Last week I explored classical heritage in the context of a crematorium in a 20th-century cemetery in Aarhus. This post presents a few comparative examples of classical heritage from Copenhagen’s Assistens Kirkegård in the Nørrebro neighbourhood. The one above is one of my favourites: the tombstone of Peter Christian Abildgaard (1740-1801). The inscription lists his […]
Author archives: Troels
The Archaeology of the Dubplate
This post is part of “Iconoclasm Weekend”, an occasional series of more or less off-topic posts to appear on Saturdays. As commodified archives, online auction houses are full of discarded stuff from the past. If you scavenge through this stuff, you may be able to get closer to things that were once completely out of […]
Konstantinos Zachos on the Actium Victory Monument
Here’s an interesting online presentation by Konstantinos Zachos on the excavations of the Augustan victory monument at Nikopolis that revealed thousands of fragments of Pentelic marble sculpture (with some comments on deliberate destruction at around the 33-minute mark). Thanks to Carsten (Hjort Lange) for the tip.
Teaching Thursday: Contexts of Classical Sculpture
One of the fun things I’m doing this semester is teaching a new graduate seminar for our graduate students in classical archaeology on “Contexts of Classical Sculpture.” With them previously having been schooled in the basics of chronology and style, the seminar dives straight into current discussions about the meanings and uses of “context” in […]
The “Mausoleum” of Nordre Kirkegård, III: The End
To conclude this little series on the “Mausolleion” of Nordre Kirkegård, here are some images taken in July 1946 during the demolition of the crematorium (part one, part two). The first image shows demolition in progress – with two workers on top of the pyramid – and gives some more detail of the relief decoration […]
The “Mausoleum” of Nordre Kirkegård, II: Drawings
Following up on yesterday’s post, here are Kühnel’s beautiful 1918 drawings of the crematorium that he designed for Nordre Kirkegård in Aarhus and that stood for little more than 20 years. The drawings are easily available from the municipality’s “Min Ejendom” archive (in the entry for Kirkegårdsvej 26). The image of Kühnel below is from […]
The “Mausoleum” of Nordre Kirkegård, Aarhus
The Maussolleion of Halikanassos – and especially its stepped, pyramidal roof – has inspired all sorts of public architecture in the modern world. Buildings from London to Los Angeles and Melbourne have thus been part of a global discourse of classicism rooted in this (lost) wonder of the ancient world. A well-known Danish example is […]
Messenian Techno
An hour of stadium techno with Charlotte de Witte in beautiful Messene. Recorded 25 February 2021. Perfect for another Saturday in lockdown.
Julius Lange at the British Museum in 1867
The art historian Julius Lange (1838-96) is likely to be among the first Danes to have seen the sculptures from the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos. The sculptures, most famously the two colossal portraits usually identified as Maussollos and Artemisia II, had been recovered by the British vice-consul Charles T. Newton in 1857 and then transported by […]
The One That Got Away: The Via Labicana Augustus
Frederik Poulsen wasn’t always successful in getting the pieces he wanted for the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. In the second volume of his memoirs, I det gæstfrie Europa (1947), he discusses some of his experiences working under the direction of Carl Jacobsen as well as his occasional failures in acquiring a number of different sculptures, including […]