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The muses and other statues of the Eastern Roman Baths of Gerasa, Jordan (2018 Campaign): Form and provenance

2021; Elsevier BV; Volume: 36; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.102862

2352-4103

Khaled Al‐Bashaireh, Thomas M. Weber-Karyotakis,

Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis

The Eastern Roman Baths of the Deacapolis Gerasa, Jordan, represents one of the largest and best preserved Roman baths in the entire Bilad Al-Sham. It was built during the second half of the 2nd century CE and adorned by sculptures of imported precious marble, some have inscribed bases. The 2018 excavations1 unearthed a group of well preserved statues, although headless or broken, including six Muses (Melpomene, Clio, Urania, Erato and two as yet unidentified), Cybele, Dionysus, female head, draped female, etc. This study sheds light on ten statues of the new collection, and investigates their provenance by applying combined scientific analytical techniques associated with the recently published databases on the ancient marble quarries of the Mediterranean. The results showed that the six muses were most likely carved out of Pentelic marble (Mount Pentelikon, Attica, Greece) probably in one order from the same workshop, the enthroned Cybele statue is of Thassos-3 marble (Vathy-Saliara district, Thassos Island, Greece), the Dionysus statue and the female marble head are of Proconnesus-1 marble (Marmara Island, Turkey), and the torso of the draped female statue is of Paros-2 marble (Lakkoi, Valley of Chorodaki, Paros Island, Greece). The results agree with previous studies of provenancing sculptures uncovered at Gerasa, and other sites in Jordan and the Levant. They support the suggestion that Lakkoi produced medium-grained marble variety for carving out statues. The results give more evidence about the high state of the art of Gerasa during the Roman period.