Project Goals

The Arch of Titus in Rome commemorates the Emperor Titus’ victory in the Jewish War (66-73 CE). This iconic monument contains bas reliefs of Titus’ triumphal procession through Rome, including a depiction of the seven-branched menorah from the Jerusalem Temple. Long significant for Christian art, this menorah is the symbol of modern Israel. Like the other reliefs on the Arch, the original colors of the menorah relief are no longer visible. New conservation techniques have been successfully recovered traces of the original colors on ancient monuments. We will apply these to the study of the Arch: Noninvasive UV-VIS Absorption Spectrometry will be employed to it for the first time to capture traces of pigments on the relief, and 3D scanning will be used for the first time to capture the geometric detail of the relief. We hope to create the first reconstruction of the polychromy of the relief using the new digital tools for painting and displaying 3D models.

The results may transform our understanding of the Arch of Titus, especially the menorah panel, whose original coloration is unknown.

Significance

Recent scholarship has focused on the significance of polychromy in classical art and architecture. This will be the first study to restore the color on a monument from the Flavian period. This project also has the potential to give us our first glimpse of the colors used to decorate the sacred vessels of the Jerusalem Temple. Given the importance of the Arch of Titus as a Flavian Roman monument and of Temple and its menorah in Judaism and Christianity, our project may transform the way we visualize and conceptualize Roman state architecture as well as the central monument of ancient Judaism, the Jerusalem Temple.

The final results of the project will be made available at no cost on the project’s Web site and in a printed scholarly publication, and will also be presented at a scholarly conference. The findings will also be integrated into the 3D digital model of the Arch in Rome Reborn: A Digital Model of Ancient Rome.

Our Team

An international team of art historians, conservators and historians will be assembled to study the reliefs of the Arch of Titus in all of their complexity. A technology team headed by co-director Bernard Frischer will focus on the technical retrieval of evidence of polychromy, scanning of the reliefs and 3D digital modeling of the Arch. A team led by co-director Peter Schertz will focus on the Roman context of the Arch, including the topographical, artistic and political issues that naturally arise in any study of the monument. Director Steven Fine will oversee the entire project and lead a team dedicated to the interpretation of the Arch within Jewish and Christian contexts, from antiquity to the present.

Team Members
Steven Fine, Yeshiva University, Project Director
Bernard Frischer, PublicVR, Co-Director, Senior Scientist
Peter Schertz, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Project Co-Director

Louis H. Feldman, Yeshiva University
Paolo Liverani, University of Florence
Heinrich Piening, State of Bavaria
Lawrence H. Schiffman, Yeshiva University
William Stenhouse, Yeshiva University