scholarly journals "Shaking His Hairy Chaps": The Iconography of Bearded Snakes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jaimee Murdoch
Keyword(s):  
Single Line ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Classical World ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
Human Figure ◽  
Human Feature

<p>The bearded snake is an unusual motif that appears in a variety of contexts and media throughout the Classical world. It is used in Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and Egyptian art and literature. This thesis addresses the Greek use of the bearded snake. The beard of the snake, much like the beard of a human figure, varies in terms of its size, shape, and level of detailing. It may be a simple single line or a series of long, clearly defined hairs. The use of this human feature on serpents has received minimal attention. When the motif is discussed it is generally only considered in terms of its use in one context, such as on depictions of Zeus Meilichios or on the Lakonian hero reliefs. The aim of this thesis is to discuss the use of the bearded snake in the most common contexts in which it may occur in order to provide a better understanding of the meaning of this unusual motif. Such contexts include anguiform deities, pure serpents, hybrid creatures, and attributes of monsters and deities.  Two of the more influential explanations of the use of the beard are those by Aelian, from the third century AD, and Jane Harrison, from 1903. These interpretations consider the bearded snake in slightly different terms. Where Aelian believes the beard to indicate a male serpent, Harrison considers the feature to be a means through which the snake is implied to be an anthropomorphic deity. Chapter One provides the background interpretations of the snake and the beard as distinct motifs. The findings from this chapter will form the basis for the interpretations given in Chapters Two and Three. Chapter Two considers the flaws of Aelian’s explanation of the beard as an indicator of gender, by looking at the use of the beard in the context of divine and monstrous women such as Medusa and Athena. Chapter Three addresses Harrison’s anthropomorphic argument, by considering both anguiform and non-anguiform figures. This will provide a wider range of contexts than either Aelian or Harrison discuss. In doing so, I intend to consider the meaning of the bearded snake using a considerably larger range of sources, in order to give the best possible explanation for this unusual motif.</p>

scholarly journals "Shaking His Hairy Chaps": The Iconography of Bearded Snakes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jaimee Murdoch
Keyword(s):  
Single Line ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Classical World ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
Human Figure ◽  
Human Feature

<p>The bearded snake is an unusual motif that appears in a variety of contexts and media throughout the Classical world. It is used in Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and Egyptian art and literature. This thesis addresses the Greek use of the bearded snake. The beard of the snake, much like the beard of a human figure, varies in terms of its size, shape, and level of detailing. It may be a simple single line or a series of long, clearly defined hairs. The use of this human feature on serpents has received minimal attention. When the motif is discussed it is generally only considered in terms of its use in one context, such as on depictions of Zeus Meilichios or on the Lakonian hero reliefs. The aim of this thesis is to discuss the use of the bearded snake in the most common contexts in which it may occur in order to provide a better understanding of the meaning of this unusual motif. Such contexts include anguiform deities, pure serpents, hybrid creatures, and attributes of monsters and deities.  Two of the more influential explanations of the use of the beard are those by Aelian, from the third century AD, and Jane Harrison, from 1903. These interpretations consider the bearded snake in slightly different terms. Where Aelian believes the beard to indicate a male serpent, Harrison considers the feature to be a means through which the snake is implied to be an anthropomorphic deity. Chapter One provides the background interpretations of the snake and the beard as distinct motifs. The findings from this chapter will form the basis for the interpretations given in Chapters Two and Three. Chapter Two considers the flaws of Aelian’s explanation of the beard as an indicator of gender, by looking at the use of the beard in the context of divine and monstrous women such as Medusa and Athena. Chapter Three addresses Harrison’s anthropomorphic argument, by considering both anguiform and non-anguiform figures. This will provide a wider range of contexts than either Aelian or Harrison discuss. In doing so, I intend to consider the meaning of the bearded snake using a considerably larger range of sources, in order to give the best possible explanation for this unusual motif.</p>

Historical Fragments’ Mobile Echo

Transfers ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Bell ◽  
Kathy Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Third ◽  
Opium War ◽  
The Subject

Translocation – Transformation is an ambitious contribution to the subject of mobility. Materially, it interlinks seemingly disparate objects into a surprisingly unified exhibition on mobile histories and heritages: twelve bronze zodiac heads, silk and bamboo creatures, worn life vests, pressed Pu-erh tea, thousands of broken antique teapot spouts, and an ancestral wooden temple from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) used by a tea-trading family. Historically and politically, the exhibition engages Chinese stories from the third century BCE, empires in eighteenth-century Austria and China, the Second Opium War in the nineteenth century, the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the mid-twentieth century, and today’s global refugee crisis.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara K. Gold
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
Key Issues

This chapter discusses the key issues surrounding Perpetua’s life and her narrative, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis. It introduces the most perplexing circumstances around her life and times: the authorship of her Passio (which is written in at least three different hands); her life and family; the conditions of her martyrdom and of martyrdoms during the pre-Constantinian period; the status of martyrdom texts as personal, social, or historical documents; whether persecutions can be historically verified or were exaggerated by the Christians and others; and the afterlife of Perpetua and her text in writers from the third century to contemporary times. The introduction lays out the arguments for these thorny issues and tries to find a reasonable position on each one.

Letters from High to Low in the Graeco-Roman Period

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Clarysse
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
The Third ◽  
Total Lack

In this chapter, papyrus letters sent from superiors to their inferiors are studied on the basis of test cases ranging across the Graeco-Roman period in Egypt, from the third century BCE to the third century CE. This correspondence is drawn from four archival groups of texts: the archive of Zenon; the letters of L. Bellienus Gemellus and the letters of the sons of Patron; and the Heroninus archive. The letters are usually short, full of imperatives, and characterized by the absence of philophronetic formulae. Recurrent themes of the correspondence are urgency, rebukes, orders, and interdictions, and there is an almost total lack of polite phrases.

‘At last Roman, at last restored to the true light of Empire’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrastos Omissi
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Military ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter begins by considering what made the late Roman state distinctive from the early Empire, exploring the political developments of the later third century, in particular the military, administrative, and economic reforms undertaken by the tetrarchs. It then explores the presentation of the war between the tetrarchy and the British Empire of Carausius and Allectus (286‒96), taking as its core sources Pan. Lat. X, XI, and VIII. These speeches are unique in the panegyrical corpus, in that two of them (X and XI) were delivered while the usurpation they describe was still under way, the third (VIII) after it was defeated. In this chapter, we see how the British Empire was ‘othered’ as piratical and barbarian, and how conflict with it helped to create the distinctive ideology of the tetrarchy.

Inscriptions and the Narrative of Roman History

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Roman History ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The Third ◽  
Literary Sources

This chapter offers an analysis of how inscriptions can complement the narratives of Roman history from the third century BCE to the third century CE provided in literary sources. They reveal certain historical events or details that would otherwise be unknown, and they supplement the information offered by the surviving Roman historians .

THE DATING OF PHILIPPOS OF AMPHIPOLIS (BNJ 280 T2)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Brent Arehart
Keyword(s):  
Short Note ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third

Abstract On the basis of two neglected testimonia, this short note argues that the terminus ante quem for Philippos of Amphipolis (BNJ 280) should be moved forward to the third century or to the early fourth century c.e. if not earlier.

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