An Iconographic Treasure Unearthed in Jordan

CNRS News ^ | October 21, 2018 | Philippe Testard-Vaillant

[SunkenCiv]

...this subterranean tomb of 52 m2... impressive number of figures (nearly 260, including gods, humans, and animals) painted on the walls of the largest chamber. Of course other Roman tombs from the Decapolis also offer sumptuous mythological decor, but none of them can hold a candle to this one in terms of iconography...

Whoever entered the tomb, before it was closed, first glimpsed on his left banqueting deities lying on beds, and tasting offerings brought by humans smaller than themselves. Again to the left of the entrance, a second painting with a country landscape shows peasants busy working the earth with the help of oxen, gathering fruit, tending grapevines... The next panel depicts woodcutters chopping down various species of trees with the help of gods, an exceedingly rare subject in Greco-Roman imagery.

No less original, to the right of the entrance, is a large painting illustrating the building of a rampart... displayed on the ceiling and walls on both sides of the entrance is a more classical composition evoking the Nile and the marine world, in which nymphs ride aquatic animals flanked by cupids, while a central medallion combines signs from the zodiac and the planets around a quadriga.

First Aramaic Comics?

..."These 60 or so texts painted in black, some of which we have already deciphered, have the distinctive feature of being written in the local language of Aramaic, while using Greek letters," says Jean-Baptiste Yon, of the same research unit... "The inscriptions are actually similar to speech bubbles in comic books, because they describe the activities of the characters, who offer explanations of what they are doing (‘I am cutting (stone),’ ‘Alas for me! I am dead!’), which is also extraordinary."

[SunkenCiv]

The clearing of the site of Capitolias, with the assistance of Dionysos and other gods. [Julien ALIQUOT/ HiSoMA 2018]

[SunkenCiv]

Zeus between the two Capitolias Fortunes and Caesarea Maritima. [Julien ALIQUOT/ HiSoMA 2018]

[SunkenCiv]

Two stonecutters at work. [Julien ALIQUOT/ HiSoMA 2018]

[SunkenCiv]

[Darksheare]

“Archaeologist digs hole, hits wall. ‘Hey! Who put that here?!’ exclaimed exasperated spademan.”

[Cvengr]

mark

[SunkenCiv]

• THE HISTORY OF THE ARAMAIC LANGUAGE [7/22/2004]
• Does the Language You Speak Change Your Brain? [10/2/2018]

[mosesdapoet]

Thanks! Fascinating how they come up with explanations of what’s depicted.

[SunkenCiv]

Nice to know there’s still interest in learning ancient languages and scripts.

[Hatteras]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting!

[gundog]

Subtitles? I can’t help thinking that. I bought “The Passion of the Christ “ at a pawn shop. I guess someone had bought it before, and brought it back because it was subtitled, because the owner warned me about it. I said “That’s OK; I know how to read. “

[SunkenCiv]

I'm glad people are finally getting used to letterboxing in home vids -- "I hate that, it wastes part of the screen".

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure!

[Red Badger]

have the distinctive feature of being written in the local language of Aramaic, while using Greek letters," says Jean-Baptiste Yon, of the same research unit. "This combination of the two primary idioms of the ancient Near East is extremely rare,

That is rare, indeed!..............

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm

[jjotto]

In our own day, Hebrew and Talmudic Aramaic language prayers, sayings, etc., are very commonly written in the Latin alphabet expected to be pronounced in English or other languages. It’s not a new idea!

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Thanks for posting these great articles, SunkenCiv.

The notion that the language a person speaks controls how they think has been around for a long time. I can remembrr reading a technical article about it in the 1960s.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the kind remarks. In a different context, hypnosis is induced by words (sometimes with help from sodium pentathol, but anyway), which continues to be amazing.

[ApplegateRanch]

"I hate that, it wastes part of the screen".

No need to waste: sell that space to advertisers, and run continuous ad crawls in them; maybe charge slightly more for the space at the bottom.

[SunkenCiv]

A warehouse club employee said that the returned TVs are, almost every single time, due to "issues" like that -- there are gray bars we can't get rid of, either at top and bottom, or on each end. Those returned sets have to be marked down and they sell them with their display models, discontinueds and such.