Roman merchants set off northwards from here along the famous “Amber Road”, which served as the main trade route to the “barbarian” countries as early as the time of Celtic dominance in Central Europe. They brought raw amber lumps to Aquileia, and here, in specialised workshops, various items were made from it. For the first three centuries AD, this production was sustained by the fashion for amber and the interest in it among wealthy Roman women. In 452, the city was destroyed by Attila. Today, ruins of the ancient forum, remnants of the port, houses and chapels, and a necropolis remain from its heyday. From a later period, there is a Romanesque-Gothic basilica built on the foundations of an early Christian church, which contains magnificent mosaic floors from the 5th-6th centuries. Since 1998, the entire archaeological zone of Aquileia, along with the basilica, has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Establishment of a museum
The collection of ancient amber artefacts is housed in the local National Archaeological Museum. Its beginnings were the archaeological finds from the town's area, which belonged to Canon Gian Domenico Bertoli (1676-1763). After his death, this collection was purchased by Prince Antonio Cassis Faraone. One of the Cassis family's palaces later became the seat of today's museum. The initiator of the establishment of the first museum in Aquileia was the painter from Udine, Leopoldo Zuccolo (1761-1833). It was opened in 1807 in the ancient baptistery and chapel next to the basilica. The current museum in the Cassis villa has been operating since 1882. In 1909, a lapidary was opened there; its collections grew significantly in the 1950s in connection with large-scale excavation works. In this way, numerous funerary stelae and urns used in the Aquileia area during funeral ceremonies were acquired, among other items.
Today, the Archaeological Museum's collections include valuable collections of ancient statues and portrait heads, mosaics and bas-reliefs, bronze, pottery and glass exhibits, precious stone gems, and gold and ivory artefacts. The jewel in the crown of the collections is a unique collection of amber artefacts located on the first floor of the museum.
Most valuable exhibits
According to an interesting account from the golden age of amber craftsmanship in the Roman Empire, contained in Pliny the Elder's “Naturalis Historia” (AD 70), which states that “amber objects, to this day, only interest women”, the exhibition in Aquileia indeed predominantly features women's adornments and decorative or practical trinkets:
- magnificent rings adorned with carved heads and female busts; amber or with “eyes” of precious stones, often with coiled rings;
- Pendants in the shape of fruits and stylised animals; the most common motifs include acorns, olives, fruit pips, ears of corn, birds, puppies, lizards, dolphins;
- Necklaces made of beads of various shapes.;
- toiletries: small carved pots for creams and perfumes, a perfume bottle, a spoon, a mirror frame, a miniature oil lamp, dice;
- So-called spindle-like objects, also referred to as rods, sceptres, or even toiletries – objects made from amber beads mounted on metal rods. They were often placed in female graves, which leads to the assumption that they may have symbolised the spindle of the goddess of destiny, Clotho, who, according to mythology, spun the thread of human life.;
- amber laurel leaves with inscriptions ANNFF /AN(num) N(ovum) F(austum) F(elicem)/ – original New Year's wishes;
- Amulets in the form of pendants of various shapes (stylised phalluses, horns, hands clasped in prayer);
- sculptures: free-standing figural compositions depicting playing amorini, Eros and Psyche, human and animal figurines, and bas-relief mascarons.
All the amber artefacts displayed in the Archaeological Museum in Aquileia have the characteristic reddish hue of ancient artefacts and are small in size. Their dimensions were dictated not only by the range of items produced but also by the fact that they were most often made from a single piece of raw material. The use of lathes, drills, files, and other metal tools for processing allowed for precise cutting of amber, drilling holes, carving, as well as grinding and polishing the artefacts.
Small works of art from Aquileian workshops were not only popular with wealthy ladies in Rome but also found buyers throughout the empire. They were luxury goods, and thus very expensive; according to Pliny the Elder (Naturalis historia, XXXVII), the price of a small amber figurine was equal to the price of a slave. Today, this type of object, equally priceless due to its uniqueness and artistic value, can be admired in various European museums, e.g. in Cologne, Dresden, London, Sopron (Hungary) or Graz (Austria). They most often come from excavations in the territories of former Roman provinces. However, the largest and most valuable collection of artistic amber products is located at the Archaeological Museum in Aquileia, the very place where workshops processing Baltic amber operated in the first centuries AD.