1940.97.16: Wall Painting Fragment

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1940.97.16

Title

Wall Painting Fragment

Classification

Fragments

Work Type

wall painting fragment(s)

Date

3rd-mid 2nd century BCE

Places

Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Asia, Dura-Europos (Syria)

Period

Hellenistic period

Culture

Syrian

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/377809

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Pigment on Plaster

Technique

Painted

Dimensions

Irreg.: H. 3.7 × W. 5.9 × D. 1.2 cm (1 7/16 × 2 5/16 × 1/2 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Dura-Europos (near modern Salihiyeh, Syria), excavated [1]; by the Yale-French Excavations [2] (by 1937), gift; to Prentice Duell [3], Boston, MA, (by 1940), gift; to Fogg Art Museum, 1940.

[1] The specific archaeological findspots (on the site) of the gifted wall painting fragments were not recorded (Letter, Clark Hopkins to Prentice Duell, June 9, 1940, Folder 13 ("Blue: Azurite"), Pigment File, Unspecified MS Box No. 3, Papers of Prentice Van Walbeck Duell, 1894-1960, Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA).

[2] Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos (1928-1937), a collaboration between Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut) and the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris), in agreement with the High Commission of the French Republic (French Mandate of Syria). A portion of excavated finds were distributed to Yale under partage agreements.

[3] Given as samples of ancient wall painting under the auspices of Clark Hopkins (1895-1976), field director of Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos, 1931-1935, to Prentice Duell (1894-1960). Duell was an architect, archaeologist, and scholar of ancient painting. Duell worked on archaeological field projects in the US, Greece, and Egypt (Saqqara); he was a research fellow of Etruscan art at the Fogg Museum from 1939 to 1960.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Prentice Duell

Accession Year

1940

Object Number

1940.97.16

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

White (brown-yellow) plaster with large colorful inclusions. The plaster is likely lime plaster (calcite).

Commentary

This fragment of painted wall plaster is one of a group of wall painting fragments (1940.97.1-83) in the collections of the Harvard Art Museums that were excavated at the site of Dura-Europos by the Yale-French team between 1928 and 1937. Given as study samples of ancient painting and pigment to ancient painting scholar Prentice Duell, they were again given as samples of painting to the Fogg Museum in 1940.

The ancient town of Dura-Europos is located today near the modern village of Salihiyeh, Syria. Located in the Middle Euphrates region (on the west bank of the Euphrates River), Dura-Europos is set between the Syrian steppe to the west and the Mesopotamian plain to the east. This location put it on the borderlands between empires, a zone contested over centuries. Founded under the Macedonian Greek Seleucid empire around 300 BCE, it subsequently passed between Parthian empire (by the late second or early 2nd century BCE), the Roman empire (by around 165 CE, after which it became a military garrison town), and the Sasanian empire (whose invasion in about 265 CE destroyed it). The small but cosmopolitan town is especially famous for figural wall paintings in its religious spaces, which include many temples to local and nonlocal gods, a Jewish synagogue, a Christian place of worship, and a Mithraeum (a shrine for the mystery cult of the god Mithras).

The attribution of this fragment to the Hellenistic period (3rd to mid-2nd century BCE) is tentative. It is based on the identification of the plaster as probably calcite (lime plaster) and the presence of colorful pebble inclusions in this plaster. The excavators identified such plaster as coming from the poorly-preserved and poorly-understood "the Early Palace," the structure on the citadel that lies under the so-called "Citadel Palace" or "Second Citadel Palace," which is typically understood as having a Seleucid date of construction (around the second quarter of the second century BCE). By contrast, wall paintings from the Roman-period buildings at Dura appear to have used gypsum plaster without such pebble inclusions. The fragment's archaeological provenience (findspot) within the site is not verifiable, due to lack of documentation, but the material makes the earlier date likely, pending further research.

Verification Level