Archaeological Excavations at Nicomedia,Turkey

During summer 2016, Assistant Professor Mark Abbe joined archaeological excavations at Nicomedia, Turkey, to study a remarkable new series of Roman marble relief sculptures preserving extensive ancient painting. More than 35 large (c. 1.0 x 2.0 m) relief panels have been found to date by the TÜBİTAK archaeological project directed by Dr. Tuna Şare Ağtürk. Dating to the period of the Tetrarchy when the emperor Diocletian (ruled AD 285-305) made the city of Nicomedia his eastern administrative capital of the Roman Empire, the elaborately painted panels depict the emperor and his imperial co-rulers in battle, religious ritual, and military triumph. Although painting was originally widespread on such marble state reliefs, heretofore it has only been found preserved in the faintest vestiges. These high-quality relief sculptures and their well-preserved coloration shed new light on multiple aspects of the art of the Tetrarchic period, including the increasingly color-coded dress costumes of the imperial administration. In antiquity the painted reliefs appears to have been conspicuously displayed as friezes in the elevated entablatures of a monumental terraced temple complex currently under excavation.