Looking for culture on the public holiday last Monday, I found that most of the fine arts museum in Brussels were closed, but the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren was open. It was a very long time since we last visited, so I headed off to explore; it’s an hour’s drive from us and I didn’t persuade anyone else to come with me.
I really enjoyed it. It actually starts from the Neanderthals and works through my old friends the Michelsbergers before getting to the Celts and Romans. Tongeren was the biggest Roman town in what is now Belgium and they have a lot of archaeological finds.

As so often, I was especially struck by the three-dimensional representations of the human body. This is Amor and Psyche cuddling, with Mercury looking on from behind – very small figures all three.

Here’s an even smaller but very cute lamp oil holder.

Here is (headless) Jupiter trampling two men with tentacles for legs. I am impressed by the expression on the face of the first tramplee.


Here is a broken vase from a household shrine which would have originally had seven face representing the seven planets who give their names to the days of the week.

Here is a very characterful Venus, on loan from the Vatican collection. You can see that her right arm would originally have crossed her chest to rest her hand on her left arm, and her left hand would have been modestly on her right thigh.


There is also a temporary exhibition making the argument that most of the classical statues were brightly painted, and extrapolating from the traces of pigment left on them. I don’t know how reliable this is, but the results are certainly striking. Here, for instance, is the proposed original appearance of Augustus:

And here is Alexander the Great from the Alexander Sarcophagus:

It certainly made me think about classical sculpture in a very different way.
Outside the museum, the Gaulish leader Ambiorix keeps watch in the town square:


Well worth a return visit; “mérite le voyage” as Michelin would put it.