Gaza Apollo - the story continues

Ever since a bronze statue of Apollo surfaced - and then promptly disappeared - in Gaza over five years ago, historians, curators, collectors, political groups and just about everyone have been yearning to either possess it or at least get a better look and know more about it. Currently, it appears to be in the custody of Hamas - and perhaps not likely to re-emerge any time soon.

In the meantime, a documentary by Nicolas Wadimoff was released last year and Al Jazeera have announced an abridged version. See it here while it lasts (until 14 August 2019). Frankly, I could do without the cheesy philosophical interludes but the film does offer a few excellent insights into some of the context and characters involved.

My personal thoughts? I suspect the statue is authentic (ancient Greek or a Roman copy) but its condition does not seem to suggest that it was lying under the sea for centuries. I tend to think it was originally found on dry land and perhaps, as one of the people in the film speculates, dropped overboard for some reason while being transported in modern times. It's quite possible it was being smuggled by boat between two other countries and jettisoned or lost off the Gazan coast when the venture was inconveniently interrupted. Who knows?

At any rate, whatever its origin, my two greatest concerns - assuming the statue really is authentic - are that it is likely to be in urgent need of conservation and that it eventually ends up properly curated on public display.

My thanks to Michael Press for publicising this news.

Gaza Apollo - a patchy history

On the Conflict Antiquities blog, there has been some discussion recently over where an image of a detail of the Gaza Apollo statue would be located on the figure. The image (illustrating BBC News Arabic, February 2014) shows a distinctive area of corrosion and a rectangular depression over a cavity in the bronze surface (where a rectangular patch had been fitted in antiquity - or faked to look as if a patch had been fitted in antiquity).

The discussion has been rather intense ...

"As the photos show, it isn’t the inner right forearm, the outer right forearm, the front upper right arm, or the front upper left arm; and based on its shape and space (away from the body), it isn’t the inner left forearm, the outer left forearm or the back upper left arm. But it could be the back upper right arm."

Whoa, dude! I'm not sure if the scholars have now resolved the issue but the location was immediately very obvious to me the second I saw the pictures (perhaps it's from years of doing all those "Spot the Difference" cartoons as a kid!). The area of the figure shown in the detail image is on the front of the left leg, just below the knee (outlined on the eBay image of the whole statue, left). My own composite of both images is at the head of this post.

I studied the corrosion of ancient bronze in some depth a few years ago (yeah, I've learned to embrace my inner geek rather than fight it) and the surface of the statue looks reasonably convincing in the newest images but we really need to examine the whole statue physically to know if it actually is ancient.