Posted on 05/25/2013 6:00:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Leading archaeologists have denounced the poor state of conservation of the Roman remains at Antinopolis in Egypt, the city built by the emperor Hadrian, who ruled Rome from 117AD to 138AD... Antinopolis, located near the Nile over 30km south of the nearest large town, Minya, is a perfect target.
Until recently, the Roman hippodrome there was still intact, although it has now been swallowed by the ever-expanding cemetery for the neighbouring small town called Sheikh ‘Ibada. Out of the four hippodromes built by the Romans in Egypt, this was the only one that survived. Large areas are being prepared for redevelopment and parts of the ancient necropolis on the north of the site have already been converted into farmland.
Rosario Pintaudi, an Italian archaeologist from the Vitelli Papyrological Institute, Florence, has raised the alarm and involved other leading archaeologists, such as Jay Heidel, from Chicago University’s Oriental Institute, to bring the issue to the attention of the Egyptian authorities. Pintaudi claims that, thanks to American involvement, he obtained a meeting with Mohammed Ibrahim, the minister of antiquities, who only promised to address the matter when he realised that a nearby temple, built by Rameses II, is also under threat...
A vast expanse of ancient ruins, Antinopolis extends eastwards from the small of Sheikh ‘Ibada, and much of the Roman wall that circles the ancient city are still visible. Antinopolis has been an important source of artefacts of Egypt’s early Christian period, many of which are now housed in antiquities museums around the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at theartnewspaper.com ...
“It’s a battle,” says Rosario Pintaudi, an Italian archaeologist from the Vitelli Papyrological Institute, Florence. “Groups of children pass by us, grinning, armed with spades with which they dig out artefacts and sell them.”
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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The city had perhaps twenty years of existence in Roman times, then was abandoned. Hadrian had built it in memoriam of Antinoos, his strapping catamite, who went swimming near the future site of the city and drowned, or was chomped by a hippo or something. The fairy king Hadrian also had a roadway built eastward across the waste to reach the Red Sea and give the city some chance of self-sustainability from an economic life. Recent-years research of the route suggested that the road was used by those who built it, and possibly no one else. Building the city and the roadway was not cheap, but Hadrian also squandered money on many statues of Antinoos, who he elevated to the status of a divinity, to be worshipped throughout the empire. |
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Antinoopolis (as it is also spelled) had a longer existence than that--according to the entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Diolcletian made it the capital of the Thebaid, and according to this report it was still in use in Early Christian times which should mean later than Diocletian.
A. R. Birley's article on Hadrian in the Oxford Classical Dictionary says of Hadrian's tour of the eastern provinces, including Egypt, "Hadrian was accompanied not only by Sabina [his wife, a great-niece of Trajan] but by a young Bithynian, Antinous; his passion for the youth, embarrassing to many Romans, was a manifestation of his Hellenism."
Hadrian wasn't the first Roman emperor to prefer same-sex partners. Suetonius, writing during the reign of Hadrian, says of Galba (emperor 68-69), "His sexual preference inclined toward males, but only those who were especially tough and full grown."
“Fairy emperor” isn’t an expression. :’)
He spent his entire reign trying to constrain the boundaries of the empire and maximize imperial taxation short of starting tax riots, y’know, when he wasn’t worshipping a statue of his catamite.
Hadrian wasn’t the only Roman Emperor to bang boys in the butt (a few others preferred be the bangee), but a) my post wasn’t intended to discuss that, and b) Antinoos is the only catamite whose mass-produced image survived.
And just how fruity was Hadrian?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinous#Commemoration:_the_cult_of_Antinous
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