Crepereia Tryphaena

[Tomás de Torquemada]

Dal sito http://www.demabros.com/crepeia/index.php



Attualmente custodita a Roma presso il casino dei Salvi al Celio. Il nome latino č Crepereia Tryphaena, ed č stata trovata nel sarcofago della sua piccola padrona , da cui prende il nome, durante gli scavi per la costruzione del tribunale di Roma nel 1889. Crepeia č in avorio, anche se il tempo l'ha resa talmente scura da farla sembrare di legno. La fattura della bambola, molto curata nei particolari ( ha addirittura le unghie incise sulle dita delle mani e con molta probabilitŕ portava anche anelli), la classifica come un balocco di lusso. Sicuramente era vestita da sposa, gli abiti si sono dissolti nei secoli, la pettinatura, infatti, č quella che usavano le giovani donne nel giorno del loro matrimonio : sei trecce raccolte insieme. Crepeia č inoltre, una delle bambole piů moderne dell' antichitŕ, basti pensare che ha addirittura tutti gli arti snodati, come una vera e propria barbie del II sec. D. C.!

[Tomás de Torquemada]

Dal sito http://www.ukans.edu/

Da Pagan and Christian Rome
di Rodolfo Lanciani
(Houghton, Mifflin and Company - Boston and New York, 1892)

How differently we treat these discoveries in our days! In the early morning of May 12, 1889, I was called to witness the opening of a marble coffin which had been discovered two days before, under the foundations of the new Halls of Justice, on the right bank of the Tiber, near Hadrian's Mausoleum. As a rule, the ceremony of cutting the brass clamps which fasten the lids of urns and sarcophagi is performed in one of our archaeological repositories, where the contents can be quietly and carefully examined, away from an excited and sometimes dangerous crowd. In the present case this plan was found impracticable, because the coffin was ascertained to be filled with water which had, in the course of centuries, filtered in, drop by drop, through the interstices of the lid. The removal to the Capitol was therefore abandoned, not only on account of the excessive weight of the coffin, but also because the shaking of the water would have damaged and disordered the skeleton and the objects which, perchance, were buried inside.

The marble sarcophagus was embedded in a stratum of blue clay, at a depth of twenty-five feet above the level of the city, that is, only four or five feet above the level of the Tiber, which runs close by. It was inscribed simply with the name CREPEREIA TRYPHAENA, and decorated with bas-reliefs representing the scene of her death. No sooner had the seals been broken, and the lid put aside, than my assistants, myself, and the whole crowd of workmen from the Halls of Justice, were almost horrified at the sight before us. Gazing at the skeleton through the veil of the clear water, we saw the skull covered, as it were, with long masses of brown hair, which were floating in the liquid crystal. The comments made by the simple and excited crowd by which we were surrounded were almost as interesting as the discovery itself. The news concerning the prodigious hair spread like wild-fire among the populace of the district; and so the exhumation of Crepereia Tryphaena was accomplished with unexpected solemnity, and its remembrance will last for many years in the popular traditions of the new quarter of the Prati di Castello. The mystery of the hair is easily explained. Together with the spring-water, germs or seeds of an aquatic plant had entered the sarcophagus, settled on the convex surface of the skull, and developed into long glossy threads of a dark shade.

OBJECTS FOUND IN THE GRAVE OF CREPEREIA TRYPHAENA (Per vederli, cliccare qui)

The skull was inclined slightly towards the left shoulder and towards an exquisite little doll, carved of oak, which was lying on the scapula, or shoulder-blade. On each side of the head were gold earrings with pearl drops. Mingled with the vertebrae of the neck and back were a gold necklace, woven as a chain, with thirty-seven pendants of green jasper, and a brooch with an amethyst intaglio of Greek workmanship, representing the fight of a griffin and a deer. Where the left hand had been lying, we found four rings of solid gold. One is an engagement-ring, with an engraving in red jasper representing two hands clasped together. The second has the name PHILETVS engraved on the stone; the third and fourth are plain gold bands. Proceeding further with our exploration, we discovered, close to the right hip, a box containing toilet articles. The box was made of thin pieces of hard wood, inlaid alla Certosina, with lines, squares, circles, triangles, and diamonds, of bone, ivory, and wood of various kinds and colors. The box, however, had been completely disjointed by the action of the water. Inside there were two fine combs in excellent preservation, with the teeth larger on one side than on the other: a small mirror of polished steel, a silver box for cosmetics, an amber hairpin, an oblong piece of soft leather, and a few fragments of a sponge. The most impressive discovery was made after the removal of the water, and the drying of the coffin. The woman had been buried in a shroud of fine white linen, pieces of which were still encrusted and cemented against the bottom and sides of the case, and she had been laid with a wreath of myrtle fastened with a silver clasp about the forehead. The preservation of the leaves is truly remarkable.

Who was this woman, whose sudden and unexpected reappearance among us on the twelfth of May, 1889, created such a sensation? When did she live? At what age did she die? What caused her death? What was her condition in life? Was she beautiful? Why was she buried with her doll? The careful examination of the tomb and its contents enable us to answer all these questions satisfactorily.

Crepereia Tryphaena lived at the beginning of the third century after Christ, during the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, as is shown by the form of the letters and the style of the bas-reliefs engraved on the sarcophagus. She was not noble by birth; her Greek surname Tryphaena shows that she belong to a family of freedmen, former servants of the noble family of the Creperei. We know nothing about her features, except that she had a strong and fine set of teeth. Her figure, however, seems to have been rather defective, on account of a deformity in the ribs, probably caused by scrofula. Scrofula, in fact, seems to have been the cause of her death. In spite of this deformity, however, there is no doubt that she was betrothed to the young man Philetus, whose name is engraved on the stone of the second ring, and that the two happy lovers had exchanged the oath of fidelity and mutual devotion for life, which is expressed by the symbol of the clasped hands. The story of her sad death, and of the sudden grief which overtook her family on the eve of a joyful wedding, is plainly told by the presence in the coffin of the doll and the myrtle wreath, which is a corona nuptialis. I believe, in fact, that the girl was buried in her full bridal costume, and then covered with the linen shroud, because there are fragments of clothes of various textures and qualities mixed with those of the white linen.

And now let us turn our attention to the doll. This exquisite pupa, a work of art in itself, is of oak, to which the combined action of time and water has given the hardness of metal. It is modelled in perfect imitation of woman's form, and ranks among the finest of its kind yet found in Roman excavations. The hands and feet are carved with the most skill. The arrangement of the hair is characteristic of the age of the Antonines, and differs but little from the coiffure of Faustina the elder. The doll was probably dressed, because in the thumb of her right hand are inserted two gold keyrings like those carried by housewives. This charming little figure, the joints of which at the hips, knees, shoulders, and elbows are still in good order, is nearly a foot high. Dolls and playthings are not peculiar to children's tombs. It was customary for young ladies to offer their dolls to Venus or Diana on their wedding-day. She was doomed to share the sad fate of her young mistress, and to be placed with her corpse, before the marriage ceremony could be performed.

[Tomás de Torquemada]

Dal sito http://www.mauriziopistone.it/

Giovanni Pascoli
CREPEREIA TRYPHAENA

(Strofe saffica.

Il poeta immagina di assistere alla scoperta, avvenuta nel 1889, di un sarcofago romano contenente ancora il corpo di una giovinetta. L'indomani eseguirŕ i riti propiziatori ai Lčmuri, gli spiriti dei morti. Rievoca la cerimonia funebre per la giovinetta, e gli sembra di rivivere l'amore del promesso sposo Fileto)

In nigros circum taciturna lucos
fugerat cornix, repetebat urbis
turba corvorum memorum quadratae
saxa Palati,

cum solum Tuscum decimo die te
redditit maio, Crepereia, soli
pronubam post innumera induentem
saecula gemmam.

Vitrea virgo sub aqua latebas,
at comans summis adiantus undis
nabat. An nocti dederas opacae
spargere crinis?

Sed quid antiquis oculi videnti
nunc mihi effeti lacrimis madescunt?
quas premo curas alioque eundem
corde dolorem?

Murteum vidi memor ipse sertum
quosque fulsisti religata crinis,
et manus iunctas tenuisque dextris
farris aristas.

Nota, post longos amethystos annos
quae refert alas oculis ruentis
gryphis et cervam, Venerique pupa
nota negata est.

Crastina, sacris Lemurum tenebris,
nocte, cum pictae volucres tacebunt
et canes, nudo pede per soporam
deferar umbram,

et fabas sumam iaciamque nigras
pone per noctem noviesque dicam
« His fabis, manes, redimo, Tryphaenae,
meque meosque ».

Dumque tu aversum sequeris manuque
tangis exsangui levis umbra dona,
tinnulo parcam moriturus aeri
respiciamque.

En ades. Sic lectus eburnus olim
pallidam, me flente, nefas, habebat.
Sic eras, collo nitidum reflexo
fusa capilium.

Flamen oblitas grave tibiarum
nunc procul flenti mihi pellit auris
neniaeque urguent resonoque maesta
praefica lesso.

Ducitur funus per aprica ripae,
murmur etrusco Tiberi ciente
triste, per sepes ubi gignit albos
spina corymbos.

Floridam non te ruber igne Vesper
matris abduxit gremio morantem
nec faces « Hymen » pueri levantes
concinuerunt.

Cymbiis fusis ego rite lactis
condidi mutis animam sepulcris
edidique amens « Have have » supremum
ipse « Tryphaena ».

Vesper adflavit pariis columnis
luteum molis iubar Hadrianae,
Pincium tranant fugiente corvi
agmine collem,

cum rapi sensim videor silentisque
inmemor cordis per inane ferri,
iam tuae frustra revocante matris
voce Philetum.

[Tomás de Torquemada]

Bellissimo - e protettissimo avverso il copia/incolla - contributo in lingua italiana... Cliccare anche sui link che, dal testo, rimandano alle immagini...

Dal sito http://www.giustizia.it/

http://www.giustizia.it/dalterritori...e.htm#scoperte

[Tomás de Torquemada]

Dal sito http://www.geocities.com/mauriziobettini/index.html

In 1889, a sarcophagus was excavated in Rome. It contained the remains of Crepereia Tryphaena and her beautiful doll. The word for doll in Latin is pupa, in Greek kore - and both of these words also mean the "pupil," the "girl" in the eye. The doll is a tiny mirror that reflects the world at large, and dolls were often interred with miniature tables, chairs and other small utensils. Unlike other images, the dolls' articulated joints simulate movement; the castanets in their hands simulate sound. The doll has a nude body that can be dressed; like a person, the doll can change her external appearance. Dolls do not have referents as other images do. The doll is an auto-referential sign: the simulacrum of a girl that pretends to be a girl. These physical features imply certain behaviors: the girls would play with their dolls, dressing them, combing their hair, making them walk. Lactantius thus mocked pagan religion as nothing more than men playing with big dolls of the gods. On the eve of their wedding, Roman and Greek girls dedicated their dolls in a temple of the goddess (as Juvenal tells us). This is why Pascoli called Crepereia's doll a "doll denied to Venus"; Crepereia did not live long enough to see her wedding. By giving up their dolls, their 'virginal' double, girls renounced their childhood. The doll is another kolossos: an image that captures a person's fleeting identity in a permanent form.

[pcosta]

Originally posted by Tomás de Torquemada
Bellissimo - e protettissimo avverso il copia/incolla - Dal sito http://www.giustizia.it/

http://www.giustizia.it/dalterritori...e.htm#scoperte

sono protezioni... relative
E' solo disabilitata la funzione dal clic di destra del mouse.
Basta selezionare il testo e digitare ctrl-c per copiare poi con ctrl-v dove si vuole.


Anna Mura Sommella

Crepereia Tryphaene

" Tolto il coperchio e lanciato uno sguardo sul cadavere attraverso il cristallo dell'acqua limpida e fresca, fummo stranamente sorpresi dall'aspetto del teschio, che ne appariva tuttora coperto dalla folta e lunga capigliatura ondeggiante sull'acqua. La fama di cosi mirabile ritrovamento attrasse in breve turbe di curiosi dal quartiere vicino, di maniera che l'esumazione di Crepereia Tryphaena fu compiuta con onori oltre ogni dire solenni, e ne rimarrŕ lunghi anni la memoria nel quartiere Prati. Il fenomeno della capigliatura č facilmente spiegato. Con l'acqua di filtramento erano penetrati nel cavo del sarcofago bulbi di una tal pianta acquatica che produce filamenti di color d'ebano, lunghissimi, i quali bulbi avevano messo di preferenza le loro barbicine sul cranio. Il cranio era leggermente rivolto verso la spalla sinistra e verso la gentile figurina di bambola. .." .
Con queste parole ricche di pathos, che ci permettono, a un secolo di distanza, di partecipare all'atmosfera di prodigio che circondň la scoperta, il Lanciani descrive l'apertura del sarcofago di Crepereia avvenuto sul luogo stesso del ritrovamento, due giorni dopo il recupero, il 12 maggio del 1889.
....

[Tomás de Torquemada]

Originally posted by pcosta


sono protezioni... relative
E' solo disabilitata la funzione dal clic di destra del mouse.
Basta selezionare il testo e digitare ctrl-c per copiare poi con ctrl-v dove si vuole.

Ehm... Veramente a questo ci arrivavo anch'io... Anzi, con trucchetti altrettanto semplici, č possibile "fregarsi" le foto... Solo che non mi sembrava il caso di contraddire proprio il Ministero della Giustizia...

Grazie, comunque...

Ciao.

[pcosta]

Direi che mancando l'indicazione del copyright e il divieto esplicito di copia, si puň andare tranquilli.
Tanto piů che quel sito lo paghiamo tutti noi

[Tomás de Torquemada]

Originally posted by pcosta
Direi che mancando l'indicazione del copyright e il divieto esplicito di copia, si puň andare tranquilli.
Tanto piů che quel sito lo paghiamo tutti noi

Osservazioni correttissime...
Provvederň a riportare qui sia il testo sia le foto...

Ciao.

[Silvia]

Eheheh… se aspettassimo Torquy, rischieremmo di leggere il testo in qualche malinconica casa di riposo. O di non leggerlo affatto. Meno male che c’č Silvia…