A NEWLY-FOUND FRAGMENT OF AN IMPERIAL STATUE FROM CARIČIN GRAD – JUSTINIANA PRIMA

Abstract

According to the results of the Oxford-based project The Last Statues in Antiquity, very few Late Roman bronze statues have survived to this day. Out of some ten finds from throughout the Empire, three come from a small stretch between Naissus and Caričin Grad – Justiniana Prima. In this article, we put aside the famous gilded bronze head of Constantine the Great from Naissus and focus on the sixth-century finds from Caričin Grad and Balajnac. Fragments of the bronze statue(s) have been excavated at Caričin Grad since 1940; they were first published in 1948 by André Grabar and interpreted as belonging to a bronze figure of Justinian I. This interpretation is still widely accepted. Dozens of fragments have been found ever since, most of them coming from the Upper Town, from buildings surrounding the circular Forum where this gilded statue, somewhat larger than life-size, once supposedly stood erect.  The latest find comes from the 2013 excavations in tower G of the Acropolis rampart. This massive, cast and gilded right shoulder part of lorica musculata measures 15 cm by 12.6 cm. Both the thickened right edge of the armour and the 2.5 cm wide vertical strip along the left edge of the fragment reveal that it belonged to an imperial statue of a widespread type, particularly popular in classical times. Another illustrative fragment, most likely of the same statue, was uncovered in the nineteen-fifties. It features pteryges arranged in the shape of a tunic, finished with two stripes, which was worn under the armour.  What makes the find from Caričin Grad so important is that in the sixth century such statues became rather rare and mostly restricted to Constantinople. Apart from our fragments, only the statues from Antioch in Pisidia and Cyrrhus in Euphratensis survived, and from the written  sources we know of several other statues of Justinian, most of them decorating the capital. Later on, the number of imperial statues got even more reduced, and their erection was terminated in the year 612 by Emperor Heraclius. Another very interesting find is the head of an Early Byzantine empress from Balajnac. According to Ulrich Gehn, one of The Last Statues in Antiquity project associates, this portrait has been looted from Naissus and brought to the nearby site of Kuline in Balajnac. On the other hand, we do not doubt that Balajnac was the original finding place, as this fortified complex had also included a large three-naved church and a large underground cistern. In the original publication, the portrait was believed to represent Euphemia, the wife of Justin I, while later scholarship tends to ascribe it to Ariadne, the much better known and more frequently represented Empress consort of Zeno and Anastasius I. The finds from Caričin Grad and Balajnac testify to the importance of these parts in the sixth century, whose development was not only supported by the construction of the new metropolis of Justiniana Prima and its mighty infrastructure, but also underscored with the imperial representations typical of Constantinople and a few other places.