Small Wonders Figurines, Puppets, and the Aesthetics of Scale in Archaic and Classical Greece

Figurines ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 11-50
Author(s):  
Richard Neer
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Reading Habits ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Research Protocols ◽  
Archaic And Classical Greece

This chapter addresses the aesthetics of smallness with regard to material from Archaic and Classical Greece (roughly, from the late eighth to the late fourth centuries BCE). It sketches a range of historical possibilities to relate ancient Greek concepts of scale and likeness to the research protocols of art history and archaeology. It explores the ancient concepts and corpora, with two propositions: 1. that smallness in Archaic and Classical Greece could be wonderful, in that it could make a work of craft what the Greeks called a thauma idesthai, “a wonder to behold for itself and oneself”; 2. to show that the comparativist method to accommodate ancient categories in a modern disciplinary infrastructure requires an eclectic and egalitarian approach to evidence that combines archaeological taxonomy with the reading habits of philology and art history, corpus scholarship with close looking.

scholarly journals Landscape and Hunting. The Economy of the Eschatia

Land ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Constantakopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Greek Landscape ◽  
Archaic And Classical Greece

This paper explores the place of ancient Greek hunting within the Greek landscape and environment, with particular reference to the eschatia, the marginal, uncultivated (or marginally cultivated) land. It is part of a bigger project on the social history of hunting in archaic and classical Greece, where emphasis is placed on the economic and dietary contribution of hunting for Greek communities. Hunting has attracted scholarly attention, mostly as a result of the role that hunting narratives play in Greek mythology, and the importance of hunting scenes in Greek art. Rather than talking about the role of hunting in rites of passage, I would like to explore the relationships of different social classes to hunting (which is understood here to include all forms of capturing animals on land, including trapping and snaring). The ‘un-central’ landscape of the eschatia appears to be an important locus for hunting practices, and therefore, a productive landscape. Hunting in the eschatia was opportunistic, required minimum effort in terms of crossing distances, allowed access to game that could be profitable in the market, and made the transport of game easier to manage.

scholarly journals The Meaning of the Snake in the Ancient Greek World

Arts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Diana Rodríguez Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Greek World ◽  
Archaic And Classical Greece ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Despite playing no meaningful practical role in the lives of the ancient Greeks, snakes are ubiquitous in their material culture and literary accounts, in particular in narratives which emphasise their role of guardian animals. This paper will mainly utilise vase paintings as a source of information, with literary references for further elucidation, to explain why the snake had such a prominent role and thus clarify its meaning within the cultural context of Archaic and Classical Greece, with a particular focus on Athens. Previous scholarship has tended to focus on dualistic opposites, such as life/death, nature/culture, and creation/destruction. This paper argues instead that ancient Greeks perceived the existence of a special primordial force living within, emanating from, or symbolised by the snake; a force which is not more—and not less—than pure life, with all its paradoxes and complexities. Thus, the snake reveals itself as an excellent medium for accessing Greek ideas about the divine, anthropomorphism, and ancestry, the relationship between humans, nature and the supernatural, and the negotiation of the inevitable dichotomy of old and new.

Seer and the City

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Foster
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
The City ◽  
Archaic And Classical Greece

Seers featured prominently in ancient Greek culture, but they rarely appear in colonial discourse from the archaic and classical periods. Margaret Foster exposes the ideological motivations behind this discrepancy and reveals how colonial discourse’s privileging of the colonial city’s founder and his dependence on Delphi, the colonial oracle par excellence, entails a corresponding suppression of the seer. Foster explains why the seer’s authority conflicts with that of the founder and investigates a sequence of literary works from a range of genres that showcase this dynamic. The first study to analyze the seer and the Delphi-sanctioned founder relationally, this volume illuminates the contests between religious and political powers in archaic and classical Greece.

Archaic and Classical Greece

1983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Crawford ◽  
David Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Classical Greece ◽  
Archaic And Classical Greece

CONSTRUCTING THE ‘URBAN PROFILE’ OF AN ANCIENT GREEK CITY: EVIDENCE FROM THE OLYNTHOS PROJECT

2020 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 329-378
Author(s):  
Lisa C. Nevett ◽  
E. Bettina Tsigarida ◽  
Zosia H. Archibald ◽  
David L. Stone ◽  
Bradley A. Ault ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Infrastructure ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Legacy Data ◽  
Greek World

This article argues that a holistic approach to documenting and understanding the physical evidence for individual cities would enhance our ability to address major questions about urbanisation, urbanism, cultural identities and economic processes. At the same time we suggest that providing more comprehensive data-sets concerning Greek cities would represent an important contribution to cross-cultural studies of urban development and urbanism, which have often overlooked relevant evidence from Classical Greece. As an example of the approach we are advocating, we offer detailed discussion of data from the Archaic and Classical city of Olynthos, in the Halkidiki. Six seasons of fieldwork here by the Olynthos Project, together with legacy data from earlier projects by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and by the Greek Archaeological Service, combine to make this one of the best-documented urban centres surviving from the Greek world. We suggest that the material from the site offers the potential to build up a detailed ‘urban profile’, consisting of an overview of the early development of the community as well as an in-depth picture of the organisation of the Classical settlement. Some aspects of the urban infrastructure can also be quantified, allowing a new assessment of (for example) its demography. This article offers a sample of the kinds of data available and the sorts of questions that can be addressed in constructing such a profile, based on a brief summary of the interim results of fieldwork and data analysis carried out by the Olynthos Project, with a focus on research undertaken during the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Athletics and Aristocracy in Archaic and Classical Greece

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 124
Author(s):  
Matthew Peacock ◽  
N. Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Classical Greece ◽  
Archaic And Classical Greece
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