Chapps
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chapps.bsky.social
Chapps
@chapps.bsky.social
3.5K followers 360 following 4.6K 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
I think the ancient Romans would consider a Black Vulture sharing one’s plunge pool as a bad omen. 😳
A Black Vulture - common in Mexico and Central and South America - stands on the edge of our tiny plunge pool, with the very green rain forest in the background.
November 10, 2025 at 10:58 PM
chapps.bsky.social
I regret to inform you that I’ll be staying in this utter hellhole for the next six days (please don’t hate me). #vacay #Mexico #Compostela
View from our deck high above the rain forest on the coast of Compostela, Mexico. The view takes in the forest, the beach, and the ocean, along with the golden sun low in the sky, casting everything in a golden haze. Same location as before, but now the sun is sinking below the ocean, a riot of red, orange, and yellow, with the blue sky above and wispy clouds providing drama. The rain forest below is darkening …
November 10, 2025 at 3:19 AM
chapps.bsky.social
An idea for your Christmas tree this year - stacks of Celtic gold torcs! Known as the Ipswitch Torcs after the location where their hoard was found, the terminals are decorated in the swirly La Tène style (Tène II), save the top one which is unadorned. 🎄🏺 1/

150-50 BCE. 📸 me
#BritishMuseum
A stack of five gold torcs against a green background. All were made from two twisted solid bars, with loop terminals cast on. Four (1969,0103.2-5) have cast terminals ornamented in high relief with Tène II style curvilinear motifs of bosses and scrolls, within a border of two corded bands lying slightly apart; they can be paired but their patterns are not identical. The fifth - at top (1969,0103.1) - has plain terminals. These torcs were probably deposited together as a hoard around 75 BCE.
November 8, 2025 at 5:27 PM
chapps.bsky.social
I'm surprisingly choked up about the passing of Pauline Collins, an actress who lived in your heart from the moment you saw her first performance. Wondrous in 'Upstairs Downstairs', but incandescent in 'Shirley Valentine', for which she received an Oscar nom. #RIP 😭
November 6, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Chapps
joshandrews.bsky.social
We have a few more:
www.artic.edu/artworks/105...
Rhyton (Drinking Vessel) in Shape of Sheep's Head | The Art Institute of Chicago
Ancient Greek, 320-310 BCE
www.artic.edu
November 6, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Chapps
doccrom.bsky.social
#OnThisDay - 6 November - in AD 15 Agrippina the Younger was born. Great-granddaughter of Augustus, wife of Claudius, and mother of the Emperor Nero, Agrippina was herself a key figure of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. #Agrippina 🏺

Image: BM (1907,0415.1). Link - britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
Chalcedony cameo portrait bust of the younger Agrippina: the cameo is broken off at the base of the neck and at the lower nose.
November 6, 2025 at 10:26 AM
chapps.bsky.social
How often can you say that you've seen a kantharos-rhyton? This cup has a bridled donkey head attachment, usually seen only on rhyta. It mirrors the donkey seen on the reverse of the cup, ridden by Dionysos. When you drank from this vessel, you looked like an ass! 🏺 1/

Greek, 520-500 BCE. 📸 me
This black-figure terracotta kantharos-rhyton has a sculpted donkey-head attachment and Dionysian figures around the body of the vessel. In fact, on the rear of the cup Dionysos is shown riding on an ithyphallic mule or donkey, so the head on the cup is Dionysos' own steed. The fun part is that when you grasp the cup by both handles and raise it to your mouth to drink, you look like you’re wearing a donkey mask, providing a great deal of chuckles from your fellow symposiasts. This appears to be the earliest preserved Attic rhyton (a vessel for wine, frequently with animal head pouring spouts), and this rhyton-kantharos as a whole is a rare preserved example of an Athenian plastic vase with black-figure decoration. In design, the donkey's tall, outward-flaring ears are echoed by the kantharos' tall looping strap handles. In order to assemble this vase, the potter cut a hole in the kantharos' bowl and precisely inserted the donkey's head, thereby forming a dual-chambered wine vessel with a large capacity. But the resulting rhyton-kantharos is overweighted toward the donkey's head, which extends down so far that the donkey's lips set the vessel off kilter, and it rests unstably on the kantharos' foot. Greek, Attic, about 520-500 BCE, possibly found in Athens. Black-figure terracotta with some pigments (purple on the Dionysian figures and red inside the donkey's mouth). Height: 21.59 cm (8.50 in.) Diameter: 13.65 cm (5.37 in.) British Museum, London (1876,0328.5)
November 6, 2025 at 4:18 PM
chapps.bsky.social
This gold spray of myrtle was found in a tomb, inside a bronze vessel, resting atop the cremains of the tomb's occupant. Gold myrtle wreaths were buried with the dead to signify the deceased’s importance or as an offering to the gods for safe passage into the next world. 🏺 1/

Greek, 400-350 BCE
A small spray of myrtle, made in gold. It has several leaves and two flowerlets.
November 4, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Chapps
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
#MosaicMonday takes us back to the #MuseodelleCiviltà in #Rome, this time to look at the dazzling #opussectile floor of the #domus of #PortaMarina from #OstiaAntica, 385-388 CE. Its complex #geometric design makes it the most perfect floor of its kind in #LateAntiquity. #AncientBluesky 🏺
OPUS SECTILE FLOOR, 385-388 CE. MUSEO DELLE CIVILTÀ This extraordinary opus sectile pavement only finds comparisons in the House of Cupid and Psyche in Ostia and in the Diocletianic opus sectile floor of the Curia Senatus, which has been heavily restored. Here we have a background of giallo antico and a complex pattern of polygonal shapes with three recurrent themes, the circle, the four-pointed star, and the strange pelta or C-shaped shield. At the centre of each four-pointed star is a circle of alternating porphyry and serpentino set inside a round frame, or a circle of those marbles inset with a square of giallo antico or brecciated white marble. Within the octagons created between the stars, on a background of pavonazzetto, are circles framed with porphyry, with four peltæ in serpentino. This is a sophisticated and expensive floor, and the room must have had a public or ceremonial function.
November 3, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Reposted by Chapps
drnwillburger.bsky.social
#ReliefWednesday!
A Roman marble relief of a warship. Found in the necropolis of Praeneste (Latium), late 1st century BC.
The relief presumably belonged to the tomb of a Roman veteran who had served on Octavian’s side at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.

📷 me

🏺 #archaeology
A marble relief depicting a Roman warship with rows of oars and soldiers on board. The figures wear helmets and carry shields, while the ship features ornate carvings, including a decorative prow and architectural elements like a tower. Displayed against a blue-lit museum background
October 29, 2025 at 6:39 AM
chapps.bsky.social
November is depicted in this mosaic from Sousse, Tunisia, with a priest in the guise of Hermanubis with two pterophoroi. It commemorates the Inventio Osiridis, a week-long reenactment of the death of Osiris and the quest of Isis to recover his body, held in the month of Khoiak (Oct-Nov). 🏺 1/
Part of a large Roman mosaic from El Jem, Tunisia (in the Sousse Archaeological Museum), depicting a square with the month of November, clearly written in black tesserae. On the left is a priest of Isis wearing a jackal mask and carrying a caduceus, playing the part of the syncretic Greco-Egyptian god Hermanubis (Hermes+Anubis), with two pterophoroi (priest-scribes), so named because of their feathered headdresses. Photo: Ad Meskens
November 2, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Chapps
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
A magnificent #statue of a #priestess of #Isis, from the #Serapeum of #Tauromenium, today's #Taormina, from around 200 CE. The knot in her dress identifies her. She's holding a cista or container indicating that she is about to initiate a believer into the Isaic mystery cult. #AncientBluesky 🏺
STATUE OF A PRIESTESS OF ISIS, C. 200 CE. PALAZZO CIAMPOLI, TAORMINA Ancient Tauromenium was the centre of a major cult centre of the Roman Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis, one of the most important centres in the Mediterranean. None of the Serapeum survives today, but this statue and various other pieces of decoration have been found in excavations near the church of S. Pancrazio. This statue has a particular delicacy and grace in its carving. The priestess of Isis is identifiable by the famous Isaic knot in her dress, between her breasts. Her broken right arm would have held a sistrum or ceremonial rattle, and her left hand holds a rounded cista which contained items and substances used in the initiation of new members into the mystery cult of Isis.
October 30, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Reposted by Chapps
pottedhistory.bsky.social
Today I'll be mostly decorating "en Barbotine' #AncientBluesky 🏺Soon to be heading for our online shop potted-history.co.uk.
November 1, 2025 at 12:55 PM
chapps.bsky.social
Well, Heidi Klum and her husband win #ClassicalHalloween, hands-down. There are no other contenders. The makeup artists who created the makeup and prosthetics for this #Medusa and stoned victim should be given all the awards. 👏 👏 👏 🏆 🏺 #ClassicalBluesky

📸 Getty Images
Closeup of Heidi Klum as Medusa, snakes emerging from her head, which is scaly and green, as is her body. She has yellow slitted eyes - again, like a snake - and her tongue is striped and forked. Absolutely frightening. Heidi Klum and her husband, Tom Kaulitz. Klum is a giant snake (a rattler!) with a human upper half and holds a recurved bow and arrow. Kaulitz is a Greek soldier turned to stone, holding his shield and sword defensively. Bravo!
November 1, 2025 at 2:29 PM
chapps.bsky.social
Someone brought *two* pitchers of margaritas to the #Halloween party! 👻 🎃

‘Carpe diem’ mosaic from the Casa del Fauno (House of the Faun), #Pompeii. MANN (Nat’l Archaeological Museum of Naples)
Originally set into the floor of the triclinium - dining room - of the House of the Faun in Pompeii, this black and white mosaic of a skeleton holding two askoi (wine jugs) was a reminder to the diners of 'carpe diem', to 'seize the day' and enjoy the food and wine while they could. Also referred to as a 'memento mori' - a reminder of death. You never know if you're having your last meal, so enjoy! Casa del Fauno (House of the Faun), Pompeii (VI.12.2), ca. 1st century BCE. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN inv. 9978)
October 31, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Chapps
classicalalan.bsky.social
This rare gilded bronze Roman head probably belonged to the cult statue of the goddess Sulis Minerva from her temple by the sacred spring in Bath. It was found in Stall Street in 1727 and can now be seen in the Roman Baths Museum. #FindsFriday
A gilded bronze head of a goddess with flowing locks.
October 31, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Reposted by Chapps
chapps.bsky.social
I was able to take a long look at this wonderful chalk and watercolor artwork at the Getty Center a couple of years ago. The details are everything here.
October 30, 2025 at 8:15 PM
chapps.bsky.social
This bronze head of a goddess with her spooky, hypnotic inlaid silver eyes, will be roaming the shadows tonight on All Hallows Eve! Still looking for her body, 2,000 years later … 😱 🏺 1/

Hellenistic, 150-100 BCE, Mersin, Turkey. #BritishMuseum
📸 me
Bronze head of a woman or goddess, torn from a full-sized statue. She wears a lunette diadem with inlaid silver patterns, with a star in the middle. Her wavy hair is center parted and pulled back into a bun. She looks directly into the camera with inlaid silver eyes, set beneath shadowed brows. With her mottled brown and green patina, the effect is frightening! British Museum (1928,0416.1)
October 30, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Chapps
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
#ReliefWednesday gives us a #market scene from #OstiaAntica, a bustling stall where clients on the left argue, while two women are selling fruit from full baskets on their counter. A huge wicker container holds snails, a delicacy. But what are the two monkeys? Pets or meat? #AncientBluesky 🏺
MARKET SCENE, C. 100 CE. MUSEO DI OSTIA ANTICA. This relief in Proconnesian marble is from via della Foce in Ostia Antica. It shows a busy market scene, with customers arguing with each other at left, while, below some butchered fowl, another man is buying fruit from one of the two women behind the counter, which has two heaping baskets of fruit on it. A large wicker container next to the fruit evidently contains snails, as an oversized one is trying to make a break for it. At right, two monkeys are sitting on the counter, waiting for something to happen. Are they for sale or are they the pets of the women? If they are for sale, are they meant to be killed and eaten? Is this the ancient equivalent of the wet market at Wuhan?
October 29, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Chapps
rogueclassicist.bsky.social
The Lost Letters of Caracalla: Ten Inscribed Slabs Unearthed Beneath a Turkish Village Home - Arkeonews
arkeonews.net/the-lost-let...
The Lost Letters of Caracalla: Ten Inscribed Slabs Unearthed Beneath a Turkish Village Home - Arkeonews
Archaeologists uncover ten inscribed stones believed to bear imperial letters written under Emperor Caracalla — hidden for nearly 1,800 years
arkeonews.net
October 29, 2025 at 7:01 PM
chapps.bsky.social
There's a remarkable and rare image on this humble terracotta alabastron (perfume bottle). It depicts an Ethiopian in the Persian army. He's an archer, wearing a Persian sleeved jerkin, linen cuirass, and anaxyrides (trousers), all embroidered. 🏺 1/

Athens, ca. 480 BCE
📸 me #ancientbluesky
White-ground (white background - natural clay color, unglazed) -alabastron, or perfumed oil bottle, tall and round on the bottom with a flat disc top and small hole, which would have once had a stopper. The top disc and neck are painted brown, with one thick and three thin lines running around the top of the body of the vessel, below the neck, also painted in brown. In a darker brown is the sketch of the Ethiopian archer. His hair looks white, but the hair is represented as dots around the top, and his face, turned back to the left, is dark. He’s wearing long sleeves decorated in a dotted pattern, and a linen cuirass (body armor), with long striped and dotted trousers. This figure could perhaps represents Memnon himself, attired as a Persian archer. In his right hand - not seen in the photo - he holds a double-headed axe, and over his left arm is draped a garment with a meander border and fringe.
October 29, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Chapps
archaedelle.bsky.social
Found a totally bonkers belt buckle in a department store in Kentucky

It’s depicting a Roman coin hoard but the more you look, the more nonsensical it gets. I had to have it, it is now mine forever
Photo of an oval belt buckle depicting a hoard of Roman coins except these coins don’t actually exist, the inscriptions are nonsense like ‘TETEATAN” who wasn’t an emperor, and VCVSTVS which means nothing. The coins depict classical “Roman” things in a style that’s true to how ancient Roman coins actually look, but they are again nonsensical, like a crocodile and a winged sphinx.
August 19, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Chapps
lindsaypowell.bsky.social
"A rare Roman legionary helmet ... reportedly unearthed near the ancient city of Sirmium in northern Serbia, has appeared for sale on a private online auction in the United States—under circumstances that Serbian experts describe as deeply suspicious." #AncientBluesky
arkeonews.net/rare-roman-l...
Rare Roman Legionary Helmet Looted from Serbia Appears in U.S. Auction - Arkeonews
Rare Roman legionary helmet sparks international debate over cultural heritage and illicit antiquities trade
arkeonews.net
October 23, 2025 at 5:51 PM
chapps.bsky.social
It's remarkable to see a pristine surviving high-end sculpture like this one. Depicting the god Mercury, it may have once decorated the tablinum of a Roman patrician's home. The figure originally had a gold torc and held a silver caduceus in his left hand. 🏺 1/

Gallo-Roman, 120-140 CE. 📸 me
Dark bronze statuette of the naked youthful god Mercury standing on a plinth. He's standing contrapposto, all the weight on his right leg, with the left foot back and the heel lifted. A cloak is draped over his left shoulder and arm, and his left hand is lifted at a 90º angle, clutching a missing object - the shaft of the missing silver caduceus. His right shoulder is held lower than his left, and he holds the small marsupium - money bag - in his lowered right hand (it has tied off little arms and he's clutching its neck, obvious that this used to be a small animal's skin, perhaps a rabbit). He looks to his right and slightly down, his hair short but shaggy, with wavy curls. His cheeks are slightly plump, as if he were still very young. His body is muscular, with a broad thickly-muscled chest made more noticeable by the shiny copper nipples. The base is round, with pale silver and dark niello inlaid palmette designs.
October 23, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Reposted by Chapps
forestcollectiv.bsky.social
#RomanFortThursday & while rather well camouflaged beneath these beautiful autumn colours, Bothwellhaugh Roman Fort just south east of Glasgow is in there
October 23, 2025 at 2:33 PM