| Statue of Trajan | |
|---|---|
 The statue in 2010 | |
| Year | 1980 (1980) (erected) |
| Medium | Bronze sculpture |
| Subject | Trajan |
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 51°30′36″N 0°04′34″W / 51.509875°N 0.076174°W / 51.509875; -0.076174 |
The statue of Trajan is an outdoor twentieth-century bronze sculpture depicting the Roman Emperor Trajan, located in front of a section of the London Wall built by Romans, at Tower Hill in London, United Kingdom.
Description
Trajan is shown bareheaded and wearing a tunic, holding a scroll in his left hand while gesturing with his right hand raised.
A plaque at its base contains the inscription:
STATUE BELIEVED TO BE OF THE ROMAN EMPEROR TRAJAN/ A.D. 98–117/ IMPERATOR CAESAR NERVA TRAJANUS AUGUSTUS/ PRESENTED BY THE TOWER HILL IMPROVEMENT TRUST AT THE/ REQUEST OF THE REVEREND P. B. CLAYTON, CH, MC, DD, /FOUNDER PADRE OF TOC H.
History
The statue was installed in 1980 as a bequest from P. B. "Tubby" Clayton, the vicar of All Hallows-by-the-Tower. The Museum of London believes the figure to have been recovered from a scrapyard in Southampton in the 1920s, and notes that its head does not match its body. There is no information presented at the site about the sculptor.
It is a cast of a late 1st century statue found in Minturno, which is on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. The upper part of the head is the result of restoration; other casts are in Rome (at the via dei Fori Imperiali and Museum of Roman Civilization), Ancona and Benevento.
Trajan presided over the second-greatest military expansion in Roman history, after Augustus, leading the empire to attain its maximum territorial extent by the time of his death. He never himself visited Britain.
See also
References
- ^ Baker, Margaret (2002). Discovering London Statues and Monuments. Osprey Publishing. p. 165. ISBN 9780747804956. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
- ^ "Trajan – London, England, UK". Waymarking.com. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
- "Statue: Emperor Trajan statue". LondonRemembers.com. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
- ^ McNay, Michael (6 March 2018). Hidden Treasures of London. Random House. ISBN 9781847946171 – via Google Books.
- "Where To See Roman London". 19 August 2015.
- Philip Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of the City of London (p. 407) - Liverpool University Press, 2003. From this book we quote: "The statue is a bronze reproduction, not a very good one, of a marble statue of Trajan, discovered at Minturno, which is now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples."
- Mostra Augustea della Romanità, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1968, (p. 160); ISBN 9788870620603."Roma caput mundi", il mito della grandezza
External links
- London's Roman walls, BBC
