Publicizing the Ancient City: Antioch on-the-Orontes’ Relationship to Baltimore, per 20th-century Newspapers (Jacqueline Rosenkranz, ARP.3)
In a review of C. R. Morey’s 1938 art book entitled The Mosaics of Antioch, the authoring critic argues that “There are a few finds, in the history of archeology, which have instantly captured the attention of the average layman and have become thoroughly publicized and even à la mode” (“New Art Books”, p. 139-40). This comment elicits a few questions. Why did the Antioch mosaics fascinate the “layman” and “instantly capture” public attention? Importantly, what exactly was “thorough” publicity saying to drive this unique engagement?
Using Baltimore as a case study, this post examines how the 20th-century American city publicized and portrayed Antioch in newspaper media. In political science, my field of interest, scholars sometimes look to metropolitan newspapers to see how this local institution conveys the “voice of the community”, generates collective “we feelings”, and instills “civic jingoism” in a district (Molotch, 1976, p. 315). These are useful criteria that I shall employ to analyze media rhetoric. I primarily narrow my investigation to publicity from the 1930s to 1950s in the Baltimore-based Sun to explore we feelings surrounding the city’s role in exhibiting Antioch and in educating the public about it. By exploring newspaper rhetoric, I pay special attention to how Baltimore publicized its relationship to the ancient city through two framings. I shall first explore a religious framing, in which newspapers portrayed Antioch as the American city’s “moral savior”, and as a Christian political model for the community to emulate. I then investigate an academic framing, where the American city’s cultural institutions were collectively depicted as Antioch’s “academic savior”, and as exciting centers for classical art knowledge production.
Moral Salvation: Interest in Christian Antioch and Exhibiting the “Holy Grail”
In the early stage of my research, I had assumed that Antioch’s legacy in early Christianity’s urban origins would have principally resonated with a majority of the American public (de Giorgi & Eger, 2021, p. 12). In a 1956 Sun article, Professor Morey reportedly argued that Antioch had “a better claim to being the ‘cradle of Christianity’ than Jerusalem itself” (“Museum’s Mosaics”, 1956). According to Morey’s 1936 excavation report and newspaper articles, the expeditions were partly driven by a hope to find sites of Christian importance (Morey, 1936, p. 637; McKinney, 1936).
In this period, American political rhetoric in public media was often made up of Christian imagery. For example, creating a city with a community bonded over Gospel-mastery echoes the idea of a covenant, or the mission that Puritans made to live together in faith when settling the colonies. The American Jeremiad— another religious, political trope— reminds citizens of that original duty in forming a collectively religious society in government. Some 20th-century narratives implicitly argued that Antioch could serve as an exemplar of these ideals. Therefore, I speculated that Antioch might have been widely publicized through a Christian lens and portrayed as a model to emulate, thereby capturing public attention via a romanticized, religiously valenced relationship between the modern American city and the ancient one.
Excerpt from William T. Willis’s “Christianity’s Cradle City” The Washington Post (13 June 1925)
The article that informed this initial thought was William T. Ellis’s “Christianity’s Cradle City”. Dr. Ellis was a religious columnist who wrote weekly Bible studies that reached a national audience through publications like the Washington Post, where this commentary was printed. In his 1925 lesson concerning “The Church in Antioch”— Acts 11:19-30, the author connected that week’s Scripture to current events, remarking that “Links between the newspaper and the Bible are innumerable nowadays”. He undertook an interesting comparative political approach by associating similar urban circumstances in the ancient city to the modern American one. The only condition that made the two cities different was merely time. He argued that “All the civic problems that we face today were old in the Antioch which Barnabas and Paul made the new center of the Christian Church”. “Civic problems” referred to anxieties concerning urbanization and the immoral consequences it would have for modern life. Ellis extolled Antioch’s Christianity and patron saints by writing that “Christ once wrested this proud city from the shameless sway of sin”; what was once the “plaything” of “heathen” emperors became the “prize” of Christ. Modernizing, urbanizing Antioch was “Cosmopolitan in disposition, [where] the citizens acted as if emancipated from every law”. In the author’s view, Antioch’s “problems” were not dissimilar to 1920s American urban conditions. The author argues that Christianity’s entrance into Antioch faced an “immoral” urbanizing context, yet successfully took root despite the unfavorable odds. Similarly, the modernizing, “immoral” American city should cling onto religious ideals that the nation was founded on, which would have been tacitly understood by readers. Antioch’s example could “save” the American city if the reading public studied its legacy— the media could play a role in this “we” driven comparative religious and political project.
It is also important to note that the mosaics were not the first Antiochene archaeological finds that captured the united excitement of American communities. Dr. Ellis mentioned the exhibition of the “veritable ‘Holy Grail’, the cup of the Last Supper”, which traveled throughout the U.S. in the early 20th century. Fahim Kouchakji, who was a New York based art collector and dealer, owned the artifact, and toured with it in many cultural institutions (“Rare-Art Dealer”, 1976). This Antioch object must have had potent symbolic power from a Christian standpoint as it made appearances in various American cities, including Baltimore. The Sun narratives concerning this were certainly sensational. One December 1938 headline proclaimed that “Over 2,000 view Antioch chalice”, where the item was the grand center piece in an exhibition on religious objects. Another detailed how “Police become authorities on Great Chalice of Antioch”, as guards answered questions and “lectured” to a clamoring crowd, which ultimately drew in ten thousand people. (For the intrigued reader’s information, the “Holy Grail”—which is a “veritable” Byzantine oil lamp from 500 CE—can be seen today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
Ultimately, I did not gather robust support for a religious framing in the newspaper archive that could truly connect to layman interest in the Antioch mosaics or justify we-feelings surrounding Baltimore’s relationship to Antioch. Dr. Ellis’ romanticizing, “moral salvation” rhetoric was not widely imitated in Sun articles concerning the ancient city. The rhetoric surrounding the chalice exhibition simply reported the excitement around the event, instead of creating sentimental political parallels between the cities. Furthermore, interest in mosaics depicting Graeco-Roman myths and values is not highly relevant to Antioch’s symbolic history as “Christianity’s Cradle City”. Not all local newspaper readers and donors to Baltimore’s Antioch subscription fund, a civic project led by local art enthusiasts that helped acquire the mosaics for the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), identified with a Christian narrative either. Therefore, I began to consider other ways that Antioch was publicized in Baltimore’s media.
Academic Salvation: Interest in Civic Arts and Sciences and Exhibiting the Mosaics
Excerpt from “Mosaics from Ancient Antioch” Baltimore Sun 16 May 1937: 96
In some Sun narratives, the expedition was framed to Baltimore’s public as “saving” the mosaics from Antioch’s locals. For example, May Irene Copinger’s 1933 article entitled “Baltimore’s Share in the Ancient Glory of Antioch” covered information about the recent expeditions and emphasized the academic importance of the excavations. In a section about difficulties encountered during the project, the author claimed that Turkish landowners in the district “fail entirely to understand that this digging partly is performing a service in the interest of science and art”. The author lamented the blocks posed by local owners against “the inspiration of a Western love of learning”. Readers learned about the “native desire” to break artifacts for fun; the mosaics had to be guarded at night because resident vandals failed to understand the academic mission and weight of the work. American institutions thus had a “we” based duty towards protecting the art and the knowledge production to be gained from it. Emphasizing this is ironic: the lack of Christian finds led to a tireless hunt for mosaics instead, which were led by local villagers' tips (de Giorgi & Eger, 2021, p. 501). Inhabitants supplied knowledge that the excavators came into the site ignorant of, like an understanding of Antioch’s ancient topography. Yet Antioch’s locals were framed as oblivious to American urbanites.
This “academic savior” narrative resurfaced decades after the initial 1930s excitement died down. In a 1956 article, the Sun published “Museum’s Mosaics The Most”, in which the author presented readers with details concerning the BMA’s figurative mosaics. These were the pieces that most captivated audiences, likely due to them being simply more “interesting” than patterned motifs. The article’s conclusion particularly stands out: “In all, these mosaics now residing safely in the Baltimore Museum of Art form a collection of early mosaics vastly superior to the ones in Pompeii which people travel thousands of miles from all parts of the world to see” (emphasis mine). I argue that “safely” is a very charged word. Baltimore was framed as a pioneering academic center that people should visit, and its institutions collectively protected, cared for, and safe-guarded the mosaics from the very city they came. Also, tones of civic jingoism ring clear, as the author repeatedly argued that experts were unanimous in agreeing that the BMA’s collection was the “greatest in the world” and “vastly superior”.
The Sun also featured community voices from important BMA actors who explained the importance of the mosaic acquisitions and why Baltimore residents should be excited about the art. I also read these narratives as effectively instilling we-feelings and civic jingoism via an academic framing. Robert Garrett, who represented the BMA as a sponsor institution in the excavations, and R. J. McKinney, who was the director of the museum from 1929-1937, were the highlighted voices. In a 1937 article, McKinney interestingly framed Baltimore as the soon to be center for students studying classical painting because of the acquisitions, which could be viewed as a growth mechanism for the city as well. Baltimore would attract young, talented students to the best cultural institution— the BMA— thanks to the mosaics. Civic jingoism appears again, as readers might have been collectively excited for this academic cause (“City acquires”, 1936; “Collection of Hellenistic mosaics”, 1937). Garrett emphasized that “a new chapter” in ancient art was being written, and it was taking place right in Baltimore (“City acquires”, 1936). Like “Museum’s Mosaics The Most”, McKinney’s and Garret’s narratives also publicized that Baltimore’s acquisitions were particularly constituted by the “finest”, “most significant ensemble of mosaics ever uncovered” (“Collection of Hellenistic mosaics”, 1937). Reading that their home city obtained the best collection would have effectively generated we-feelings and would have made many Baltimoreans proud to tout.
Excitement concerning Antioch in Baltimore was also facilitated by newspaper advertisements concerning collaborations between educational and cultural institutions in teaching the public about the ancient city. The Sun often advertised lectures concerning Antioch: Prof. Morey himself spoke at the BMA, and one expedition director presented a “picture show” about ancient and modern civilizations in 1939 (“Collection reinstalled”, 1939; “Ancient Antioch”, 1939). A December 1938 headline advertised a French antiquarian’s lecture at Johns Hopkins’ Latrobe Hall that would include information about Antioch, and his talk would connect to the BMA’s mosaics. By advertising these academic engagements, newspapers allowed the public to accessibly meet with the expedition leaders face-to-face, and to learn more about their city’s newly acquired pieces from qualified, directly involved sources. We may even imagine that readers of Morey’s Mosaics of Antioch asked for the professor’s thoughts concerning Baltimore’s own collection. Generating we feelings around the new Antioch Court could be accomplished by providing the public with direct, academically founded knowledge to instill civic pride in the locale’s role in exhibiting the art.
Conclusions
Religious and academic framings do not have to be read as mutually exclusive. Some articles maintained a religious framing in terms of expressing continued hope to find sites of Christian importance. In an article by R. J. McKinney, early Graeco-Roman mosaics were posited to be a potential mechanism to learn more about later Christian ones, and an optimistic tone for the excavators to find Christian artifacts was articulated (McKinney, 1936). While these thoughts may not have generated civic excitement in the “average layman”, the thorough advertising of lectures and learning opportunities for Baltimoreans to attend, and the framing of Baltimore as the protective, caring locus of the finest mosaic collection and as the new center for classical art studies constitutes the kind of publicity that made Antioch à la mode and that seems to have primarily captured public notice.
Antioch has certainly held onto Baltimore’s civic attention into the 21st-century. In 2001, the Sun reported that pupils at a local elementary school undertook a mosaic project to imitate the techniques of Antioch’s ancient artisans (Stiehm, 2001). Students studied the artifacts in the BMA and employed their artistic visions with their teacher back in the classroom. The city’s educational institutions engaged with cultural ones; interest in the Antiochian art specifically powered this collaboration. In a way, the Johns Hopkins community’s own Antioch Recovery Project and its ongoing contributions to knowledge production about the mosaics is proof of the ancient city’s staying power in Baltimore’s contemporary attention, too.
—Jacqueline Rosenkranz
Cite as: Rosenkranz, Jacqueline. “Publicizing the Ancient City: Antioch on-the-Orontes’ Relationship to Baltimore, per 20th-century Newspapers” in the Antioch Recovery Project (blog) (18 December 2023): www.antiochrecoveryproject.org/mosaics/publicizing-the-ancient-city-antioch-on-the-orontes-relationship-to-baltimore-per-20th-century-newspapers-jacqueline-rosenkranz-arp3
“Ancient Antioch seen in pictures at museum.” (1939, Feb. 18). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/ancient-antioch-seen-pictures-at-museum/docview/543103630/se-2.
“City acquires collection of Hellenistic mosaics.” (1936, Oct. 06). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/city-acquires-collection-hellenistic-mosaics/docview/539797607/se-2.
Clarke Beach, C. (1937, May 16). “Mosaics from ancient antioch: TREASURES RECOVERED IN SYRIA TO GO ON VIEW TUESDAY AT THE MUSEUM.” The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/mosaics-ancient-antioch/docview/543207301/se-2
“Collection of hellenistic mosaics soon to be shown” (1937, May 03). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/collection-hellenistic-mosaics-soon-be-shown/docview/543180502/se-2
“Collection reinstalled at museum.” (1939, Oct. 29). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/art-hopkins-robinson-antiquities-again-on-view/docview/543316783/se-2.
Copinger, May Irene. “Baltimore’s share in the ancient glory of Antioch” (22 Oct. 1933). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/baltimores-share-ancient-glory-antioch/docview/543325720/se-2.
De Giorgi, A.U., & Eger, A.A. (2021). Antioch: A History (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315727608
Ellis, William T. “Christianity’s Cradle City” (1925, June 13). The Washington Post (1923-1954) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/christianitys-cradle-city/docview/149536003/se-2.
F. J. Kouchakji Rare-Art Dealer (1976, Aug. 21). The New York Times (1851-) Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1976/08/21/archives/fj-kouchakji-rareart-dealer-widely-respected-scholar-of-antiquity.html
Franc, Helen M. “New Art Books. Review of The Mosaics of Antioch by C. R. Morey, 1938” (p. 139-140). Retrieved from course archive material.
“French antiquarian to speak at Hopkins.” (1938, Dec. 11). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/french-antiquarian-speak-at-hopkins/docview/540252958/se-2.
McKinney, Roland J. “Uncovering the past at Antioch.” (1936, Jan. 05). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/uncovering-past-at-antioch/docview/538448153/se-2.
Molotch, H. (1976). “The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place.” American Journal of Sociology, 82(2), 309–332. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2777096
Morey, C. R. (1936). The Excavation of Antioch-on-the-Orontes. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 76(5), 637–651. http://www.jstor.org/stable/984752
“Over 2,000 view Antioch chalice.” (1938, Dec. 05). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/over-2-000-view-antioch-chalice/docview/537459950/se-2
“Police become authorities on great chalice of Antioch.” (1938, Dec. 19). The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/police-become-authorities-on-great-chalice/docview/540238282/se-2.
Stiehm, J. (2001, Nov 16). “Pupils re-create ancient art.” The Sun Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/pupils-re-create-ancient-art-mosaic-at-govans/docview/406493971/se-2
Whitman, Francis S, Jr. (1956, Jul. 09). “Museum’s Mosaics The Most.” The Sun (1837-) Retrieved from https://proxy1.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/museums-mosaics-most/docview/541031359/se-2.