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
We’re trying our best, even if the sunsets insist on being overly dramatic. 🍹
November 11, 2025 at 4:27 PM
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
Have you seen the Ghent Altarpiece? Sheep, man … 😬
November 7, 2025 at 2:48 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
chapps.bsky.social
One of my favorite small antiquities in the BM. I was so sad that it was missing on my recent visit, as I'd hoped to photograph it using a high end camera. But all I've got is an iPhone photo ...
November 6, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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
chapps.bsky.social
I just noticed the gorgoneion to the left of the head-in-a-box, which I suspect depicts a helmeted Minerva (with a victory wreath on the side of the box). So many details, most which would have been far easier to decipher when this was painted.
November 3, 2025 at 10:54 PM
chapps.bsky.social
Hermanubis was a syncretic Greco-Egyptian god, a fusion of Greek Hermes and the Egyptian jackal-headed god Anubis. The rites of Inventio Osiridis were timed with the receding of the Nile’s floodwaters in Oct-Nov, when farmers can sow their fields. 🏺 2/

📸 Ad Meskens and ‘Colin’, Wikimedia
Closeup of the November panel from the Roman mosaic from El Jem, depicting a priest in the guise of Hermanubis and two pterophoroi (‘feather-bearing’ priest-scribes) who may be using cymbals (difficult to see). Photo: Ad Meskens, Wikimedia Statue of the god Hermanubis, 1.55m tall in white Marble. On display in room IV of the Gregorian Egyptian Museum at the Vatican Museums in Rome. It either depicts a priest with a jackal-mask of the god, or the god himself. He wears a very short tunic with a cloak fastened at his right shoulder with a shield fibula. His right hand is raised and would have once held a sistrum (rattle) and he cradles a caduceus in his left arm. Photo: Colin, Wikimedia
November 2, 2025 at 3:10 PM
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
chapps.bsky.social
She gets sponsorships these days - including Butterfinger and Disney+/Hulu's 'Huluween' for this one. A couple of others, too. The special fx artist who recently won an Emmy for 'The Penguin' - Mike Marino - is the creative genius who brings her ideas to life. Incredible.

📸 Max Montgomery
November 1, 2025 at 11:32 PM
chapps.bsky.social
And, yes, the inspiration was clearly Ray Harryhausen’s Medusa from ‘Clash of the Titans’.
Stop-motion maquette (model) created by Ray Harryhausen for the 1981 movie ‘Clash of the Titans’. Here, Medusa’s lower body is a brown rattlesnake, but the upper half is a scaled green torso of a woman with snakes in her hair. She holds a bow in her outstretched hand.
November 1, 2025 at 3:00 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
chapps.bsky.social
She sounds nice.
October 31, 2025 at 2:06 PM
chapps.bsky.social
‘She swiped *left* on me? Does she know who I am??’
The bronze ‘Meroë head’, a head of a larger than life statue of the emperor Augustus, which was captured from Roman Egypt by military forces from the kingdom of Kush (now in Sudan). It was brought back to Meroë where it was placed under the staircase of a temple, where the emperor’s face would be trod over on a daily basis. This head still has its original eyes, made of stone and glass, and looks particularly surprised. British Museum, London
October 30, 2025 at 8:24 PM
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
Good choices. I also like …
October 30, 2025 at 3:29 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
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
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
chapps.bsky.social
The dog will always get most of my attention. I know that @drnwillburger.bsky.social and @fakehistoryhunter.net agree with us! 😁
October 21, 2025 at 9:28 PM
chapps.bsky.social
Focusing on what's clearly the most important part of the famed Arnolfini Portrait: the dog.

Jan van Eyck painted every hair on that dog's coat, and frankly I can't even see the humans in this work, because the dog is perfect.

Painted in 1434, Bruges. #NationalGallery #dog
📸 me
The bottom of the tall rectangular Arnolfini Portrait, showing the little toy dog at near the feet of the husband and wife. He's a little brown terrier type, with long silky hair (a mix of several shades of brown, with lots of blonde highlights and a little grey in the tiny short muzzle), rounded upright ears, and a short tail. He stands on bare wide plank wood floorboards, next to his mistress' sumptuous green velvet dress, puddled around her. The dog is looking directly at the viewers, unlike the humans, who look askance at each other. Jan van Eyck, Bruges, 1434. National Gallery, London (NG186)
October 21, 2025 at 4:21 PM