Visual Language and Concepts of Cult on the "Lenaia Vases"

1998 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Peirce
Keyword(s):  
Visual Language ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
Visual Record

"Lenaia vases" is the traditional title given to a group of some seventy fifth-century Attic vases, black- and red-figure. These vases have in common that they show a cult-image of Dionysos, consisting of a mask or masks on a column, in combination with the conventional Attic imagery of the revelling ecstatic female worshippers usually called "maenads." The vases are important and their meaning much debated because they seem to hold out the promise of providing otherwise unavailable information about historical bacchic religion. There is no consensus on the character of the historical information of these scenes. In an older view the imagery records the appearance of enacted ritual; in a newer view, the imagery "discusses," in a fashion analogous to language, concepts about Dionysiac religion. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of a coherent subset of the "Lenaia vases," based on a linguistic reading of the imagery. This subset consists of twenty-eight red-figure stamnoi, a group that has traditionally been the focus of studies of the "Lenaia vases." I analyze the vases as describing, in conventional visual terms of reference, a rite of theoxenia celebrated by ecstatic female worshippers. The imagery says that these worshippers perform a thysia, offer Dionysos a banquet of meat and wine, and celebrate a symposion and komos. It also comments on the practice of such rituals by women, saying that they derive honor from these actions. These rituals find parallels in historical evidence for Dionysiac theoxenia and banquets; the scenes thus may provide additional evidence that Dionysiac celebrations took this form. The scenes, however, are not about the historical enactment of such rituals, and still less a visual record of such enactments. Rather, their message, conveyed by the interweaving of mythical and social references, is that for the worshipper of Dionysos the worlds of myth and of the polis are one.

Lament and Revenge in the Hekabe of Euripides

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian M. Billing
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Funerary Practices ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Female Lament

In this article Christian M. Billing considers the relationship between female lament and acts of vengeance in fifth-century Athenian society and its theatre, with particular emphasis on the Hekabe of Euripides. He uses historical evidence to argue that female mourning was held to be a powerfully transgressive force in the classical period; that considerable social tensions existed as a result of the suppression of female roles in traditional funerary practices (social control arising from the move towards democracy and the development of forensic processes as a means of social redress); and that as a piece of transvestite theatre, authored and performed by men to an audience made up largely, if not entirely, of that sex, Euripides' Hekabe demonstrates significant gender-related anxiety regarding the supposedly horrific consequences of allowing women to speak at burials, or to engage in lament as part of uncontrolled funerary ritual. Christian M. Billing is an academic and theatre practitioner working in the fields of ancient Athenian and early modern English and European drama. He has worked extensively as a director and actor and has also taught at a number of universities in the United Kingdom and the USA. He is currently Lecturer in Drama at the University of Hull.

Excavations at Carthage 1976: Third Interim Report

1977 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Hurst
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
City Wall ◽  
The North ◽  
New Information ◽  
Defensive Activity

SummaryAt the end of the third season of work by the British team participating in the UNESCO Save Carthage project, a summary is given of present knowledge of the occupation sequence on the Ilôt de l'Amirauté from c. 400 B.C. to A.D. 700. New information or reinterpretation since 1975 covers the relationship between the Punic and Roman planning of the island and the nature of its possible Augustan, Severan, and Justinianic rebuildings. The structures which have been excavated since 1974 between two Roman streets on the north side of the circular harbour are interpreted as a series of shops or small commercial premises of Roman and Byzantine date. Here, as on the island, a large-scale redevelopment of early Byzantine date is indicated. On the Avenue Habib Bourguiba the city wall now has archaeological dating consistent with the historical evidence that it was constructed c.A.D. 425 and it appears to be associated with a major defensive ditch. Burials were made between the wall and possible ditch shortly after, and perhaps during, the wall's construction. There is also archaeological confirmation of the historical evidence for the neglect of the defences under the Vandal occupation and for their repair following Belisarius' capture of Carthage in 533. By the end of the sixth century the defences were again being neglected and in the early seventh century there was a building on the site of the presumed Belisarian ditch. There is a suggestion of further defensive activity at the time of the Arab invasion. Within the wall, the sequence has been taken back to the destruction of a Roman building in the fifth century and a summary is made of the sequence for the whole site from the early fifth to the late seventh or early eighth century A.D. Field-work has now finished on this site while a further two seasons are anticipated on the two harbour sites.

scholarly journals Saxon Kent versus Roman London? Presenting Borderland Heritage at the Faesten Dic in Joyden’s Wood, Kent

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ethan Doyle White
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The Public ◽  
Western Border ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Standing on Kent’s western border with Greater London, the Faesten Dic in Joyden’s Wood is one of Britain’s less-well known linear earthworks. There has been speculation as to its origins since the late nineteenth century, although as of yet no conclusive dating evidence has been revealed. This article reviews the archaeological and historical evidence for the site, before exploring the ways in which the heritage of this earthwork has been presented to the public by the Woodland Trust, a charity which own Joyden’s Wood, focusing on how both information boards and installed sculptures have foregrounded the narrative of the earthwork as a fifth-century defensive barrier between ‘Roman London’ and ‘Saxon Kent.’ This, in turn, has interesting connotations regarding the current administrative divisions between Greater London and Kent.

Vernacular Painting and Transitional Beijing

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-218
Keyword(s):  
Direct Observation ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Visual Effects ◽  
Literati Painting ◽  
Technical Innovations ◽  
Visual Record

Abstract Created around 1915, Chen Shizeng's Beijing Fengsu album represents a pictorial experiment that led to his subsequent well-known theoretical recasting of Chinese literati painting as a progressive and universally comprehensible visual language. Through an examination of the stylistic and technical innovations of the paintings, the essay demonstrates that the album's function as a visual record of Beijing folk customs is in part a historical byproduct of a then urgent attempt to establish the pictorial expression of a new subjectivity by a leading member of China's last generation of literati. Through the aid of drawing from direct observation, emulation of visual effects from Western-style drawing using Chinese ink and pigments, incorporation of antiquarian motifs, and unconventional compositional schemes, the album managed to reinvent vernacular painting (fengsu hua) and establish the popular pictorial genre manhua in modern China.

Shop Signs and Visual Culture in Republican Beijing

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-128
Author(s):  
Feng Yi
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Visual Record ◽  
The City ◽  
Textual Records

AbstractDuring her stay in Beijing (1933–1946), Hedda Hammer (later known as Hedda Morrison) made a visual record of shop signs with her camera. In this paper I rely on this visual record to examine what shop signs represented in Chinese material culture and their function in the urban setting. I argue that Morrison's photographic record reveals a fascinating element of street culture in the capital city that the textual records cannot document. I also contend that shop signs worked as genuine urban markers of the various trades and crafts in the city. As such, these artefacts constituted an expression of Chinese material culture, but were also a form of visual language to guide the gaze and pace of Beijing urbanites. This paper supports the idea that photographs have a particular relevance and value for the exploration of the Chinese urban setting in the Republican period. The use of photography goes beyond the record of disincarnated artefacts. It allows us to perceive and understand a fascinating dimension of visual culture in Republican Beijing, one of the numerous layers of signs that were displayed quite extensively through the city.

Oral Sources on Links Between Great States: Sumanguru, Servile Lineage, the Jariso, and Kaniaga

1984 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 35-55
Author(s):  
David C. Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
The Face ◽  
Historical Basis ◽  
Source Of Information

Qui est capable, hors Dieu, de scruter le passé?Some scholars interested in ancient Ghana and Mali dare to sift relevant oral traditions of the Western Sudan in search of historical evidence, while others express doubts that these sources can contain any information of value to historians. A period markedly affected by this question is that which saw the disintegration of Ghana and the rise of Mali in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Despite historians' general acknowledgement of the pitfalls accompanying the use of oral tradition as a source of information, much of what we know, or would like to think we know about this era, has been drawn from the legend of Wagadu and from the Sunjata epic.Clearly a large part of the material in these oral traditions is composed of the stuff of myth and folktale, and on the face of it the prospect of trying to glean historical information from them is not an encouraging one. But woven into the patchwork fabric of these narratives are infrequent threads bearing diminishing echoes of people and events of the distant past. Vague, inaccurate, and potentially misleading as they must be, these archaic fragments nevertheless merit whatever attention is necessary to interpret their significance, in the hope that they might yield some useful historical insights.Any pretensions to historicity in the Wagadu tradition and in the Sunjata epic may be open to question because there is so little that can be verified. While the mythical quality of some elements in the texts is obvious, there are others that could have a historical basis but cannot be independently confirmed. The material consulted here is approached with the attitude that, given the rarity of firmly documented sources, historians cannot afford to ignore the possibility that there is some information worth distilling from the oral accounts of ancient Mali and the related Soninke era that preceded it.

scholarly journals I. On the Historical Evidence of Volcanic Eruptions in Central France in the Fifth Century

1865 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
pp. 241-244
Author(s):  
T. G. Bonney
Keyword(s):  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Daily News ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
Permanent Form

Between Bishop Colenso and the volcanoes of Central France, and between these and ‘Rogation Days,’ there would at first sight seem to be but little connection. Nevertheless, a statement made by the Bishop was the cause of some curious information, which had previously been known to but few, being generally circulated; and as it then appeared only in one or two newspapers, and at different times, it may be useful to give a résumé of the controversy in a more permanent form. The Bishop, referring to Lyell (‘Elementary Geology,’ pp. 197, 198), adduced the exitstence of cones of loose scoriæ and pumice in Auvergne and Languedoc as an argument against the Noachian Deluge; because these, which ‘must have been formed ages before’ that happended, did not show the slighttest sign of having ever been disturbed. In the course of the endless controversy which has arisen from the Bishop's works, a Mr. E. L. Garbett addressed a rather angry letter to the ‘Guardian’ newspaper (Aug.24, 1864), taxing the Bishop with wilfully shutting his eyes to the fact that there had been eruptions in these districts in the fifth century, which had given rise to the ecclesiastical fasts commonly called ‘Rogation Days.’ The Bishop replied in a letter, which was refused by the ' Guardian' on account of its length, and was afterwards published in the ‘Daily News.’ However, in the ‘Guardian’ of Sept. 14, a summary of it is given, in which the following statements are made: (1) that volcanic cones do exist as above described; (2) that, according to Hoffman's ‘Lexicon,’ Rogations were instituted owing to earthquakes and to the irruption of wild beasts into Vienne; (3) that there are no volcanoes near Vienne; (4) that the authors who are supposed to describe volcanic eruptions, only speak of earthquakes and ordinary fires, or perhaps of lightning.

scholarly journals Death is Swallowed Up in Victory: Scenes of Death in Early Christian Art and the Emergence of Crucifixion Iconography

1970 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicity Harley McGowan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Language ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Visual Interpretation ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Judas Iscariot ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Pictorial Representations

Christianity, and the instrument of Jesus’ death, the cross, remains the pivotal, and universally recognised, symbol of the Christian Church. Yet pictorial representations of the death of Jesus are conspicuously rare in the earliest Christian art. Moreover, the earliest surviving images  of Jesus’ Crucifixion do not depict  him dead on the cross, but defiantly alive – a visual interpretation of the event that incorporates both the means of his execution and his subsequent victory over death in the Resurrection. This article examines the iconography of a small ivory plaque, carved in Rome in the early fifth century, whereon the Crucifixion is juxtaposed with the suicide of Jesus’ betrayer, Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27 3:5) to effect a powerful visual interpretation of Jesus’ death. As the earliest surviving visual narration of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection, the ivory will be shown to preserve critical information regarding the interpretation of Christ’s death in the early Christian church - incorporating symbols and visual motifs from pagan funerary sculpture, while illustrating the development of a specifically Christian visual language for the representation of Jesus’ death.

The chivalric tomb in fifteenth-century Portugal

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-284
Author(s):  
Teresa Soley
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Funerary Monuments ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Portuguese Society ◽  
Public Imagination

The fifteenth-century Portuguese nobility was a proud and image-conscious social group that transformed tombs into opportunities for self-promotion. Manifesting changing conceptualizations of history and agency, the nobility’s elaborately sculpted sepulchres also reveal the means of successful social advancement in this society. The ruling dynasty of Avís encouraged the chivalric ethos of the long fifteenth century to exert control over the powerful nobility and validate their expansionist agenda in Africa. This profoundly shaped the visual idiom of funerary sculpture, resulting in the emergence of the ‘chivalric tomb’ in Portugal. Taking advantage of the blurred lines between chivalry and politics and between history and propaganda, Portuguese aristocrats began to manipulate their posthumous images to construct enduring, positive legacies in the public imagination. Aristocratic Portuguese tombs remain virtually untapped sources of social-historical information, particularly through their display of consistent commemorative strategies ranging from genealogical epitaphs to figural portrayals of Africans. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and archival research and offering a close examination of these monuments through visual, literary and historical evidence, this article explores the artistic intersection of death and memory in late medieval Portuguese society and elucidates how aristocratic funerary monuments performed a persuasive, as well as memorial, function.

Response to David Woods

2000 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. Skedros
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Port City ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Historical Individual

The origins of the cult of St. Demetrios are indeed obscure. The earliest indisputable evidence for the existence of the cult of St. Demetrios at Thessaloniki is the large five-aisle basilica built in honor of the martyr and located in the center of this important port city. Based upon archaeological and art historical evidence, the basilica can be dated to the last quarter of the fifth century. However, the written tradition of the cult of St. Demetrios, as preserved in various martyrdom accounts (whose dates remain problematic), places the saint's martyrdom at Thessaloniki during the persecution of Diocletian, that is, during the first decade of the fourth century, some one-hundred and seventy five years before the erection of the saint's basilica. To complicate matters even more, in the earliest surviving martyrologies dating from the fourth and fifth centuries, there is no mention of a martyr Demetrios who was martyred or venerated at Thessaloniki. Given such lack of historical evidence, most scholars, including David Woods, whose article appears in the pages of this journal, have argued that St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki is a fictitious saint and that the origin of his veneration at Thessaloniki is not to be found in a historical individual who was martyred under Diocletian at Thessaloniki, but rather must be sought elsewhere.

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