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https://github.com/fitzwilliammuseum/civilisations3d

Two models of Fitzwilliam Objects created by the BBC for their Civilisations app
https://github.com/fitzwilliammuseum/civilisations3d

3d ar archaeology bbc-civilisations museums vr

Last synced: 5 months ago
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Two models of Fitzwilliam Objects created by the BBC for their Civilisations app

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README 

          
# Civilisations3D



Two models of Fitzwilliam Objects created by the BBC for their Civilisations app which can be downloaded 

from the project [website](https://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/pilots/civilisations-ar)



# Iznik jug with English mounts



Era: c.1580-1593

Original Location: Turkey (Western Anatolia) and London, England

Material: Fritware, painted underglaze in blue, turquoise-green, red and black with pomegranates and hyacinths, mounted in silver-gilt

Dimensions: 14.2cm wide x 26.2cm high x 9.8cm in diameter

Object logline: Lidded jug / flagon from Iznik and London



This wheel-thrown fritware jug with ‘sealing-wax’ red hyacinths and cobalt blue pomegranates was made in Iznik (Western Anatolia), 

a renowned ceramics centre during the Ottoman Empire. It’s characteristic of late sixteenth-century production: the bright red colour 

was only used from 1560 onwards. 

The jug was exported to Elizabethan London where, in 1592/3, it was fitted with fashionable silver-gilt mounts to protect its edges. 

Although it’s shaped like a jug, it was actually meant for drinking ale or beer. As a French visitor remarked in 1558, the English drank 

beer “not out of glasses but from earthen pots with silver handles and covers and this even in houses of persons of middling fortune”.

Iznikware examples such as this were expensive luxury items used only by the upper classes. The less affluent had to make do with 

German stoneware imports, or English earthenware ones. The sliver mount has been pricked with the initials ‘E T’. 

These are almost certainly the initials of Elizabeth Tollemache, a very powerful and well-educated woman, who lived at Ham House, 

Surrey from 1655 until her death in 1699. 



## Interactive Hotspots (100 words each max)



### Story 1: A treasured possession

The identity of the first owner of this jug is unknown, but he or she must have valued it very highly to have it mounted with 

gilded silver.  The handle-mount was subsequently pricked with the letters ‘E T’, almost certainly the initials of Elizabeth 

Tollemache, Countess of Dysart. She may have inherited the jug from her father, William Murray along with the family home, 

Ham House, where the jug remained a treasured possession until 1948. 



### Story 2: Historical ambivalence between East and West

British attitudes to Turks were ambivalent in the 16th and 17th centuries. As contact between the Ottoman Empire and England increased, 

the Turk became a common and stereotypically villainous figure on the British stage. A reference in Shakespeare’s Othello to a 

‘malignant and turban’d Turk… the circumcis’d dog’ is typically abusive. This attitude was based upon the long-standing antipathy 

between the Islamic East and the Christian West.



### Story 3: Fascination with the Orient

Near Eastern material culture was highly valued in Elizabethan England. In early 1582, diplomacy between the English court and that 

of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III led to the founding of The Turkish Company – later called The Levant Company – which facilitated trade 

between Turkey and England.



### Story 4: 	A burst of colour

The design is typical of 16th century Iznikware, with red hyacinths and cobalt blue pomegranates standing out against a clean, bright, white background. The brilliant colours were the innovation of Turkish artists who had previously imitated the blue-on-white decoration of Chinese porcelain. 

The stylised vegetation was intended to evoke the miracle of Allah’s creations, with Muslims believing pomegranate trees to be holy. Iznik tiles with floral decoration were, and still are, made to decorate the interiors of mosques.

		

# Red-figure neck amphora 



Era: Ancient Greece c. 480-470 BC

Original Location: Athens 

Material:  Clay

Dimensions: 34cm high x 22.4cm wide



This red-figured vessel was made in Athens c. 480 BC - 470 BC. On one side you can see the hero Theseus performing one of his twelve 

labours and about to kill the Attic villain, Procrustes, who attacked travellers. Procrustes’ gruesome method was to force strangers to 

lie down on a bed and then he would either hammer his victims to lengthen them or chop their extremities to make them fit the bed. 



The drama of his own punishment is heightened in this somewhat hasty drawing by the fact that the deed is not quite done. The 

axe-wielding Theseus has wounded Procrustes who struggles to protect himself with an inoffensive-looking hammer. Theseus was also 

a king, credited with creation a union of Attic communities under the leadership of Athens.



The other side of the amphora shows the amorous advance of the dawn deity, Eos, upon the handsome youth, Tithonos, who she later 

arranged to have immortalised. However, having forgotten to seek eternal youth for him, she eventually shut the chattering old man 

up in a bed-chamber.



## Interactive Hotspots (100 words each max)



### Story 1: The painting technique



In the late 6th century BC, the technical development in Greek vase design saw pot painters applying black glaze for the background and 

using the reserve red ground from the iron-rich clay for the figures. This reversing of media is termed red-figure painting. 

The advantage for the artisan was that he could paint in outline, filling in the background afterwards. For a while, black- and 

red-figure painting co-existed, but the red-figure technique became more commonplace.



### Story 2: Eos, the goddess of the dawn



Eos, goddess of the dawn and daughter of Hyperion and the Titaness Theia, was goddess of the dawn, responsible for the rising of the 

sun each morning. She is sometimes shown driving a chariot. She had the misfortune to be cursed by Aphrodite to fall for lots of young 

men.  



On this vase she is seen advancing upon the handsome youth Tithonos, who she later arranged to have immortalised. However, having 

forgotten to seek eternal youth for him, she eventually shut the chattering old man up in a bed-chamber.



### Story 3: 

The subject on one side of the vase is the hero Theseus performing one of his twelve labours and about to kill the Attic Villain,

Procrustes, who attacked travellers.  Procrustes forced strangers to lie down on a bed and then would either hammer his victims to 

lengthen them or chop their extremities, to make them fit the bed.