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Grape Flasks of Third-Century Cologne: an Investigation Into Roman Glass and Dionysus

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Grape Flasks of Third-Century Cologne: an Investigation Into Roman Glass and Dionysus Grape Flasks of Third-Century Cologne: An Investigation into Roman Glass and Dionysus A thesis submitted to the College of the Arts of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of the Arts by Kaitlynn Grey May, 2018 Thesis written by Kaitlynn Grey B.A. in Art History, B.A.V.A., The University of Toledo, 2016 M.A., Kent State University, 2018 Approved by ___________________________________________ Diane Scillia, Ph.D., M.A. Advisor ___________________________________________ Marie Bukowski, Director, School of Art ___________________________________________ John R. Crawford-Spinelli, Ed.D., Dean, College of the Arts ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………v I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………...1 II. THE HISTORY AND URBAN PLANNING OF COLOGNE…………….…………………4 III. THE HISTORY OF GLASS IN COLOGNE………………………..……..……………..…..9 IV. DEATH AND DIONYSUS…………………………………………….……………………16 V. INTERPRETATION AND AESTHETICS………………………………….………….…….30 VI. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….…….………………….40 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………….……………………………………….…………42 FIGURES…………………………………………………….………………………….……….46 GLOSSARY OF TERMS…………………………………………………….…………….……61 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure: Page 1. Grape-Flask, Third-Century C.E……………………………………………………………1 2. Map of Upper German lines…………………………………………………………………4 3. Map of Cologne……………………………………………………………….……………..6 4. Reconstruction Drawing of a Roman Burial Road………….…………………………….…7 5. Schematic Drawing of Burial Sites Surrounding the City of Cologne………………………7 6. Schematic Drawing of Northwest Burial Site for Cologne………………………………….7 7. Survey Plan of Cologne With Significant Modern Monuments……………….….…………8 8. Woodcut of a Glassblowing Furnace from the Time of Theophilus and Agricola…….……10 9. Glass Bottle Shaped Like a Bunch of Grapes, Fourth-Century C.E………………………..11 10. Grape Bottle, First-Century C.E……………………………………………………………13 11. Lycurgus Cup, Fourth-Century C.E. ……………………….……………………………….15 12. Dionysus Mosaic, Third-Century C.E.…………………….….…………………………….25 13. Diagram of Dionysus Mosaic………………………………………….……………………26 14. Center roundel of the Dionysus Mosaic……………………………….……………………26 15. ‘Family’ Roundel of the Dionysus Mosaic………………………………….………………26 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to many different people, starting firstly with my thesis advisor Dr. Diane Scillia. In the two short years I have been in this program you have given me enough inspiration to last the rest of my art historical career, and for that I will always be grateful. To Professor Albert Reischuck I wish to express my thanks for the advice you have given me for my writing and the new ways of interpretation you taught in your classes. Without it I know this text in particular would have suffered. I would also thank Dr. Gustav Medicus and Dr. John-Michael H. Warner for their endless kindness and positivity in all of their professional guidance. To all of my friends who cheered with me as I completed each semester and gave their encouragement in all manner of ways. Most importantly I would like to thank two extraordinarily important people in my life. Mickey, who my love for has grown even as we have been apart and whose unwavering, endless support has helped me survive long nights of work and homesickness. You pushed me to attend the best school for my education even at the cost of our lives together being put on hold. I have loved and missed you everyday and I cannot wait to finally come home. And lastly to my father, who has been the silent supporter throughout my life. Never doubting my abilities and pushing with ceaseless and firm encouragement even as I know you worried for my future in a field you knew nothing about. You allowed me to attend the first art class I ever took, sparking my interest in art history, and I am gratified to say that you are the reason I am a scholar. I hope I have made you proud. v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Glass production in Roman occupied Cologne, Germany, was one of the greatest outlets of artistic creation of the Late Empire. The Grape-Flask [Fig. 1], a blown piece created in the early third-century C.E. within the city walls, is a small item for use in a variety of purposes, such as perfume holder or a sacrificial offering. The small flask is not unlike any number of other objects tucked away in museum collections worldwide, meaning that it has been excavated, documented, and displayed for the public eye often without its original function ever being addressed. However, it remains a piece with no historical attachment with the exception of a tentative fabrication date and the location of its eventual burial. As an object from what scholars call ‘Late Antiquity’ this flask has the potential to expand our knowledge of Roman religion and daily life, and provide us with a rare moment of insight into the era after the initial rise of the Roman Empire begun by Augustus in response to the murder of his beloved uncle, Gaius Julius Caesar. Large, monumental public works from Roman history have been studied relentlessly, leaving the smaller daily items pushed to the wayside. In my opinion we can learn more about the true inner workings and beliefs of the Empire through dedicated investigation into the small objects of daily ritual and personal religious use. Similar artifacts in museum collections are given dates and left on display for visitors to gaze upon, often without contextual supporting information. The aim of this thesis is to highlight the importance of the Grape-Flask for a religious, socio-political, and historical understanding of the fringes of the Roman Empire and to solidify its meaning to the common Roman citizen through the examination of the glass 1 composition, the burial style and the location of manufacture. A large factor in my investigation is the material itself and the meaning behind the size and shape of the item. There are, in addition, any number of other areas that I shall address, the most prominent of which are the historical and political environment of the Roman province and its citizens in comparison to the native peoples with whom they lived. The first step in reconstructing the underlying message of the flask is addressing the relationship of its origin city of Cologne to Rome and the religion that came from the center of the ancient world. Due to its specific shape the Grape-Flask can be linked to the Greco-Roman god Dionysus (Bacchus to the Romans) and his cult, which was popular with Roman women as it spread through the Empire. Secondly, we must address the glass production community within Cologne and its vicinity--and its relationship to items fabricated for purchase by the different Roman classes--that allowed for the collection of local minerals that made up the whole of the piece’s constitution. I will later address the owner’s personal attachment to the object and its relationship to burial practices along the Rhine and Germania Inferior. Specifically in respects to how such pieces similar in size and shape to the Grape-Flask were displayed before, during and after the funeral processions and its eventual resting place in the grave itself. Furthermore, I will direct attention to the art a typical Roman household would have been exposed to and the influences of aesthetics of the Roman elite on the purchases of the classes beneath them. I stress the importance of this small item because I truly feel that pieces like it have been overlooked if not ignored by academic scholars throughout the decades since the early twentieth- century. With the turn of the new millennia there has been a developing energy in certain institutions for the study of glass objects, the dedication to the understanding of daily life, and 2 items used by the ancient Romans, however some museums, institutions and certain publications have been slow to adjust to this new outlook.1 The Grape-Flask is an important step in the rediscovery of the medium of glass and its significance in retrospect to the area of Cologne and the religions of the Rhine. 1 Lesley and Roy A., Adkins, Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 324-326. Andrew and Nancy H. Ramage, Roman Art: Romulus to Constantine Fifth Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009), 135. Glass From the Ancient World: The Ray Winfield Smith Collection A Special Exhibition- 1957 (Corning New York: The Corning Museum of Glass, 1957), 91. E. Marianne Stern and Birgit Schlick-Nolte, Early Glass of the Ancient World 1600 B.C.E. - A.D. 50: Ernesto World Collection (Germany: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1994), 316. Stuart J. Fleming, Roman Glass: Reflections on Cultural Change (The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1999), 97. As I have already stated, in my experience daily items from antiquity have been frequently ignored by academics in favor of items of a grander scale (wall paintings, items with direct mythological images, architecture, and sculpture). Glass in particular has been neglected from several modern publications advertised to the public as overviews of Roman life, art, and history. The two texts I am most familiar with (published relatively recently) are: Adkins and Ramage. The Adkins text, in my opinion, is the most progressive of the general overviews as it includes a segment dedicated to the construction of glass and its chemical components but it still falls short of applying the knowledge to a specific item or including glass in the text in any other segment. The Ramage text is less progressive. It was used as the text for the Roman Art Graduate course at Kent State University and included exactly one glass item whose description was dedicated more to the provenance of the piece than the symbolism, chemical make-up, use, or its owner. While other texts giving a generalized overview of Roman art have left glass behind, in my research I have noticed that the efforts made by recent publications dedicated entirely to glass (Fleming and Stern/Schlick-Nolte) have made strides in completing the full description of a piece to include: provenance, chemical material, use, design, mythological symbolism etc.
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