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Donald Sanders, left, and Lindsay Neathawk of Williamstown flank the replica Neathawk created of the 'Spoils' panel of the Arch of Titus.
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Lindsay Neathawk of Williamstown used this CNC machine to create the 'Spoils' replica.
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Lindsay Neathawk of Williamstown used these tools to create the 'Spoils' replica.
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Donald Sanders, left, and Lindsay Neathawk, center, discuss the 'Spoils' panel with a guest at the open house on Sunday.
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Artist Lindsay Neathawk used this image in creating the replica.
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The 'Spoils' replica will be on display in New York City from September 2017 through January 2018.

Williamstown Artist Creates Replica of Roman Sculpture Panel

By Rebecca DravisiBerkshires Staff
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A colorized, completed image of the 'Spoils' panel of the Arch of Titus created by Donald Sanders of Williamstown is projected onto the replica created by Williamstown artist Lindsay Neathawk.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Technology from the 21st century has brought a piece of artwork from the first century back to life.

Using a CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machine, Williamstown artist Lindsay Neathawk recently completed a replica of the "Spoils" panel of the Arch of Titus. The arch is located in Rome and was constructed around the year 82 by the Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus, to commemorate Titus' victories, including the Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70.

The "Spoils" panel is on the south side of the arch and depicts Roman soldiers carrying items taken from the Jerusalem Temple, including the temple menorah, trumpets and sacred cups. On the north side of the arch is another panel depicting the arch itself, through which the soldiers would pass.

Neathawk's replica was done in conjunction with Learning Sites, a business run by her Williamstown neighbor, Donald Sanders. Learning Sites is a company that digitally reconstructs the ancient world for interactive education and research; that company was approached by the Yeshiva University Museum in New York City for help with an exhibit on the Arch of Titus it was planning to open this September.

Sanders said he was working with Yeshiva on tasks like colorizing images of the arch, and in the course of that work proposed a three-dimensional replica of the panel. Once the museum said yes, he knew right where to turn: Neathawk, who owns Neathawk Designs on North Hoosac Street. After working up estimates and crunching the numbers, she agreed.

On Sunday, Neathawk held an open house to show off the completed panel — which stands 6 feet tall and weighs between 900 and 1,000 pounds — before movers came Monday to transport it to New York City.

"I had every emotion I could have had," Neathawk said about the project, which consumed 10 to 12 hours a day since she started it at 10 a.m. July 10 and finished it on Aug. 17 — more than 600 hours overall. "I'm excited. I can't believe I did this."

To create the replica, she converted scans of the panel into CAD files, which she then fed into the CNC machine. The CNC machine, however, is not three-dimensional. So Neathawk printed "slices" of the replica on 6-foot by 8-foot by two-inch-thick pieces of high-density urethane foam, which she glued together to create a three-dimensional piece. All together, she used 26 sheets of the foam.


The machine did 90 percent of the carving, with Neathawk doing the rest and piecing it together.

"I had to put it together like a puzzle," she said, telling a guest that the project had taken "a lot of sweat, tears and blood. A lot of tears."


The menorah from the Jerusalem Temple, seen here as part of the 'Spoils' panel of the Arch of Titus sculpture, still has not been recovered.

But she was all smiles Sunday at the open house, as she mingled with guests to talk about the project. Sanders even brought a projector to give a glimpse of a part of the exhibit he is working on: not just colorizing the original sculpture but also re-creating the pieces missing from the relief, including legs and heads that have worn off with age. The program he uses beams the completed colored image onto the sculpture itself, creating a simulation of what the original could have looked like all those centuries ago.

"I'm excited," Neathawk said, and Sanders concurred. "It's amazing," he said.

Neither are sure what will happen to the replica after the Yeshiva exhibit closes in January, but they hope it will travel so more people can see it, maybe even back to the homeland.

"The hope is to maybe make it back to Israel," said Neathawk, who said the menorah depicted in the relief has never been accounted for. "They're still searching for it. It's pretty cool."

Finding ancient artifacts, and preserving history, are critical to the future, said Sanders, whose business is the merging of his two professions: architecture and archaeology. His website states as much: "Among our fundamental early concerns were the on-going destruction and loss of cultural patrimony taking place both in materials housed in collections and in those remaining at archaeological sites around the world."

On Sunday, Sanders echoed those concerns as he surveyed the final version of the relief.

"We're losing so much cultural heritage," he said, attributing the loss to wars, climate change and other reasons. "Stuff has got to be saved as quickly as we can."


Tags: artwork,   historic structure,   replica,   

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WCMA: 'Cracking the Code on Numerology'

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opens a new exhibition, "Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art."
 
The exhibit opened on March 22.
 
According to a press release: 
 
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. Rooted in the Babylonian science of astrology, medieval Christian numerology taught that God created a well-ordered universe. Deciphering the universe's numerical patterns would reveal the Creator's grand plan for humanity, including individual fates. 
 
This unquestioned concept deeply pervaded European cultures through centuries. Theologians and lay people alike fervently interpreted the Bible literally and figuratively via number theory, because as King Solomon told God, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" (Wisdom 11:22). 
 
"Cracking the Cosmic Code" explores medieval relationships among numbers, events, and works of art. The medieval and Renaissance art on display in this exhibition from the 5th to 17th centuries—including a 15th-century birth platter by Lippo d'Andrea from Florence; a 14th-century panel fragment with courtly scenes from Palace Curiel de los Ajos, Valladolid, Spain; and a 12th-century wall capital from the Monastery at Moutiers-Saint-Jean—reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. 
 
"There was no realm of thought that was not influenced by the all-consuming belief that all things were celestially ordered, from human life to stones, herbs, and metals," said WCMA Assistant Curator Elizabeth Sandoval, who curated the exhibition. "As Vincent Foster Hopper expounds, numbers were 'fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning.' These artworks tease out numerical patterns and their multiple possible meanings, in relation to gender, literature, and the celestial sphere. 
 
"The exhibition looks back while moving forward: It relies on the collection's strengths in Western medieval Christianity, but points to the future with goals of acquiring works from the global Middle Ages. It also nods to the history of the gallery as a medieval period room at this pivotal time in WCMA's history before the momentous move to a new building," Sandoval said.
 
Cracking the Cosmic Code runs through Dec. 22.
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