of the plate and in the eagle's eye. British Museum, London (1923,0716.53) Gilt-copper alloy buckle: oval loop; originally silvered tongue transversely ribbed at ends and with a row of rectangular cloisonné garnets across hinge end. Deep rectangular plate with flat-topped central oval cabochon garnet in a cruciform arrangement of four stepped green glass lozenges in an all-over cloisonné garnet field of "omega" inlays in gold sheet cells in two rows on either side; in centre, a band of stepped trapezoids and triangles; six small rivets and a folded flap attachment; basal drum. This style of buckle highlights Ostrogothic tastes for eastern Mediterranean fashions. Gothic peoples migrated from the east and settled many parts of Europe between around 340 and 540 CE. Initially groups settled around the Black Sea and the Crimea and later many migrated further west. The Ostrogoths took power in Italy and adopted Roman traditions which strongly influenced their impressive art and architecture. In Spain the Visigoths developed their own style inspired by the arts of the Byzantine Empire and Christianity. Ostrogothic, 5th c. CE, possibly found in a grave in Italy. British Museum, London (1865,0318.1)
December 21, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Chapps
tessmachling.bsky.social
I got round to it! 🤣

bigbookoftorcs.com/2025/12/21/d...
Deck the halls…
Every year I think about writing this blog, and every year I don’t. Usually in the run up it’s too busy and then, as the Christmas dinner has been eaten, the last mince pie devoured, an…
bigbookoftorcs.com
December 21, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Chapps
pompei79.bsky.social
Possibly the most sublime Roman fresco of a temple.
The architectural detail of the spiky-topped wooden barrier, the painted relief in the pediment, & the offerings burning on the altar; it’s a symphony of observations.
Archaeological Museum of Capri (no provenance)
#FrescoFriday
Fresco of a facade of a Roman temple. A short flight of steps leading up to a portico with Corinthian columns. Between the double colannade is a decorated wooden barrier with lattice work and a spiky top. The wooden doors to the temple are closed. The pediment contains a painted relief. In front of the steps is an ornate altar on which offerings burn.
December 19, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Chapps
classicalalan.bsky.social
Colchester Castle is built on the foundations of a Roman temple and its structure includes much recycled Roman building material. One staircase includes this chunk of ancient tile which features the prints of a Roman hobnail boot (my own foot for scale) #RomanSiteSaturday @colmuseums.bsky.social
My foot next to an ancient Roman tile that features the imprint of ancient Roman shoes.
December 20, 2025 at 9:55 AM
chapps.bsky.social
On Dasher, on Prancer … sorry, I’ve got Christmas on the mind.

This is actually a late 2nd-early 3rd c. imperial cameo (once owned by Rubens) which may depict the deified Empress Julia Domna as the goddess Luna or Dea Syria. Note how the horns of the bulls form crescents. 🏺 1/

#BritishMuseum 📸 me
Horizontally oval sardonyx cameo showing a goddess in a chariot pulled by two rampant bulls. The goddess wears a hairstyle very similar to that famously worn by the empress Julia Domna. Cameos made of precious or semiprecious materials were reserved for the imperial family and their loyal inner circle. Interestingly, the former owner of this cameo was the painter Peter Paul Rubens.
December 20, 2025 at 3:13 PM
chapps.bsky.social
Dear Santa - I've been a good boy this year (mostly) and think I deserve a replica of this gorgeous 4th c. CE cobalt blue glass head flask.

Remarkable to see the typical Late Roman/Byzantine features - large almond shaped eyes and flowing locks of hair - rendered in glass. 🏺

#MetMuseum 📸 me
Tall translucent intense cobalt blue 'head flask', facing towards the camera. The head portrays a youth with long hair arranged in wavy locks at the back, reaching to the nape of the neck and behind the ears, with a fringe of straight locks on his forehead. The head has prominent ears, almond-shaped eyes with inset pupils, and a protruding, thick upper lip, pointed nose, and small chin. The hairstyle and large eyes are typical of Late Roman/Byzantine portraiture. The head forms the body of the vessel, with a tall flared neck and rim emerging from the top. A single handle attached at the back - the top is attached halfway up the neck, and the bottom (which has ridges) attaches to the back of the head, running down to the bottom, which is a round tiered base. Side view of the flask, showing the long flowing hair of the head, and the handle attaching to the back.
December 19, 2025 at 1:46 AM
Reposted by Chapps
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
For #ReliefWednesday we're looking at perhaps the most celebrated piece of ancient #Roman #cameo #glass, the #PortlandVase in the #BritishMuseum. Made in #Rome between 15 BCE and 25 CE, it shows two scenes, whose meaning is still obscure, but whose beauty is undisputed. #AncientBluesky 🏺
THE PORTLAND VASE, 15 BCE - 25 CE. BRITISH MUSEUM Of all the pieces of ancient Roman glass that have survived to us, none is more celebrated than this vase, which was said to have been found in an ancient sarcophagus (either the one in the tomb of Monte del Grano or in the one called "of Cecilia Metella" now in the courtyard of palazzo Farnese). It emerges into history first in the collection of Cardinal del Monte, then in the Barberini collection until the 1770s when Cornelia Costanza Barberini had to sell it to pay off some ruinous gambling debts. It belonged to the duke of Portland and was bought by the BM in 1945. It has two scenes, in white cut glass atop a dark blue background, and they have been interpreted in many ways. The scene on this side shows a woman languishing beneath a tree, with a man seated at left looking back at her, and another woman at right, looking at her. The iconography is unusual. It might be mythological or a piece of complex Augustan propaganda.
December 17, 2025 at 5:12 PM
chapps.bsky.social
The newly opened Colosseo-Fori Inperiali subway station houses a full museum's worth of finds discovered while digging under the city. Including this 4th c. CE gold glass fragment depicting the goddess Roma, which had been affixed to a wall in the ruins of an ancient military barracks. 🏺 1/

📸 me
Gilded glass fragment with the image of the goddess Roma, personification of the city of Rome. Discovered during construction of the Porta Metronia station, in ancient barracks destroyed during construction of the Aurelian Walls. She’s based on a depiction of an Amazon, with her bared breast, triple-plumed helmet, baltea (studded quiver belt across her chest), and pilus (javelin). The iconographic theme is already well-known, but it is the first and only representation found so far on gold glass. “Golden glass is already a very rare finding, but this has no comparison” according to preliminary findings, Simona Morretta, archaeologist of the special superintendency of Rome, explained to ANSA. “No golden glass with the personification of the city of Rome had ever been found before”. Gold glass was a glass-making technique in which a thin layer of decorated gold leaf, often a portrait, was sandwiched between two layers of transparent glass. The leaf was glued to one glass discs first, then the design created by scratching away tiny areas of gold like an etching. A second glass disc was then superimposed on top of the etched gold surface and fused to create the roundel of a vessel or a medallion.
December 17, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Chapps
arturoviaggia.bsky.social
Here's a video I took of the interior of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in #Ravenna. It gives you a good sense of what it's like to view the amazing mosaics on site--the saints procession, the Palatium, and the christological panels.

📹🇮🇹 flic.kr/p/2q1qpPn
#photography
#travel
#LateAntiquity
🏺 AncientBlueSky
VIDEO: The nave mosaics of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo (Ravenna, Italy)
The church of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna was built as the palace chapel of the Ostrogoth king Theoderic (454-526). Theoderic was an Arian Christian. Eastern Arianism held that as Son of God, Jes...
flic.kr
December 17, 2025 at 5:48 PM
chapps.bsky.social
There's a surprise on this Etruscan elephant guttus. No, not the grape vine around his torso - a mark of Fufluns! - but that's often overlooked.

Look closely at his ear. 🏺 1/

See next post ... ⬇️
chapps.bsky.social Chapps @chapps.bsky.social · Sep 20
This Etruscan guttus - a vessel used to store and pour liquids in small amounts, or to refill oil lamps - is shaped like an elephant. It may have been inspired by the elephants first seen in Italy during the invasions of Pyrrhus and of Hannibal of Carthage in the 3rd c. BCE. 🏺

300-200 BCE.
Black-glazed vessel shaped like an African elephant. There is a refill mouth on its back, and the upraised trunk is the pouring spout. A handle is on the other side. Etruscan, from Etruria, Italy, 300-200 BCE. British Museum (1849,0620.4)
December 17, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Chapps
chapps.bsky.social
I love the identical maenads in both of the Dionysian frescoes below - the one on the left is from the Villa dei Misteri (my bad shot, since we couldn't see it at the right angle, and it was in the dark), the right from the House of the Thiasus. More evidence for ancient pattern books, I think. 🏺
December 16, 2025 at 10:50 PM
chapps.bsky.social
The emperor has no clothes! This is not a metaphor.

This bronze statue of the Roman emperor Trebonianus Gallus (who, you ask?) is as rare as it is very odd. The proportions are off - a too-thick and short torso on long legs, thin arms, and a wee head. 🤔 🏺 1/

251-253 CE, #MetMuseum. 📸 me
A rare intact bronze statue from the 3rd century depicting the heroically nude Roman emperor Gallus. He stands contrapposto, all the weight on his right leg, his left slightly bent, with his foot back. He has long muscled legs, but his powerfully muscled torso appears thick because it's too short in comparison with the legs. The belly also seems to stick out more than it should. The arms are muscled but spindly in comparison with the body, and his head is far too tiny for the rest of the statue. That head is veristic - intense realism - showing a portrait of a man with a toaster-shaped shaved head and a scraggly beard. The face is off-center, and poorly rendered. His right arm is raised and would have originally held a parazonium, a spear. A cloak is thrown over his left shoulder and left forearm - all the pieces of which are modern, but we know such a cloak did rest on his shoulder due to the remains of an attachment point. Met Museum
December 16, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Chapps
sdecasien.bsky.social
Still unclear how I ended up in a nationals-level quiz bowl question at the 2025 Chicago Open, but I’m not complaining. I wonder if anyone got it right. Bonus points to the writer for getting my last name’s pronunciation correct!
December 16, 2025 at 8:49 AM
chapps.bsky.social
I hope you like seafood, because this mosaic floor is showing what’s on the menu. 🦞 🐟

Said to be from Populonia, in Tuscany, this mosaic emblema was probably part of the floor of a triclinium, a dining room, of a patrician villa. That lobster is magnificent. 🏺 #mosaicmonday 1/

📸 me
This mosaic emblema features edible sealife from the Mediterranean, exactly what a patrician household could expect to serve to guests for dinner. Therefore, although its findspot isn't exactly known, it almost certainly graced the floor of a Roman villa's <i>triclinium</i> or dining room. There’s a giant lobster, upside down, with a white octopus, a moray eel, and several varieties of fish against a background of black tesserae. Roman, ca. 100 CE. Said to be from Populonia, Tuscany, near Rome. British Museum, London (1989,0322.1)
December 15, 2025 at 10:01 PM