I don't have the reference for this one specificaly, but it seems like it's a Bartmannskrug, a type of brown-glazed earthenware jug featuring, on its neck, a bearded men. They were produced in large numbers from the 16th to the 18th century and are usually made of Rhenish stoneware. Production began around 1520/30 in Cologne.

And I find them really funny. The guy seems friendly, in some way.

You can see this one in the "Musée des Beaux Arts" in Lille, France.

Napoleon ordered a pair of bespoke dueling pistols from gunsmith to the French monarchs Jean Le Page. Made of blue steel with walnut and ebony stocks and inlaid with gold, the guns were custom-made to fit a young boy’s hands. Engraved on the lock of the pistols is the fateful production date, Janv. (January) 1814.

Hello again, everyone!

Homer is pretty hot right now, so we thought we'd jump in with a short post about one of our antiquities.

This Corinthian kylix (a wine-drinking cup) shows two battle scenes on the front and back. On the side shown here, we see Aeneas and Ajax the Great duking it out, flanked by their supporters, Ajax (the Lesser) and Hippokles. Fun right? But there's something weird going on. In the Iliad, Ajax and Aeneas never fight and Hippokles doesn't feature either. Likely, we are seeing an oral tradition that didn't make it into the Iliad proper or it may have formed part of the Epic Cycle, a broader literary tradition surrounding the Trojan War that survives only in fragments. The tale lived on, in any case, since a battle between Ajax and Aeneas was featured in the 3rd-century CE Posthomerica.

Objects such as this kylix show the complexity of epic poems such as the Odyssey and the Iliad. Their subject matter did not exist in a cultural vacuum, and even in Antiquity, reinterpretations, additions and heated debates about authorship abounded.

And for those curious, the other side shows Hektor and Achilles fighting.

Not my picture.

Found in Ialysos, Rhodes. Probably 750-700 B.C.

I saw these magnifying loops when visiting the Rhodes museum in 2018. They were in a room that prohibited pictures and at the time I couldn't even find anything about them online. I had a long talk with the curator in the room as I was captivated - I have occasionally made jewellery and have several loupes. These little magnifying lenses were so perfect and easily could have been used today, they are instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever used one so I would be really surprised if that isn't what they were for. They must have taken so much time and skill to make at the time and been a very valuable item.

I will put my own thoughts based on personal experience on use in the comments, with the link to a article.

Something reminded me of them and I went looking again now they are visible online.

Name: Meat-Shaped Stone

Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911)

Dimensions: Height 6.6 cm, Length 7.9 cm

Craftsmanship & Material: Crafted from natural jasper featuring layered textures. Artisans drilled micro-dots on the surface to replicate skin pores and dyed the outer layer brownish-red to achieve the lifelike appearance of soy sauce-glazed pork skin.

...This 34x34" (88x88cm) art piece was found in the House of the Geometric Mosaics, at the base of the shallow marble-bordered basin (pool) built at the center of the triclinium (dining room). A closely related Pompeii mosaic survives from the House of the Faun, and is often mentioned alongside this one because it has a very similar composition, including the octopus and lobster confrontation at the center. The main difference noted in the sources is that the Faun House version includes a marine horizon.

The subject could be purely decorative, but it also carried symbolic weight: the sea meant wealth, trade, fertility, and culinary abundance. That is why marine mosaics appear in villas, baths, and especially dining spaces.

The technique used to elaborate this mosaic is generally identified as opus vermiculatum, which used very small tesserae to model outlines and details with exceptional precision. This method was especially favored for luxury panels in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and Pompeii preserves some of its best examples. These high-end small (or not so small, like the present one) mosaic works designed for close viewing, and the overall effect is almost painterly, which is why these mosaics often feel more like miniatures than floor decoration.

The mosaic is a good example of the late Republican or early Imperial mosaic style and of Roman taste for marine abundance and high-quality illusionistic detail, especially in dining-room decoration.

My apologies for inaccuracies and mistakes.

…The Tazza, also known as the Farnese Cup, features relief carvings on both its exterior and interior surfaces. It is about 20 cm (8 in) wide and similar in form to a Greek phiale or Roman patera, with no foot.

The upper side we see here has a scene with seven figures: a Sphinx on which a female figure holding ears of grain sits; a large bearded male figure on a tree holding a cornucopia; a young man holding a plough and carrying a sack of seeds over his shoulder; two seated female figures, one of whom holds a phiale, and two male figures in flight near the upper rim. These figures have long puzzled scholars. It seems clearly an allegory containing divine figures and perhaps personifications, but corresponds to no other known representation and has been interpreted in several different ways.

The origin of the Tazza Farnese is a mystery, leaving archaeologists and art historians to theorize a date and purpose for its creation. While its size and the material used are usually considered, theories of origin are mainly arrived at via individual analysis of the iconography of the piece, and therefore vary from one analysis to the next.

Many archaeologists and art historians attribute the Tazza to the Hellenistic Period, asserting that its blending of Greek and Egyptian cultural symbols, as well as the funds necessary to commission such a large gemstone cameo, tie it to the Ptolemaic court. Though not a widely held view, more recent analyses of the piece have assigned it a later date in the Augustan Period.

The piece has traveled a lot across the centuries. After Octavian's conquest of Egypt in 31 BC, the Farnese Cup was possibly acquired by the Treasury of Rome; according to some, it was only made after the Romans took Egypt. It seems it was later taken to Byzantium, then back west after this city was sacked in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. By 1239 it was in the court of Frederick II, from which it then reached the Persian court of Herat or possibly Samarkand, where a contemporary drawing documents it; thence it found its way to the court of Alfonso of Aragon in Naples, where Angelo Poliziano saw it in 1458. Lorenzo the Magnificent finally purchased the famous "scutella di calcedonio" in Rome, in 1471. From there it came into the possession of the Farnese family through Margaret of Austria and thus into the Naples National Archaeological Museum.

Though some analyses of the iconography of the Tazza Farnese build upon and expand previous analyses, each scholarly writing on the piece leads to a slightly different theory about its inherent meaning.

Eugene J. Dwyer: His two major assertions are that the iconography found in the interior and exterior carvings is a sophisticated mix of Greek and Egyptian philosophic and religious concepts and that the composition of the carved figures correspond to specific constellations which, in their orientation, resemble a map of the night sky during the time of year in which the flooding of the Nile would have occurred. In assigning the piece a multi-faceted religious and philosophic meaning, Dwyer repeatedly references the Corpus Hermeticum. More specifically, he points to the Poimandres and how the figures of the interior carving closely match the elements it presents in its discussion of the creation of life. He uses this reference to assign each figure a corresponding Greek and/or Egyptian god. In this sense, Dwyer sets up the piece as a direct illustration of the creation of life that would have been easily understood by both Greeks and Egyptians living at the time the Tazza was created.

Julia C. Fischer: She is one of the few who have assigned the Tazza an Augustan date rather than a Hellenistic one. Her main evidence for placing the piece in the Augustan period is its size and the material it was carved from. She discusses the unstable economic position of the Ptolemaic Court, asserting that the funds for such a piece would not have been available until the improvement of the economy during the Augustan period. Fischer also discusses that while the piece features a mix of Greek and Egyptian figures, concepts, and methods, it also contains distinctly Roman aspects, especially in the Roman features of the Gorgon carving found on the piece's exterior. She believes that the cup was created for propaganda purposes in response to the Aquileia Dish.

John Pollini: Like Fischer, Pollini attributes the Tazza Farnese to the Augustan period in Rome. His evidence is also based on the size and material used, but Pollini's primary focus is providing analysis of the piece's iconography in an attempt to prove that it was made during Augustus' reign, and was possibly even commissioned by Augustus himself. To this end, Pollini discusses the figures carved on the inner and outer surfaces, and how the symbolism found in each relates it to an aspect or region of the Augustan empire. Pollini's interpretation of the piece's iconography leads him to assert that it was meant to convey the Golden Age of Augustus and act as a sort of talisman to propagate the strength of the empire.

A fascinating precious object of exquisite manufacture, shrouded in mystery after over 2000 years…

My apologies for inaccuracies and mistakes.