Records of the Canterbury Museum Volume 28 2014 

Roger Fyfe & Sarah Murray. Benin Art in Canterbury Museum. 

ABSTRACT: Canterbury Museum cares for 16 items of nineteenth century and one early twentieth century example of Benin art. This paper offers the first published description of this collection, presenting a straightforward illustrated catalogue with a brief description of the individual pieces as well as their acquisition history and provenance. A short historical and political overview together with a narrative placing Benin art within an indigenous context are also included to ensure the ethnographic perspective of the objects complements their descriptions. This addition to the body of literature related to Benin art will alert international scholars to the existence of the Canterbury Museum collection, allowing it to become a more academically active and accessible part of the large, but finite, worldwide corpus of Benin art.

Danielle Steyn. Chasing the Sun: Coinage and Solar Worship in the Roman Empire of the Third and Early Fourth Centuries CE.

ABSTRACT: The third and early fourth centuries CE were a challenging period for the Romans, with almost continuous warfare and over 50 emperors and pretenders between 235 and 285. The frequent appearance of the god Sol (the Sun) on coin reverses in this period is a marked departure from the standard range of religious motifs,  which, it was once argued, attested a major shift away from the worship of Jupiter. This article catalogues and contextualises within current historiographical  debates a group of coins, bearing images of Sol and solar iconography, in the collection of Canterbury Museum. Coinage was an important means of  communication during the late Roman Imperial period, as evidenced by the increase in coin types and the speed with which coins were minted. The study of Sol’s frequent appearance on coins, therefore, can tell us much about the religious and political situation in the third and early fourth centuries CE, an  important period for which there is limited literary evidence.

Dr Lucy Wadeson. Funerary Portrait Of A Palmyrene Priest.

ABSTRACT: This article presents the results of an examination of a sculpted portrait head from Palmyra (Syria) that was donated to Canterbury Museum in 1980. On the basis of a detailed study of the sculpture, it is proposed that it represents a priest and was originally attached to a funerary statue of a figure reclining either in a  banquet relief or on the lid of a sarcophagus placed in one of Palmyra’s many tombs. A third century CE date is suggested on the basis of facial features and  attributes that accord with other portraits dated by inscriptions. Furthermore, this period was popular for the production of funerary banquet reliefs with figures carved fully in the round.

Cor J. Vink. The type specimen of Argiope leucopicta Urquhart, 1890 (Araneae: Araneidae).

ABSTRACT: The holotype of Argiope leucopicta Urquhart, 1890 (= Cyrtophora leucopicta (Urquhart, 1890)) has been located at Canterbury Museum. An examination of this specimen shows that C. leucopicta is a junior synonym of Cyrtophora moluccensis (Doleschall, 1857).

The full volume of Records of the Canterbury Museum 28.