The Art of Libation in Classical Athens

The Art of Libation in Classical Athens PDF Author: Milette Gaifman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300192274
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
This handsome volume presents an innovative look at the imagery of libations, the most commonly depicted ritual in ancient Greece, and how it engaged viewers in religious performance. In a libation, liquid--water, wine, milk, oil, or honey--was poured from a vessel such as a jug or a bowl onto the ground, an altar, or another surface. Libations were made on occasions like banquets, sacrifices, oath-taking, departures to war, and visitations to tombs, and their iconography provides essential insight into religious and social life in 5th-century BC Athens. Scenes depicting the ritual often involved beholders directly--a statue's gaze might establish the onlooker as a fellow participant, or painted vases could draw parallels between human practices and acts of gods or heroes. Beautifully illustrated with a broad range of examples, including the Caryatids at the Acropolis, the Parthenon Frieze, Attic red-figure pottery, and funerary sculpture, this important book demonstrates the power of Greek art to transcend the boundaries between visual representation and everyday experience.

The Art of Libation in Classical Athens

The Art of Libation in Classical Athens PDF Author: Milette Gaifman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300192274
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book

Book Description
This handsome volume presents an innovative look at the imagery of libations, the most commonly depicted ritual in ancient Greece, and how it engaged viewers in religious performance. In a libation, liquid--water, wine, milk, oil, or honey--was poured from a vessel such as a jug or a bowl onto the ground, an altar, or another surface. Libations were made on occasions like banquets, sacrifices, oath-taking, departures to war, and visitations to tombs, and their iconography provides essential insight into religious and social life in 5th-century BC Athens. Scenes depicting the ritual often involved beholders directly--a statue's gaze might establish the onlooker as a fellow participant, or painted vases could draw parallels between human practices and acts of gods or heroes. Beautifully illustrated with a broad range of examples, including the Caryatids at the Acropolis, the Parthenon Frieze, Attic red-figure pottery, and funerary sculpture, this important book demonstrates the power of Greek art to transcend the boundaries between visual representation and everyday experience.

Art and Experience in Classical Greece

Art and Experience in Classical Greece PDF Author: Jerome Jordan Pollitt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521096621
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
"delightful, readable, and scholarly. The volume is profusely and well illustrated, each art example is clearly labelled and dated, and superb supplementary references for illustrations and supplementary suggestions for further reading are added to complete the study." Choice

How to Survive in Ancient Greece

How to Survive in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Robert Garland
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526754711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
What would it be like if you were transported back to Athens 420 BCE? This time-traveler’s guide is a fascinating way to find out . . . Imagine you were transported back in time to Ancient Greece and you had to start a new life there. What would you see? How would the people around you think and believe? How would you fit in? Where would you live? What would you eat? What work would be available, and what help could you get if you got sick? All these questions, and many more, are answered in this engaging blend of self-help and survival guide that plunges you into this historical environment—and explains the many problems and strange new experiences you would face if you were there.

Religion in the Art of Archaic and Classical Greece

Religion in the Art of Archaic and Classical Greece PDF Author: Tyler Jo Smith
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812252810
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
"An examination of the combined subjects of ancient Greek art and religion, dealing with festivals, performance, rites of passage, and the archaeology of death, to name a few examples, to explore the visual, material, and textual dimensions of ancient Greek religion"--

Underworld

Underworld PDF Author: David Saunders
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606067346
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Abundantly illustrated, this essential volume examines depictions of the Underworld in southern Italian vase painting and explores the religious and cultural beliefs behind them. What happens to us when we die? What might the afterlife look like? For the ancient Greeks, the dead lived on, overseen by Hades in the Underworld. We read of famous sinners, such as Sisyphus, forever rolling his rock, and the fierce guard dog Kerberos, who was captured by Herakles. For mere mortals, ritual and religion offered possibilities for ensuring a happy existence in the beyond, and some of the richest evidence for beliefs about death comes from southern Italy, where the local Italic peoples engaged with Greek beliefs. Monumental funerary vases that accompanied the deceased were decorated with consolatory scenes from myth, and around forty preserve elaborate depictions of Hades’s domain. For the first time in over four decades, these compelling vase paintings are brought together in one volume, with detailed commentaries and ample illustrations. The catalogue is accompanied by a series of essays by leading experts in the field, which provides a framework for understanding these intriguing scenes and their contexts. Topics include attitudes toward the afterlife in Greek ritual and myth, inscriptions on leaves of gold that provided guidance for the deceased; funerary practices and religious beliefs in Apulia, and the importance accorded to Orpheus and Dionysos. Drawing from a variety of textual and archaeological sources, this volume is an essential source for anyone interested in religion and belief in the ancient Mediterranean.

Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice

Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice PDF Author: Jennifer Wright Knust
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199876401
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
An investigation of the multiple meanings and functions of sacrifice in diverse religious texts and practices from the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods.

The Transformation of Athens

The Transformation of Athens PDF Author: Robin Osborne
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691177678
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
How remarkable changes in ancient Greek pottery reveal the transformation of classical Greek culture Why did soldiers stop fighting, athletes stop competing, and lovers stop having graphic sex in classical Greek art? The scenes depicted on Athenian pottery of the mid-fifth century BC are very different from those of the late sixth century. Did Greek potters have a different world to see—or did they come to see the world differently? In this lavishly illustrated and engagingly written book, Robin Osborne argues that these remarkable changes are the best evidence for the shifting nature of classical Greek culture. Osborne examines the thousands of surviving Athenian red-figure pots painted between 520 and 440 BC and describes the changing depictions of soldiers and athletes, drinking parties and religious occasions, sexual relations, and scenes of daily life. He shows that it was not changes in each activity that determined how the world was shown, but changes in values and aesthetics. By demonstrating that changes in artistic style involve choices about what aspects of the world we decide to represent as well as how to represent them, this book rewrites the history of Greek art. By showing that Greeks came to see the world differently over the span of less than a century, it reassesses the history of classical Greece and of Athenian democracy. And by questioning whether art reflects or produces social and political change, it provokes a fresh examination of the role of images in an ever-evolving world.

Play and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece

Play and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Stephen E. Kidd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110849207X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Explores the connections between art and play in ancient Greek thought, especially that of Plato and Aristotle.

Minoan and Mycenaean Art

Minoan and Mycenaean Art PDF Author: Reynold Alleyne Higgins
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 9780500203033
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The magnificent works of ancient Crete, Mycenae, and the Cycladic Islands are awe-inspiring in their richness and variety. Frescoes, jewelry, sculpture, gold funeral masks, ivories, and countless other beautiful artifacts--all the significant works of art and architecture that are our legacy from those great civilizations in the third and second millennia BC are described and illustrated in Dr. Higgins's distinguished survey. This fully revised and updated edition includes greater coverage of the breathtaking frescoes from Akrotiri on the island of Thera. Other recent findings are also illustrated and described in detail, such as the unique ivory figure from Palaikastro, objects from the palace of Mallia, and the intriguing discovery of Minoan frescoes in Egypt.

Portrait of a Priestess

Portrait of a Priestess PDF Author: Joan Breton Connelly
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400832691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
In this sumptuously illustrated book, Joan Breton Connelly gives us the first comprehensive cultural history of priestesses in the ancient Greek world. Connelly presents the fullest and most vivid picture yet of how priestesses lived and worked, from the most famous and sacred of them--the Delphic Oracle and the priestess of Athena Polias--to basket bearers and handmaidens. Along the way, she challenges long-held beliefs to show that priestesses played far more significant public roles in ancient Greece than previously acknowledged. Connelly builds this history through a pioneering examination of archaeological evidence in the broader context of literary sources, inscriptions, sculpture, and vase painting. Ranging from southern Italy to Asia Minor, and from the late Bronze Age to the fifth century A.D., she brings the priestesses to life--their social origins, how they progressed through many sacred roles on the path to priesthood, and even how they dressed. She sheds light on the rituals they performed, the political power they wielded, their systems of patronage and compensation, and how they were honored, including in death. Connelly shows that understanding the complexity of priestesses' lives requires us to look past the simple lines we draw today between public and private, sacred and secular. The remarkable picture that emerges reveals that women in religious office were not as secluded and marginalized as we have thought--that religious office was one arena in ancient Greece where women enjoyed privileges and authority comparable to that of men. Connelly concludes by examining women's roles in early Christianity, taking on the larger issue of the exclusion of women from the Christian priesthood. This paperback edition includes additional maps and a glossary for student use.