Taking the bus to Ephesus by way of the Getty Villa

View of the entrance to the Getty Villa
from the bus stop across the street.
The building at the top of the hill is a private residence
and has nothing to do with the Getty.

It’s no secret that I am a Getty Villa addict. I love going there for any reason. This past Saturday there was a very good reason—a lecture entitled Living in Roman Luxury: Terrace House 2 in Ephesus. The lecturer, Sabine Ladstätter, is director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute and excavation director at Ephesus in Turkey.


Excavation of a section of Terrace House 2 in Ephesus with frescoes and a mosaic floor.
Photo: OeAI-Vienna Niki Gail

On a Greek cruise several years ago I had the fortune to visit Ephesus. However, as Dr. Ladstätter mentioned, sadly we were one of those groups who raced through the tourist area in less than an hour. But afterwards we were given plenty of time to spend our money on souvenirs (I bought two refrigerator magnets, good thing as one of them broke!)

The Terrace House area is a separate admission from the other areas and because of time constraints, not many people get to visit this excavation.

Of course the main reason I attended the lecture (other than having been to Ephesus) was because of the above photo on the Getty website: a beautiful mosaic in excellent condition. Apparently, many mosaics were discovered in the Terrace House residences.

In the two and a half days we were in Turkey I was extremely impressed and hope some day to return for a longer period of time. Perhaps next time I will be able to stay in Ephesus long enough to explore it thoroughly.

I almost didn’t make it to the lecture. A friend who was going with me cancelled. And it looked like a big storm was coming in. I had planned to go by bus and didn’t want to get soaked, but after checking the weather forecast I decided to brave it.

It so happens October 20 was National Archaeology Day. I don’t know if that was part of the reason the museum was overflowing with visitors. I heard somebody say they were turning people away at the gate who didn’t have a reservation. And the lecture hall was standing room only. So one lucky person on standby got to take my friend’s seat. I was happy it didn’t go to waste.

Since the Metro Expo Line train station arrived in Culver City, the bus lines that cover my part of town (LA Metro, Santa Monica Big Blue Bus and Culver City Bus) have tweaked their bus routes to stop near the station. So now I am a short walk from the Line #534 Express bus stop that takes me all the way to the front gate of the Getty Villa via the Santa Monica Freeway. I used to have to take a bus several miles east to the bus center on Fairfax, change to the #534, then backtrack all the way west again. This made for a very long journey to the Villa. So, even more good fallout from the train!

Once you get to the Getty Villa, you show your entry ticket to the guard, then press the button for the shuttle to take you up to the museum. Unfortunately, there is no accommodation for visitors to walk up to the top of the hill. Personally, I think this was a huge oversight when they remodeled the museum in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Maybe there were insurance reasons, I don’t know, but there are plenty of stairs inside the complex so it makes no sense to me. It’s almost like they are discouraging public transportation as it can take longer to wait for the van as it would to walk up. Plus, leaving the museum it is a circuitous journey around the back of the compound and through the streets back to the gate.

View from bus stop on Pacific Coast Highway looking towards Malibu.

The bus stop for the homeward bound part of the trip is on the ocean side of Pacific Coast Highway. Two bus seats are perched precariously in the dirt at the top of a small slope above the beach.

View across Santa Monica Bay with Palos Verdes on horizon at right center.

But what a view! Even though it was a gloomy, cloudy day, the perspective looking out across the Santa Monica Bay to the south and Malibu to the north is astonishing. Must be one of the best bus stops in the world!

In case you are interested, the bus came at 4:00pm and I was walking through my front door at 4:55pm.  I could hardly make that kind of time in my car!

Please click on the photos so you can see tham at a decent size!

(Photos copyright roslyn m wilkins)

 

 

 

A dream becomes reality - visiting the mosaics at Fishbourne Roman Palace in England - Part One

From the train window on the way to Fishbourne. Possibly Arundel Castle?

The train pulled into the station. Fishbourne, West Sussex, England. It was unreal. No, it was real. I was finally going to see FishbourneRoman Palace after years of imagining what it would be like. Weather-wise it could not have been a better day. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. Not too hot and not too cold. Perfect.

Was this the weather the Romans had encountered when they first arrived here in AD 43, or was it cold and rainy and they wished they had stayed home?

From the train window on the way to Fishbourne. Fields of rapeseed.

I was born in England but have lived all my adult life in Los Angeles. The first Spanish settlers arrived in LA in 1769. That is my history now. AD 43 is hard to grasp, yet I have a definite attachment to that era—in fact, anything to do with the Roman Empire. If only the Roman army had gotten as far as southern California—oh well, no point in dreaming…

I have no idea what I was expecting. Should Fishbourne Roman Palace be some towering structure on a 1500-foot hill overlooking all of Sussex? That would not have surprised me, but it was not the case.

Walking down the steps from the train station I found myself in a residential area. There was a small sign pointing down the street.
I passed typical English brick houses, then a schoolyard with uniformed children playing. More houses. Was I going in the wrong direction? Then another sign. Visitors to the school should park in the Roman Palace parking lot. Okay. I was on the right road.

I found the parking lot. Oh joy. There were some buildings. But they didn’t look like a palace.
I entered the glass doors. On my right was the gift shop (always my favorite section of any place I visit) and on the left was the museum with artifacts and historical information. In front of me were the mosaic floors. I immediately knew I was in heaven.

This was the moment I had been dreaming of for… how many years… I really don’t know… a long, long time.

I took my first class in the archaeology certificate program at UCLA in 2004. I was immediately hooked. The following year I was asked to identify my area of primary interest. In order to answer the question I thought about a school excursion when I was very young to a site where mosaics were being excavated. I have no idea where that could have been. Certainly not Fishbourne, as that was not open to the public until 1968.

Without really thinking, my answer was Roman mosaics. I don’t even know where that came from as I had not thought about that school expedition for decades. But it seemed right. Somehow, out of the deepest corner of my memory this had surfaced. And from that moment on Roman mosaics became my obsession and interest.

On trips to Italy and Greece since then I had seen ancient mosaics in situ and they were wonderful. But to see them in my home country, real Roman mosaics, was beyond words. So I won’t attempt to explain the feeling here.

Fishbourne is the largest and earliest Roman Villa in England. After the initial conquest there were wooden buildings in the area. To make a longer story shorter, the Palace was built over those foundations between AD 75 and 80, probably for the British King of that area, Togidubnus, who was loyal to Rome.

Fishbourne Roman Villa. Walkway overlooking mosaics on both sides.

Unfortunately for us, the town of Fishbourne—complete with modern houses, shops, and the A259 highway—is built over half of the Villa. From time to time artifacts are dug up from the homeowners’ gardens so the extent of the Palace is known.

Fishbourne Roman Palace. Another shot of the walkway.

But fortunately for us, the part that is visible contains the most amazing mosaic floors. Although mosaic floors are associated with Roman houses, only the richest people could afford them, and then only in a few rooms. So to see this many mosaic floors all in one place is quite unusual.

Before looking at the mosaics, I purchased the booklet Fishbourne Roman Palace, An Illustrated Family Guide by David Rudkin. This really enhanced my visit as it is written from the point of view of Togidubnus, as if he was giving visitors from the future a tour of his home.

I will end part one here. To read Part Two of this blog post, click here.

(Photos copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Help Preserve Archaeology in Italy, Nov. 2nd Deadline

Below is the text of the email I received from the Archaeological Institute of America regarding an important agreement between Italy and the U.S. that needs your support. I already faxed off my letter to the Cultural Heritage Center.

October 29, 2009
Hello,
On Nov. 13 the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) will review the Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Italy that governs the trade in antiquities between the two countries. The committee has asked for public comments, with a deadline of Nov. 2nd.
Specifically, CPAC will consider Italy's actions under Article II of the Memorandum. You can read the agreement at exchanges.state.gov/heritage/culprop/itfact.html. Article II calls for Italy to loan material to US museums, allow Americans to excavate, and otherwise promote the protection of archaeological sites.
If you have visited American museums that have objects on loan from Italy, if you have excavated in Italy, if you have done research there, then you should write a letter to CPAC describing your work. Letters from the public are extremely important in CPAC's assessment of the impact of the agreement.
Letters can be fairly brief, one page is fine. Make it clear you're writing about the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and the Republic of Italy as amended in 2006. Identify yourself. Give specific examples of museums you've visited or places in Italy you've worked, and end with a request that further co-operation between the US and Italy be encouraged (or something similarly positive). Your letter will make a difference in protecting archaeological resources for future generations.
If you can write, please do. Letters are due by Monday, Nov. 2nd and can be faxed to (202) 632-6300 or sent by mail to:
Cultural Heritage Center, SA-5, Fifth Floor, Department of StateWashington, DC 20522-0505
Thank you, Sebastian Heath, Vice-President for Professional Responsibilities Archaeological Institute of America
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the AIA at Sitepreservation@aia.bu.edu

Three for a Friday

Conservator Jeff Maish restores the painted decoration on a fragmentary mixing vessel. (See below for photo copyright information.)

This past Friday was one of those days that I could repeat over and over again and never get tired of it. In the morning I did my volunteer gig at the Fowler Museum lab in Westwood, bought some groceries at Whole Foods (skinless sausages made from humanely raised chickens and rainforest coffee), then drove along Sunset Blvd. as it winds its way through upscale neighborhoods and past Will Rogers State Park to Pacific Coast Highway and the Getty Villa.
I visited three exhibitions at the Villa: Reconstructing Identity: A Statue of a God from Dresden, The Getty Commodus: Roman Portraits and Modern Copies, Fragment to Vase: Approaches to Ceramic Restoration. One of my interests in art and archaeology is conservation and preservation. Over the centuries the term "conservation" has had various interpretations. In earlier times, statues that had lost arms or legs, or even heads, were given body parts from unrelated statues in order to make them whole. Today, museums are more likely to display statues with the missing parts, or at least indicate where the original statue leaves off and the restoration begins. Personally, if there is a drawing or photograph of how a statue looked in its original state, I don't mind seeing it restored as it was originally intended to be seen, as long as the restoration parts are clearly identified in documentation displayed nearby.
A Statue of a God from Dresden is a wonderful lesson in conservation history all by itself. You could say it has survived the restoration wars! Everything imaginable happened to the statue since its discovery in the 1600s, and the Getty has done a splendid job in telling its story.
The Getty Commodus is another story, literally. The exhibition explains the difficulties in determining the date of origin of a sculpture. This piece was at first thought to be the work of an Italian sculptor from the late 16th century as it was fashionable at that time (and through the next few centuries) to make copies of ancient works of art. However, after weighing all the clues, it is now thought to be an original ancient sculpture from an archaeological dig.
As interesting as the first two exhibits are, my favorite is Fragment to Vase. In the past, the approach to restoring a fragmented vase was to do everything possible to make it look like an unbroken piece by gluing, painting, cementing... some of this was for purely practical purposes, but it was also done to make it saleable to unsuspecting collectors. In the 20th century it was usually the policy to show plainly the difference between the restored part and the original, sometimes resulting in a not very intelligible piece. The Getty's approach today is to balance aesthetics with preservation, making the patching less obtrusive but distinguishable. I like that idea.
My policy, if possible, is to time my visit to an exhibit so I can go through at my own pace, then if there is a guided tour to participate in that either before or after (after is my preference as then I am already familiar with the subject) which is what I did on Friday.
The drive home along Pacific Coast Highway in the late afternoon was splendid. Usually I am enamored of the sun sparkling on the calm blue of the Pacific. But this drive was in a storm and the ocean was heaving up murky, dangerous-looking waves as my windshield wipers were having a hard time keeping up with the deluge of wet stuff falling from the sky. Fortunately, the traffic was relatively light for that time of day on a Friday, maybe because everybody left work early for the safety of their homes.
As usual, I am glad I made the effort to see the exhibit. I have wasted countless hours of my life watching detective shows on TV and putting together jigsaw puzzles... which is perhaps why the art of conservation and preservation is so fascinating to me!

(Photo copyright The J. Paul Getty Trust
© J. Paul Getty Trust
For useage information see http://www.getty.edu/legal/copyright.html)

When in Phoenix
I had to drive over to Phoenix, Arizona on family business. Fortunately, KJ volunteered to ride shotgun as I would never want to drive across the desert alone. I was looking forward to visiting my 94-year-old aunt who moved into an assisted living facility but what to do the rest of the time? I had previously checked out the Pueblo Grande Museum on the internet. When we arrived at our Motel 6 we found a brochure on the Heard Museum. Both museums concentrate on Native American Indian art and culture.
Serendipitously, we decided on the Heard Museum first, located in downtown. Phoenix is in the throes of building a light rail transportation system with all the closed streets and detours you can imagine, so after driving around in a state of bewilderment for quite a while we finally found the correct parking entrance.
The building itself is delightful, designed in the Spanish style with courtyards and fountains. The exhibit spaces inside were well thought out, flowing naturally from one space to the next. Near the entrance was a spectacular 30-foot glass and clay fence by Tony Jojola, "Isleta." (Pictured, a little blurry as I couldn't use a flash.) Although all the displays were interesting, I particularly enjoyed Barry Goldwater's collection of Hopi Katsina dolls and the exhibit explaining the controversial federally run boarding school system designed to forcibly assimilate, Americanize and "civilize" American Indian children.
The next day we visited the Pueblo Grande Museum out by the airport (which, of course, led to more circumventing of the light rail construction). This is an archaeological site on an excavated 1,500 year-old Hohokam village which you can walk around on trails. The galleries house artifacts and displays of the history of the area plus an exhibit on two excavations at the nearby airport before they are covered up by runways.
I'm glad we visited the Heard Museum first as that set the stage for the Pueblo Grande. Both museums are unique in their own way which is first noticeable with the museum buildings, the Heard in a Spanish style while the Pueblo is designed to represent a truncated pyramid (hinting at the relationship between the Hohokam and Mexican cultures) and I could not suggest choosing one over the other, so I'm happy we had the time to visit both. Although I have to admit I have never been overly excited about studying the Native American cultures (my first love being the Roman Empire) I am warming to it, and this trip only added to my appreciation.
Of course, no museum trip is complete without shopping at the store. Both museums have first-rate shops. We bought American-Indian earrings at both locations and a t-shirt at the Pueblo. So, if you need to be in Phoenix for any reason, don't miss the Heard Museum or the Pueblo Grande!
(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)

How I got interested in Roman mosaics.

I have a very vivid memory of a field trip to a Roman Villa somewhere in the south of England when I was a child. I remember the remains of some walls perhaps a foot high surrounding some mosaics. One mosaic in particular of stylized plants in blues and greens stands out in my mind. I remember nothing about the rest of the trip, just that flash. I didn't ever actually think actively about that scene, but it must have remained tucked away in some corner of my brain, because when it came to the forefront again a couple of years ago, it was not a surprise to me that it had been lurking there all my life.

Even before I became interested in painting ceramic tiles or collecting them, I was fond of a book in my library on Islamic architecture which of course incorporated photos of tiles and mosaics. I bought it at least thirty years ago and looked at it often over the years, but it did not bring forth that childhood memory. Even when I traveled to Andalucia, Spain because I wanted to see the tiles and mosaics at the Alhambra in Granada and the Great Mosque at Sevilla, I did not think of that mosaic.

But in my first year of classes in the Archaeology Program at UCLA, the students were asked by one of the professors to talk about our specific area of interest. The memory of that mosaic popped into my head and I knew that was why I had signed up for the program. Since then I have developed a true passion for ancient mosaics, particularly from the Roman Empire. This ties in nicely, of course, with my love of tiles. And now, after a lifetime, I know for sure what my mission in life is: to find out anything and everything I can about mosaics and tiles, to immerse myself in that subject. But I don't have a specific goal. Perhaps I will find that as I walk along the path... or maybe there is no goal. It doesn't really matter. I am enjoying my passion, and that is exactly what it is all about.

Postscript:
I lived in Worthing, Sussex when I visited the Villa, so the excavation must have been close by. If anybody has any information about where this might have been I would appreciate hearing from you.