After Nabeul, we're back where we first set foot on this complex country with a complicated historical past going through Greek-Phoenician, Roman-Carthaginian, Arab-Muslim, German Vandal, Hispano-Moorish, Persian-Egyptian, Turkish and French influence : Tunis.
The countryside looks quite green.
From time to time, we even passed through some fresh green, something you rarely find in the south.
Some roadside bushes cut into suggestive figures.
We even got flowers on some trees
a well laid out field
Big cloud rubbing against the hilltop
patting its head?
Tunis from a distance
Man walking, deep in thought
A curious child
a government building
Woman in contemplation among cars and plants
A roundabout with mosaics
A park
Entrance to the Bardo Museum, originally a 13th century Hasfid palace, renovated in the mid-19th century and again in 2010 and whose architecture is in itself a museum of various building styles from the 13th to the 20th century, housing various Carthaginian and Roman mosaic and various antiques from the Greek, Roman, Byzantian and Turko-Arab periods.
We were joined by many students
Some of the students. They looked happy.
Another groups of students
You want nice picture. Here!
What on earth are they doing?
Three V's for you!
A tiny toddler
Some mosaic found on the floors of ruins: with a different animals or birds within each circle
The roof of the recently renovated museum
One of the corridors
An Andalucian door in white
Another corridor with beautiful mosaic on its floor
The museum shop
Another view of the shop
Ancient metallic tools and parts
This is a portrait of the famous Roman poet Virgil found in adorning the alcove of an atrium in a 3rd century house in 1896 in Kelibia. .
This is one of two late 2nd Century BCE dwarf spirits typical of Greek sculpture. There are two female counterparts
The dwarf may be short, but not his organ
The other female dwarf
a third
An angel of the same period
Bronze of the Hermes of Greek mythology, an orator, second youngest of the Olympian gods, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia, god of transitions and boundaries, quick and cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as emissary and messenger of the gods, intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the afterlife. He is protector and patron of travelers, herdsmen, thieves,orators and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, invention and trade.In some myths he is a trickster, and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or the sake of humankind. His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster and the tortoise, purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and his main symbol is the herald's staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff. In the Roman adaptation of the Greek pantheon, Hermes is identified with the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.
A beautiful bronze, forgot who he is
A marble floral candelabra of the early 1st late 2nd century BCE
A child found at the edge of a pool threatening to splash water upon those who come near to him, late 2nd century BCE
The head of a nymph, late 2nd century BCE
The head of Pan, god of shepherd and wine. late 2nd century BCE
The goddess Artemis, goddess of the hunt around 175-150 BCE. Artemis is the Roman equivalent of Diana. The Arcadians believed that she was the daughter of Demeter but in classical Greek mythology, she was often regarded as the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo, the goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, virginity, fertility, childbirth and is often portrayed as a huntress with a bow and arrows in her hands. She loved the deer and the cypress.
The bust of a young man late 2nd Century BCE
Two vases showing a Dionysian procession about 100 BCE
Typically Greek
How fine the lines!
How full of grace, how full of life!
dancing, celebrating
The god Pan playing his pipes. In Greek religion and mythology, Pan s the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs.He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With home in rustic Arcadia, he is recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism. In Roman religion and myth, Pan's counterpart was Faunus, a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea, sometimes identified as Fauna. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement. In some myths he is the son of Zeus, though generally he is the son of Hermes or Dionysus, with whom his mother is said to be a nymph, sometimes Dryope or, in Nonnus, Dionysiaca (14.92), Penelope of Mantineia in Arcadia. This nymph at some point in the tradition became conflated with Penelope, the wife of Odysseus. Pausanias 8.12.5 records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, who banished her to Mantineia upon his return. Other sources (Duris of Samos; the Vergilian commentator Servius) report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result. This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pan's name (Πάν) with the Greek word for "all" (πᾶν). It is more likely to be cognate with paein, "to pasture", and to share an origin with the modern English word "pasture". In 1924, Hermann Collitz suggested that Greek Pan and Indic Pushan might have a common Indo-European origin. In the Mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era Pan is made cognate with Phanes/Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros.
The Roman Faunus, a god of Indo-European origin, was equated with Pan. However, accounts of Pan's genealogy are so varied that it must lie buried deep in mythic time. Like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than the Olympians, if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo. Pan might be multiplied as the Panes or the Paniskoi. Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas, and one a son of Cronus. "In the retinue of Dionysos, or in depictions of wild landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi, who played the same part as the Satyrs". One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his pan flute, fashioned from lengths of hollow reed. Syrinx was a lovely water-nymph of Arcadia, daughter of Landon, the river-god. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. To escape from his importunities, the fair nymph ran away and didn't stop to hear his compliments. He pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to her sisters who immediately changed her into a reed. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god, still infatuated, took some of the reeds, because he could not identify which reed she became, and cut seven pieces (or according to some versions, nine), joined them side by side in gradually decreasing lengths, and formed the musical instrument bearing the name of his beloved Syrinx. Henceforth Pan was seldom seen without it. Pan, a lecherous god was angry that Echo, a nymph, a great singer and dancer who scorned the love of any man, caused his followers to kill her and was torn to pieces and spread all over earth. The goddess of the earth, Gaia, received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. In some versions, Echo and Pan had two children: Iambe and Iynx. In other versions, Pan had fallen in love with Echo, although scorning the love of any man, she was enraptured by Narcissus. As Echo was cursed by Hera to only be able to repeat words that had been said by someone else, she could not speak for herself. She followed Narcissus to a pool, where he fell in love with his own reflection and changed into a narcissus flower. Echo wasted away, but her voice could still be heard in caves and other such similar places.Pan also loved a nymph named Pitys, who was turned into a pine tree to escape him. Disturbed in his secluded afternoon naps, Pan's angry shout inspired panic (panikon deima) in lonely places.Following the Titans' assault on Olympus, Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had frightened the attackers. In the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians.
Pan leading the man and his girl on
How happy?
Looking back
How art migrated from Athens to Rome and Pompeii in Italy and also to the the African Mahdia and Carthage: although Rome conquered Greece militarily and politically, it was itself conquered by the Greeks culturally.
a dancing girl
A man helping his drunken companion
a lady taking her younger girl friend along to introduce her to another youth (?)
another lady doing the same
We see the ribbons and canes in this crater
This is an example of Punic or Carthaginian art (who ruled present day Tunisia and much else from 9th to 2nd centuries BCE) until they were wiped out by the Romans in the middle of the 2nd century BCE.
This is a 4th century BCE Demeter, goddess of the harvest and of the earth's fertility and of the cycles of life and death and goddess of the underworld. Her cult titles include Sito (σίτος: wheat), "Grain," as the giver of food or grain and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; "phoros": bringer, bearer), "Law-Bringer," as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. Her Roman equivalent is Ceres. Here she's carrying on her shoulder the goddess of hell, Kore, her Roman equivalent being Persephone ( the daughter of Zeus ). Persephone was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld. The myth of her abduction represents her function as the personification of vegetation which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence she is also associated with spring as well as the fertility of vegetation. Similar myths appear in the Orient, in the cults of male gods like Attis, Adonis and Osiris,and in Minoan Crete.Persephone as a vegetation goddess and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon, and promised to the initiated a more enjoyable prospect after death. Persephone is further said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus, Iacchus, or Zagreus usually in orphic tradition. The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on very old agrarian cults of agricultural communities.Persephone was commonly worshipped along with Demeter, and with the same mysteries. Persephone is invariably portrayed robed; often carrying a sheaf of grain. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the act of being carried off by Hades. In Roman mythology, she is often called Proserpina, and her mother as Ceres.
This could be Isis, mother goddess carrying a baby bound to a crate on her lap. Isis (Ancient Greek: Ἶσις, original Egyptian pronunciation more likely "Aset" or "Iset") is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic, a friend of slaves, sinners, artisans and the downtrodden but she would also hear prayers of the wealthy, maidens, aristocrats and rulers.Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the hawk-headed god of war and protection (although in some traditions Horus's mother was Hathor). Isis is also known as protector of the dead and goddess of children.The name Isis means "Throne". Her headdress is a throne. As the personification of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaoh's power. The pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but her most important temples were at Behbeit El-Hagar in the Nile delta, and, beginning in the reign with Nectanebo I (380–362 BCE), on the island of Philae in Upper Egypt. In the typical form of her myth, Isis was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the Sky, and she was born on the fourth intercalary day. She married her brother, Osiris, and she conceived Horus with him. Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Set. Using her magical skills, she restored his body to life after having gathered the body parts that had been strewn about the earth by Set. This myth became very important during the Greco-Roman period. For example it was believed that the Nile River flooded every year because of the tears of sorrow which Isis wept for Osiris. Osiris's death and rebirth was relived each year through rituals. The worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era. The popular motif of Isis suckling her son Horus, however, lived on in a Christianized context as the popular image of Mary suckling the infant son Jesus from the fifth century onward
This is a perfume burner in the shape of Demeter
Another head of Demeter, 2nd century BCE
This is an axe found at Kekouan 4th century BCE
A 7th century BCE ostrich egg shell used as a container, found in Carthage
A 3rd century BCE conical jingle found in Carthage
Two 4th century BCE discs
Two Egyptian-style busts, 6th century BCE
6th century BCE grinning masks found in Carthage. The Berbers believed that masks could help them being attacked by evil spirits.
Two 6th century BCE female busts with curly wig in Egyptian hairstyle.
Late 6th century BCE Grinning female mask showing Egyptian influence 4th century BCE
Ostrich egg shell carved as female mask 4th century BCE
Various amulets to avoid dangers and evil spirit or to bring good luck representing various divinities like Ptah, Isis, Khnouum and Bès
Large alabaster jar with ovoid body and short neck and two handles, mid-7th century BCE, found in Carthage
Two flasks decorated with lotus motif, rosettes and petals, one of them bearing the name of an Egyptian Pharoah Ahmasisnetter found in Carthage, 6th century BCE
Feeding bottles with sucker in the belly found in Carthage 3rd Century BCE
Two more feeding bottles with sucker in the belly and with symbol of Tanit found in Carthage, 3rd Century BCE. Tanit is a Punic and Phoenician goddess, the chief deity of Carthage alongside her consort Ba`al Hammon., also called Tinnit and Tannou, equivalent to the moon-goddess Astarte, and later worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis, Juno Caelestis or simply Caelestis.
Larynos-Askos (type of ancient Greek pottery vessel used to pour small quantities of liquids such as oil with usually flat spouts which could also serve as handle). with body decorated with two bull's limbs found in Menzel Temine 4th-3rd century BCE
Black Askos with incised decoration found in Carthage 3rd century BCE
Two handle Cyprus lekythos (a kind of Greek pottery used for storing oil, especially olive oil) found in Carthage 7th century BCE
Attic black figure ceramics Lekythos with figure of Hercules (the Roman equivalent for the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Zeus (Roman equivalent Jupiter) and the mortal Alcmene, famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures) and the Lernean Hydra (many-headed serpent in Greek mythology) found in Carthage, late 7th century BCE
Aryballos vase (small spherical or globular flask with a narrow neck or flat mouth used in ancient Greece for perfume or oil) with a flat mouth, found in Carthage 6th century BCE
Skyphos (two-handled deep wine-cup on a low flanged base or none whose handles may be horizontal ear-shaped thumbholds that project from the rim (in both Corinthian and Athenian shapes or loop handles at the rim or that stand away from the lower part of the body) found in Carthage 5th century BCE on a black background with Maenads chasing Silenus found in Carthage 5th century BCE . The maenads are female followers of Dionysus (Bacchus in the Roman pantheon), and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by Dionysus into a state of ecstatic frenzy, through a combination of dancing and intoxication.During these rites, the maenads would often dress in fawn skins and carry a thyrsus, a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves and tipped with a pine cone; they would weave ivy-wreaths around their heads or wear a bull helmet in honor of their god, and often handle or wear snakes. Sometime such god-intoxicated celebrants draw milk and honey from the streams. They strike rocks with the thyrsus, and water gushes forth. They lower the thyrsus to the earth, and a spring of wine bubbles up. If they want milk, they scratch up the ground with their fingers and draw up the milky fluid. Honey trickles down from the thyrsus made of the wood of the ivy, they gird themselves with snakes and give suck to fawns and wolf cubs as if they were infants at the breast. Fire does not burn them. No weapon of iron can wound them, and the snakes harmlessly lick up the sweat from their heated cheeks. Fierce bulls fall to the ground, victims to numberless, tearing female hands, and sturdy trees are torn up by the roots with their combined efforts.The maddened Hellenic women of real life were mythologized as the mad women who were nurses of Dionysus in Nysa: Lycurgus "chased the Nurses of the frenzied Dionysus through the holy hills of Nysa, and the sacred implements dropped to the ground from the hands of one and all, as the murderous Lycurgus struck them down with his ox-goad. They went into the mountains at night and practised strange rites.)
Alabaster jug with lions facing each side of a goose found in Carthage late 7th century BCE
Black varnish Skyphos decorated with 2 white garlands found at Thapuus 5th century BCE
Kylix (or cylix) found in Carthage mid-7th century BCE. A kylix is a type of wine-drinking cup with a broad relatively shallow body raised on a stem from a foot and usually with two horizontal handles disposed symmetrically. The almost flat interior circle on the interior base of the cup, called the tondo, was the primary surface for painted decoration in the Black-figure or Red-figure styles of the 6th and 5th century BC. As the representations would be covered with wine, the scenes would only be revealed in stages as the wine was drained. They were often designed with this in mind, with scenes created so that they would surprise or titillate the drinker as they were revealed. The word comes from the Greek kylix "cup," which is cognate with Latin calix, the source of the English word "chalice" but not related to the similar Greek word calyx which means "husk" or "pod" decorated with a pair of peacocks on either side of a pheasant.
The god Pluto dressed in a short folded tunic early 1st century BCE
The goddess Kore end of 2nd and start of 1st century BCE
Greek goddess Demeter end of 2nd and start of 1st century BCE
A lion headed goddess like the Egyptian Sekhmet found at Thinissut 1st century CE. In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet /ˈsɛkˌmɛt/ or Sachmis (or Sakhmet, Sekhet, or Sakhet, among other spellings) was originally the warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing for Upper Egypt, usually depicted as a lioness, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians. It was said that her breath formed the desert. She was seen as the protector of the pharaohs and led them in warfare.Her cult was so dominant in the culture that when the first pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty, Amenemhat I, moved the capital of Egypt to Itjtawy, the centre for her cult was moved as well. Religion, the royal lineage, and the authority to govern were intrinsically interwoven in ancient Egypt during its approximately three millennia of existence.Sekhmet also is a Solar deity, sometimes called the daughter of the sun god Ra and often associated with the goddesses Hathor and Bast. She bears the Solar disk and the uraeus which associates her with Wadjet and royalty. With these associations she can be construed as being a divine arbiter of the goddess Ma'at (Justice, or Order) in the Judgment Hall of Osiris, associating her with the Wedjat (later the Eye of Ra), and connecting her with Tefnut as well. Sekhmet's name comes from the ancient Egyptian word "sekhem" which means "power". Sekhmet's name suits her function and means "the (one who is) powerful". She also was given titles such as the "(One) Before Whom Evil Trembles", "Mistress of Dread", "Lady of Slaughter" and "She Who Mauls".
a goddess 2nd-1st century BCE found at Soliman
A winged serpent found at Soliman, 2nd to 1st century BCE
A votive stele with the sign of Tanit with inscriptions of dedication to the gods found in Carthage 4th century BCE
This stucco is about a sign bearer and a horseman found on a grave found in Carthage mid-2nd century BCE
Some of the figures on the exterior of the same mausoleum
In these steles, the top part relates to the gods, the middle part represents the dedicatant and the bottom represents the scene of a sacrifice usually of an animal
An assembly of the Libyque gods found at Beja 3rd century BCE
Two more such steles
Various dedicatants
The top is a rosette, the middle a woman and the bottom a sacrificial lamb in the Roman period
In this stele, at the top is Jupiter with a lion at his right and an ironclad Mars, at his left is Ceres and Neptune holding a trident and a dolphin, in the middle is a woman holding some flowers in a niche and at the bottom is a cow between two atlantes found at Henchir Mided
This is a stele dedicated to Saturn: we see him with a head haloed with rays of the sun and stars and below a sacrifices found at Oued el Kassab (Béja) 8th November 323 CE
Another stele dedicated to Saturn: the upper relate to the gods and the lower part the god's followers found in Siliana late 3rd and early 4th century CE
A statue of Saturn sitting on a throne, found at Hammamet 3rd century CE
An assembly of gods, found at Chemtou between 200 to 46 BCE
An armed horseman slaying an enemy lying on the ground on both sides are captives with shackled hands with the head of a god to the right. found at Sidi Saleh-el-Balti
Certain Libyan inscriptions
The room showing various Carthaginian gods showing Greco-Roman influence
Venus, goddess of love early 2nd Century CE found in Carthage
Isis Egyptian goddess of mysteries found at Sidi Salem Bou Ghana
Dionysius found at Boj El Kantara , Roman period
Empress Faustine, wife of Marcus Aurelius 161-180 CE
Empress consort Julia Donna, wife of Emperor Septimus 193-211 CE
Statue of a chaste woman, the poppy in her hand marks her initiation to the mysteries of Ceres, found at Carthage 2nd half of 2nd century BCE
Marble bust of Emperor Marcus Aurelius crowned 161-180 CE found at the Bulla Regia Theatre 2nd half of the 2nd century or is it that of Marble bust of Emperor Lucius Verus crowned 161-169 CE found same place
To be cont'd
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