Uncovering Antioch
By Robert Kanigel
Simon & Schuster/383 pages/$30
Reviewed by Ed Voves
The 1930's excavation of the ancient city of Antioch by archaeologists from Princeton University, with support of the French government, is one of the great success stories in the recovery of the material remains of antiquity. It is also an example of the proverb, "be careful what you wish for - you might get it."
When the Antioch expedition was first conceived in the late 1920's, excitement over the 1922 discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun was still high. Likewise, a joint British Museum/University of Pennsylvania expedition was conducting a "dig" of the ancient city of Ur, in southern Iraq. Fabulous artifacts, including some believed to be directly relevant to the Bible, were being unearthed.
Antioch, located in Syria, was the Roman Empire's third city in size and importance. Though located in a fertile, climate-friendly region, Antioch was unknowingly built astride a geological fault line. It was devastated by massive earthquake in 526. The citizens of Antioch rebuilt their beloved metropolis to some degree, but it never fully recovered.
What treasures, buried by the killer quake, might lie under the ruins of Antioch?
The Princeton archaeologists certainly recovered phenomenal works of art during the eight years they spent at Antioch, 1932-39. But, as Robert Kanigel's compelling account of the excavations relates, these discoveries were overwhelmingly of one artistic genre. Moreover, it was a type of art which the Princeton scholars and their French colleagues had not expected to find, certainly not in the vast numbers which they discovered.
Mosaics ... Mosaics and, yet more, mosaics.
The Princeton archaeologists unearthed entire mosaic floors, covered with intricate depictions of scenes from Greek mythology. Walkways and garden paths decorated with eye-dazzling geometric patterns. All composed of small fingernail-sized pieces of stone or glass, called tesserae.
The Dancing Satyr Mosaic from the Atrium House (detail)
According to Kanigel, three hundred mosaics were excavated during the eight-year "dig" at Antioch. It was as if Goethe's poem,The Sorcerer's Apprentice, had come true. The Princeton team kept digging, the mosaics kept appearing. Local landowners raised the rental fees for the fields surveyed as likely sites for new discoveries... and the "dig" resumed.At the height of the annual campaigns, in the mid-1930's, so many mosaics had been unearthed that they were stacked-up against nearby walls (below), as if they had just been massed-produced in a workshop or factory.
Some of the Antioch mosaics were colossal in size. The Worcester Art Museum's Hunt Floor Mosaic measures slightly over 246 by 281 feet (625.8 x 716.2 cm.) and weighs around 1200 lbs.
The Princeton team should not have be surprised that mosaics were a major feature of Antioch's culture. Pompeii, by comparison, had many well-known mosaics. It was the content of the Antioch mosaics and the dates of their creation which raised the eyebrows of the excavators and of the scholarly community reading the annual reports from the field.
The subject matter depicted on the Antioch mosaics was almost entirely devoted to Greek gods and goddesses. In Christian parlance it was "pagan" art.
This is indeed puzzling. Most of the mosaics excavated in Antioch date to the third through sixth centuries. During all this period, Christianity was in the ascent, while belief in the gods and goddesses of Olympus was fading away.
What caused this perplexing failure to create public art matching Christian piety in Antioch? Was it a case of the age-old dilemma, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"?
Saints and sinners do figure in Kanigel's account, though none of the latter are especially culpable. Kanigel's protagonists date more from the twentieth century than antiquity. They share in the familiar strengths and weaknesses of modern times, giving Kanigel plenty to work with in shaping an enthralling narrative.
Uncovering Antioch is an astutely written account of academic "politics", international diplomacy and personal ambition. As readers of Kanigel's earlier books know, he has an almost uncanny knack of taking an unconventional subject and explaining it with insight and elan.
In the case of Uncovering Antioch, Kanigel performs a "magic-trick" of sustained narrative brilliance. He summons the ancient past to life, evokes the "between-the wars" era of the 1920's and 30's, recounts the epic eight-year "dig" at Antioch and then ties-up the "loose ends" in such a way that both the general reader and the scholar of archaeology will comprehend all of the arcane details.
The saga of the Antioch excavations can only be briefly reprieved here. In 1927, a Princeton academic, Charles Rufus Morey, launched the bold enterprise when he learned that the French were considering an expedition to Antioch. France governed Syria as part of the post-World War I settlement, but needed funding to carry out the "dig."
Morey struck a deal with the French. He promised to finance the effort for two digging "campaigns, beginning in 1932, and recruit American team members for the excavations. By the terms of the agreement, the French and the Americans would each get a third of whatever treasures would be unearthed. The remaining third would be donated to a new, projected museum in Syria.
What the Princeton/French team needed was a sensational discovery which would grab international news headlines and generate cash flow to keep the "dig" going. They got their wish almost immediately when the astonishing mosaic, The Judgement of Paris, was unearthed in 1932. Dating to the era of the Roman emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, c. 115 to 150, this incomparable mosaic was sent to the Louvre.
The Judgement of Paris mosaic, c. 115 to 150
After that, the mosaics kept coming and coming. But Uncovering Antioch is not a mosaic-driven story, despite the wealth of knowledge and insight which Kanigel provides for these ancient artworks. This is primarily a story of human dynamics.
Like all great story-tellers, Kanigel finds a way into the minds and souls of the individuals he writes about. Like the heroes at Troy, they went out to the dusty, sometimes flooded, fields around Antioch for year-after-year in what was truly an epic endeavor.
In the above photograph, we see several of the remarkable team who rescued the Antioch mosaics from their centuries-long confinement below ground.There is the taciturn Clarence Fisher, a specialist in Egyptology who led the initial campaigns, his charismatic successor, William "Sandy" Campbell, and the charming, yet thoroughly professional, French archaeologist, Jean Lassus, later a hero of the World War II anti-Nazi Resistance.
Among the many notable protagonists of Uncovering Antioch, it should be noted, is the author himself.
Kanigel, a man of many accomplishments, is also an "amateur" mosaicist. His personal commentary on making mosaics - of modest dimensions, no floor-sized hunting scenes - enliven the account of the aftermath of the 1930's dig.
Even more worthy of note are Kanigel's reflections on the emotional impact of working with and studying mosaics from antiquity. In a moving passage, he writes:
Early in my evolving fellowship with the mosaics, as I encountered them on museum walls, online, or in the pages of books, I developed genuine intimacy with only a few of them. But with time, seen repeatedly and in varied contexts, they together worked their way into me, with their gods and goddesses, warriors, heroes, Greek inscriptions, animals wild and domestic, food, drink, revelry, jewels, scenes sweet and grotesque, wild hair, piercing eyes...
I positively agree with these insights on the way that ancient works of art can "work their way" into one's mind and thoughts. In my case, it is the Fayum mummy portraits which I regularly examine at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that have "worked their way into me."
As I finished reading Uncovering Antioch, I could not help but compare one of the Fayum portraits from the Met with a type of mosaic discussed in the book. These are termed "personifications." Kanigel describes them as "well-coiffed and bejeweled woman of imposing aspect."
These stylish beauties are posed in conjunction with a word in Greek signifying a special attribute or desired aspect of the "good life" of this world.
An especially impressive "personification" from the collection of the Worcester Art Museum shows a young woman with the inscription "Agora" above her, denoting "abundance of the marketplace."
I have yet to visit the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) and meet "Lady Agora" in person. After looking - and looking - at her via WAM's website, I can only shake my head in wonder. She is an allegorical figure, yet her physical presence is palpable. She even has the "strong eye, weak eye" which is visible in many a living human countenance.
Did a real woman from Antioch pose for this "personification", as the Egyptian woman did (either before or after death) in the case of the Met's Fayum portrait?
If both images depict real women, then both died well-onto two thousand years in the past. Yet so vivid, so "alive" are these portraits - as is the lively, insightful text of Uncovering Antioch - that two thousand years ago seems like yesterday.
***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved
Archival photos courtesy of the Committee for the Investigation of Antioch-on-the-Orontes. https://ochre.lib.uchicago.edu/antioch
Introductory Image: Cover art of of Uncovering Antioch by Robert Kanigel, 2026. Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
Committee for the
Investigation of Antioch-on-the-Orontes.
Floor of the triclinium of Atrium House being
cleared, 1932. Photograph N108
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