Published: 4 July 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
An ancient statue of Roman emperor Hadrian, who crushed the Jewish rebellion in ancient Judea, has been recreated in honeycomb
Known as one of the great heroes of the Roman Empire, Emperor Hadrian has a somewhat different reputation in Jewish historiography. While in the West, Hadrian is seen as an enlightened emperor – a gifted ruler, philosopher, and poet – in Jewish history he’s known as a harsh oppressor, one of the worst persecutors of the Jewish people. He put down the Bar Kochba revolt and annihilated the Jewish population in Judea.
In the Historia Augusta, a third-century text, Hadrian is described as a study in contrasts: “He was, in the same person, austere and genial, dignified and playful, dilatory and quick to act, miserly and generous, deceitful and straightforward, cruel and merciful, and always in all things changeable.”
One of the most significant findings in Israeli archaeology is a bronze statue of Hadrian; it’s one of the most magnificent pieces at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. In 1975, an American tourist and antiques enthusiast discovered the statue accidentally while searching fields near Kibbutz Tirat Zvi with a metal detector.
Today, the notorious emperor can be seen at the museum in the form of another statue: a brand-new replica made of honeycomb.
Replicating the head of the sculpture for the new project at the Israel Museum, Slovakian artist Tomas Libertiny used tens of thousands of bees acting as a superorganism in a hive stationed in the museum’s sculpture garden. Apart from being an impressive artwork, it references how the original sculpture was made 1800 years ago – through a now-lost method that uses wax.
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Bees recreated one of the world's most important sculptures in Jerusalem (Haaretz)
Photo: 3D printing process, computer scan and analysis of the original Emperor Hadrian sculpture were used to create the honeycomb replica (Elie Posner/The Israel Museum)
