This book examines the development of ancient Greek civilization through a path-breaking application of social scientific theories. David B. Small charts the rise of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations and the unique characteristics of the later classical Greeks through the lens of ancient social structure and complexity theory, opening up new ideas and perspectives on these societies. He argues that Minoan and Mycenaean institutions evolved from elaborate feasting, and that the genesis of Greek colonization was born from structural chaos in the eighth century. Small isolates distinctions between Iron Age Crete and the rest of the Greek world, focusing on important differences in social structure. His book differs from others on Ancient Greece, highlighting the perpetuation of classical Greek social structure into the middle years of the Roman Empire, and concluding with a comparison of the social structure of classical Greece to that of the classical Maya civilization.

This volume explores the earliest appearances and functions of the five major Egyptian goddesses Neith, Hathor, Nut, Isis and Nephthys. Although their importance endured throughout more than three millennia of ancient Egyptian history, their origins, earliest roles, and relationships in religion, myth, and cult have never before been studied together in detail. Showcasing the latest research with carefully chosen illustrations and a full bibliography, Susan Tower Hollis suggests that the origins of the goddesses derived primarily from their functions, as, shown by their first appearances in the text and art of the Protodynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom periods of the late fourth and third millennia BCE. The roles of the goddess Bat are also explored where she is viewed both as an independent figure and in her specific connections to Hathor, including the background to their shared bovine iconography. Hollis provides evidence of the goddesses' close ties with royalty and, in the case of Neith, her special connections to early queens. Vital reading for all scholars of Egyptian religion and other ancient religions and mythology, this volume brings to light the earliest origins of these goddesses who would go on to play major parts in later narratives, myths, and mortuary cult.

Larinum, a pre-Roman town in the modern region of Molise, underwent a unique transition from independence to municipal status when it received Roman citizenship in the 80s BCE shortly after the Social War. Its trajectory during this period illuminates complex processes of cultural, social, and political change associated with the Roman conquest throughout the Italian peninsula in the first millennium BCE. This book uses all the available evidence to create a site biography of Larinum from 400 BCE to 100 CE, with a focus on the urban transformation that occurred there during the Roman conquest. This study is distinctive in utilizing many different types of evidence: literary sources (including the pro Cluentio), settlement patterns, inscriptions, monuments and artifacts. It highlights the importance of local isolated variability in studies of Roman conquest, and provides a narrative that supplements larger works on this theme.

This is a revealing consideration of ancient bronzes from their halcyon days in antiquity to their allure today. Ancient bronze statuary provides a sense of immediacy, a window directly back to the classical world. The wistful expression of a young Roman woman, the fixed jaw of a politician, and the tensed muscles of a Greek athlete appear startlingly lifelike, transfixing the viewer with their striking realism. Incredibly durable yet frequently destroyed for their valuable materials, ancient bronzes are comparatively rare discoveries. This book, richly illustrated with works from the J. Paul Getty Museum and other important collections, provides an engaging overview of classical bronzes. The exquisite volume considers bronze throughout its long history, exploring its enormous appeal from antiquity to the present day. The book discusses the many roles bronze objects played in ancient Greece and Rome and analyzes discoveries made at ancient foundries and by contemporary scientists. It also examines references to bronze in mythology, Pliny's histories, and other classical texts, as well as representations on vases and other artworks.

Biography is one of the most widespread literary genres worldwide. Biographies and autobiographies of actors, politicians, Nobel Prize winners, and other famous figures have never been more prominent in book shops and publishers' catalogues. This Handbook offers a wide-ranging, multi-authored survey on biography in Antiquity from its earliest representatives to Late Antiquity. It aims to be a broad introduction and a reference tool on the one hand, and to move significantly beyond the state-of-the-art on the other. To this end, it addresses conceptual questions about this sprawling genre, offers both in-depth readings of key texts and diachronic studies, and deals with the reception of ancient biography across multiple eras up to the present day. In addition, it takes a wide approach to the concept of ancient biography by examining biographical depictions in different textual and visual media (epigraphy, sculpture, architecture) and by providing outlines of biographical developments in ancient and late antique cultures other than Graeco-Roman. Highly accessible, this book aims at a broad audience ranging from specialists to newcomers in the field. Chapters provide English translations of ancient (and modern) terminology and citations. In addition, all individual chapters are concluded by a section containing suggestions for further reading on their specific topic.

This volume describes the discovery in 2003 and excavation between 2004 and 2009 of a Minoan ship that sunk near the island of Pseira around 1725/1700 BC. The recovered cargo constitutes the largest known corpus of complete and almost complete clay vessels from a single Middle Minoan IIB deposit in several categories. The 140 artifacts recovered from the area of the wreck include 46 oval-mouthed and other amphorae, 41 spouted jugs, and 11 hole-mouthed jars. The activity of each season is described, followed by a catalog with extensive discussion of the pottery, a petrographic analysis, and catalogs of weights and stone tools. The picture that emerges is of an ordinary transport boat, loaded with products from towns on the northern coast of East Crete, and it provides a rich set of information on a society that revolved around seafaring.

Ancient Greek sculpture seems to have a timeless quality - provoking reactions that may range from awe to alienation. Yet it was a particular product of its age: and to know how and why it was once created is to embark upon an understanding of its 'Classic' status. In this richly illustrated and carefully written survey, encompassing works from c.700 BC to the end of antiquity, Nigel Spivey expounds not only the social function of Greek sculpture but also its aesthetic and technical achievement. Fresh approaches are reconciled with traditional modes of study as the connoisseurship of this art is sympathetically unravelled, while source material and historical narratives are woven into detailed explanations, putting the art into its proper context. Greek Sculpture is the ideal textbook for students of classics, classical civilisation, art history and archaeology - and an accessible account for all interested readers.

This book presents the results of the study of the wall paintings from the Northeast Bastion at Ayia Irini, situating them within the wider social context of the island of Kea and the Aegean world. Like the spectacularly well-preserved town of Akrotiri on Thera, with which these paintings are contemporary, Ayia Irini thrived 3,500 years ago. But unlike Akrotiri, Ayia Irini was not protected by a layer of volcanic ash. When the site was excavated in the 1960s-1970s by the University of Cincinnati under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the paintings had long since collapsed, fracturing into thousands of small pieces and becoming mixed with stones, broken pottery, and accumulated debris. This study attempts to bring the wall paintings back to life through the best-preserved fragments. Within the Northeast Bastion was a miniature frieze and, in the adjacent room, large-scale panels of plants. Human action set within townscapes, landscapes, and the sea presents a vivid account of the social life and environment of the people for whom this harbor town was vital within the trading network of the time. In this book the social implications of the fascinating and often unique iconography is explored, and the setting within a fortification wall is quite extraordinary. The volume contains many catalog entries, which contain color images of the fragments, and it is also abundantly illustrated with color drawings, visualizations, and photographs.

Modern notions of celebrity, fame, and infamy reach back to the time of Homer's Iliad. During the Hellenistic period, in particular, the Greek understanding of fame became more widely known, and adapted, to accommodate or respond to non-Greek understandings of reputation in society and culture. This collection of essays illustrates the ways in which the characteristics of fame and infamy in the Hellenistic era distinguished themselves and how they were represented in diverse and unique ways throughout the Mediterranean. The means of recording fame and infamy included public art, literature, sculpture, coinage, and inscribed monuments. The ruling elite carefully employed these means throughout the different Hellenistic kingdoms, and these essays demonstrate how they operated in the creation of social, political, and cultural values. The authors examine the cultural means whereby fame and infamy entered social consciousness, and explore the nature and effect of this important and enduring sociological phenomenon.

This latest addition to the British Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum makes available the fascinating yet under-publicised vases in the Marischal museum, University of Aberdeen. The Museum houses a number of important nineteenth- and twentieth-century collections presented to the university by their individual collectors. The range includes Attic black and red figure of extremely high quality, Corinthian, East Greek, Etruscan bucchero, Italiote and Etruscan, and South Italian red figure. Professor Moignard, who has previously published Edinburgh and Glasgow collection in the CVA series, provides a detailed introduction that discusses the history of the acquisition of the collections, collection management, and display.

Greek Art and Aesthetics in the Fourth Century B.C. analyzes the broad character of art produced during this period, providing in-depth analysis of and commentary on many of its most notable examples of sculpture and painting. Taking into consideration developments in style and subject matter, and elucidating political, religious, and intellectual context, William A. P. Childs argues that Greek art in this era was a natural outgrowth of the high classical period and focused on developing the rudiments of individual expression that became the hallmark of the classical in the fifth century. As Childs shows, in many respects the art of this period corresponds with the philosophical inquiry by Plato and his contemporaries into the nature of art and speaks to the contemporaneous sense of insecurity and renewed religious devotion. Delving into formal and iconographic developments in sculpture and painting, Childs examines how the sensitive, expressive quality of these works seamlessly links the classical and Hellenistic periods, with no appreciable rupture in the continuous exploration of the human condition. Another overarching theme concerns the nature of "style as a concept of expression," an issue that becomes more important given the increasingly multiple styles and functions of fourth-century Greek art. Childs also shows how the color and form of works suggested the unseen and revealed the profound character of individuals and the physical world.

Rewritten from cover to cover and updated to include the discoveries and new theories from the past decade and a half, this classic guide to the art of the ancient Maya is now illustrated in full colour throughout. World expert Mary Miller and her co-author Megan O'Neil take the reader through the visual world of the Maya, explaining how and why they created the paintings, sculpture and monuments that intrigue and compel people the world over. With an array of new material, from recent finds including the La Corona panels, to new studies of the monuments at Palenque, Zotz and elsewhere, to the beautiful wall paintings discovered in recent years, this new edition will be essential reading for students and scholars - and for travellers to the cities of this mysterious civilization.

Winner, Association for Latin American Art-Arvey Foundation Book Award, 2022 More than a thousand years ago on the north coast of Peru, Indigenous Moche artists created a large and significant corpus of sexually explicit ceramic works of art. They depicted a diversity of sex organs and sex acts, and an array of solitary and interconnected human and nonhuman bodies. To the modern eye, these Moche "sex pots," as Mary Weismantel calls them, are lively and provocative but also enigmatic creations whose import to their original owners seems impossible to grasp. In Playing with Things, Weismantel shows that there is much to be learned from these ancient artifacts, not merely as inert objects from a long-dead past but as vibrant Indigenous things, alive in their own inhuman temporality. From a new materialist perspective, she fills the gaps left by other analyses of the sex pots in pre-Columbian studies, where sexuality remains marginalized, and in sexuality studies, where non-Western art is largely absent. Taking a decolonial approach toward an archaeology of sexuality and breaking with long-dominant iconographic traditions, this book explores how the pots "play jokes," "make babies," "give power," and "hold water," considering the sex pots as actual ceramic bodies that interact with fleshly bodies, now and in the ancient past. A beautifully written study that will be welcomed by students as well as specialists, Playing with Things is a model for archaeological and art historical engagement with the liberating power of queer theory and Indigenous studies.

The banded agate bowl known as the Tazza Farnese is one of the most famous and admired objects from classical antiquity. That it has survived at all is a miracle. In this, the first book-length account of the "life" of this renowned masterpiece, art historian Marina Belozerskaya takes readers on a fascinating trip through history that spans two millennia and journeys from the court of Cleopatra to the sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, from Samarqand of Tamerlane to Renaissance Florence under Lorenzo de' Medici, from Baroque Rome to Enlightenment Naples. Along the way, the reader encounters the illustrious as well as the shady figures who have come into contact with this prized artifact, from emperors and conquerors, popes and princes, and artists like Botticelli and Raphael, to forgers, thieves, and a disgruntled museum guard who nearly destroyed the Tazza for all posterity. Through the prism of this most precious bowl, Medusa's Gaze brings history vividly and intimately to life.

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.

The princeps Augustus (63 BCE - 14 CE), recognized as the first of the Roman emperors, looms large in the teaching and writing of Roman history. Major political, literary, and artistic developments alike are attributed to him. This book deliberately and provocatively shifts the focus off Augustus while still looking at events of his time. Contributors uncover the perspectives and contributions of a range of individuals other than the princeps. Not all thought they were living in the "Augustan Age." Not all took their cues from Augustus. In their self-display or ideas for reform, some anticipated Augustus. Others found ways to oppose him that also helped to shape the future of their community. The volume challenges the very idea of an "Augustan Age" by breaking down traditional turning points and showing the continuous experimentation and development of these years to be in continuity with earlier Roman culture. In showcasing absences of Augustus and giving other figures their due, the papers here make a seemingly familiar period startlingly new.

Written at the height of the arts and crafts movement in fin-de-siecle Vienna, Alois Riegl's Stilfragen represented a turning point in defining art and understanding the sources of its inspiration. Demonstrating an uninterrupted continunity in the history of ornament from the ancient Egyptian through the Islamic period, Riegl argued that the creative urge manifests itself in both "great art" and the most humble artifact, and that change is an inherent part of style. This new translation, which renders Riegl's seminal work in contemporary, readable prose, allows for a fresh reexamination of his thought in light of current revisionist debate. His discovery of infinite variation in the restatement of several decorative motifs--the palmette, rosette, tendril--led Riegl to believe that art is completely independent from exterior conditions and is beyond individual volition. This thinking laid the groundwork for his famous concept of Kunstwollen, or artistic intention. "Something that the translation will, I hope, convey, is the passion invsted in Riegl's enterprise. We are made to feel that the issues he discussed mattered vitally to him; it was the very nature of art and its relation to human life that were at stake, art as an absolute necessity." --From the preface of Henri Zerner Alois Reigl (1858-1905) was Curator of Textiles at the Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna during most of his career and wrote many influential works on the history of art, including Spatromische Kunstgeschichte. Evelyn Kain is Associate Professor of Art History at Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. David Castriota is Assistant Professor of Art History at Sarah Lawrence College. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Ashes, Images, and Memories argues that the institution of public burial for the war dead and images of the deceased in civic and sacred spaces fundamentally changed how people conceived of military casualties in fifth-century Athens. In a period characterized by war and the threat of civil strife, the nascent democracy claimed the fallen for the city and commemorated them with rituals and images that shaped a civic ideology of struggle and self-sacrifice on behalf of a unified community. While most studies of Athenian public burial have focused on discrete aspects of the institution, such as the funeral oration, this book broadens the scope. It examines the presence of the war dead in cemeteries, civic and sacred spaces, the home, and the mind, and underscores the role of material culture - from casualty lists to white-ground lekythoi-in mediating that presence. This approach reveals that public rites and monuments shaped memories of the war dead at the collective and individual levels, spurring private commemorations that both engaged with and critiqued the new ideals and the city's claims to the body of the warrior. Faced with a collective notion of "the fallen" families asserted the qualities, virtues, and family links of the individual deceased, and sought to recover opportunities for private commemoration and personal remembrance. Contestation over the presence and memory of the dead often followed class lines, with the elite claiming service and leadership to the community while at the same time reviving Archaic and aristocratic commemorative discourses. Although Classical Greek art tends to be viewed as a monolithic if evolving whole, this book depicts a fragmented and charged visual world.

New studies on the interaction of various media in ancient Greek art This collection includes twenty-one new essays by leading scholars in the field of Greek art and archaeology. Exploring a range of media including vase painting, sculpture, gems and coins, they each address questions that cross the boundaries of specialised fields. They outline the range of visual experiences at stake in the various media used in antiquity and shed light on the specificities of each medium. They show how meaning is produced, according to the nature of the medium: its use, context and enunciative structure. Also explored are the different methodologies used to produce meaning: how do images 'make', or create, sense to their ancient viewers and how can we now access those meanings? This richly illustrated volume offers new interpretations and arguments concerning fundamental questions in the field, which expand our knowledge and understanding of Greek art, patrons and viewers.

The art of the human body is arguably the most important and wide-ranging legacy bequeathed to us by Classical antiquity. Not only has it directed the course of western image-making, it has shaped our collective cultural imaginary - as ideal, antitype, and point of departure. This book is the first concerted attempt to grapple with that legacy: it explores the complex relationship between Graeco-Roman images of the body and subsequent western engagements with them, from the Byzantine icon to Venice Beach (and back again). Instead of approaching his material chronologically, Michael Squire faces up to its inherent modernity. Writing in a lively and accessible style, and supplementing his text with a rich array of pictures, he shows how Graeco-Roman images inhabit our world as if they were our own. The Art of the Body offers a series of comparative and thematic accounts, demonstrating the range of cultural ideas and anxieties that were explored through the figure of the body both in antiquity and in the various cultural landscapes that came afterwards. If we only strip down our aesthetic investment in the corpus of Graeco-Roman imagery, Squire argues, this material can shed light on both ancient and modern thinking. The result is a stimulating process of mutual illumination - and an exhilarating new approach to Classical art history.

The myriad ways in which colour and light have been adapted and applied in the art, architecture, and material culture of past societies is the focus of this interdisciplinary volume. Light and colour's iconographic, economic, and socio-cultural implications are considered by established and emerging scholars including art historians, archaeologists, and conservators, who address the variety of human experience of these sensory phenomena. In today's world it is the norm for humans to be surrounded by strong, artificial colours, and even to see colour as perhaps an inessential or surface property of the objects around us. Similarly, electric lighting has provided the power and ability to illuminate and manipulate environments in increasingly unprecedented ways. In the context of such a saturated experience, it becomes difficult to identify what is universal, and what is culturally specific about the human experience of light and colour. Failing to do so, however, hinders the capacity to approach how they were experienced by people of centuries past. By means of case studies spanning a broad historical and geographical context and covering such diverse themes as architecture, cave art, the invention of metallurgy, and medieval manuscript illumination, the contributors to this volume provide an up-to-date discussion of these themes from a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective. The papers range in scope from the meaning of colour in European prehistoric art to the technical art of the glazed tiles of the Shah mosque in Isfahan. Their aim is to explore a multifarious range of evidence and to evaluate and illuminate what is a truly enigmatic topic in the history of art and visual culture.

Greek painted pottery from the fourth century B.C. is one of the largest and most remarkable bodies of theatrically informed material that still survives. "Pots and Plays" is a thorough and insightful re-evaluation of over 100 Greek vases - mostly from the Greek communities of southern Italy. It demonstrates that while most paintings are not direct representations of actors or scenes, they can be interpreted as referring to theatrical performance. This comprehensive volume provides a large body of superb photographs accompanied by a picture-by-picture discussion of the vases, organized by playwright - including Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Why did the Greeks of the archaic and early Classical period join in choruses that sang and danced on public and private occasions? This book offers a wide-ranging exploration of representations of chorality in the poetry, art and material remains of early Greece in order to demonstrate the centrality of the activity in the social, religious and technological practices of individuals and communities. Moving from a consideration of choral archetypes, among them cauldrons, columns, Gorgons, ships and halcyons, the discussion then turns to an investigation of how participation in choral song and dance shaped communal experience and interacted with a variety of disparate spheres that include weaving, cataloguing, temple architecture and inscribing. The study ends with a treatment of the role of choral activity in generating epiphanies and allowing viewers and participants access to realms that typically lie beyond their perception.

Expanding on the publication of the shipsheds and slipways found in the northern half of Group 1 (Area 1) on the eastern side of Zea Harbour in Volume I.1-2 (2011) of the Ancient Harbours of the Piraeus series, Volume II presents further results of the archaeological investigations conducted by the Zea Harbour Project (ZHP) in 2004-2010 and 2012 of ancient shipsheds and slipways in Zea Harbour (Pashalimani), both identified and possible, making them the best documented structures in Athens' naval bases and in the wider Mediterranean.