I find greaves to be the least appreciated bits of ancient armour by us moderns. And sure, these shinguards were not necessarily the sexiest aspects of a warrior’s apparel, nor the most prominent (what can be more prominent than a big shiny be-plumed thing worn on the head, for instance?!). These are especially excellent examples,
‘Dread-yelping’ has to be my favorite ancient epithet (or translation of one). That’s how Homer describes Skylla, one of the nasties that heroic Odysseus encountered on his circuitous journey home from Troy. She lurked in a cave along the Straits of Messina (still a treacherous seeming waterway between Sicily and the mainland), tempting sailors with
These feet are from Delphi, where they were found (along with other chryselephantine elements) in a pit beneath the sanctuary’s Sacred Way. Evidently they had been damaged by fire and, like the material from the Athenian Acropolis ritually collected and deposited after the Persian destruction, were intentionally (respectfully) taken out of commission. The jumble of
There’s a lot to commend this red-figure cup in Basel. It has all the high points of the early fifth century: finely variegated Athenian clay potted to perfection and fired into that signature orange and glossy black glaze. And the draughtsmanship is top notch. But in passing glance, the subject is not terribly exciting: flute
Everything is wrong with this picture! Rather than a draped symposiast, a nude woman reclines (spayed rather unbecomingly) on a striped pillow, her uplifted index finger hooked into the handle of an enormous skyphos (quite a different type of drinking cup than the shallow kylix this image decorates). She is apparently attempting ‘kottabos’, one of
Resplendent in gilded silver, Zeus at his regal best here. The appliqué is from a tomb in Pydna (Northern Greece, ancient Macedonia) and is thought to have once adorned a very fancy late 4th century B.C. larnax, a type of small coffin for cremation burials. Zeus exhibits a sort of regal languor. His thick cloak
This little ivory appliqué is a standout in the way the carver has absolutely reveled in the amount of patterns he could fit onto its small surface. The subject is, of course, a warrior whose rather haughty face (prissy pout, supercilious brow, aquiline nose, etc.) is surrounded by that glorious and quintessentially Mycenaean helmet. These
When thinking of high points of architectural decoration in terracotta, my mind usually veers West to Sicily and Southern Italy. Big mistake, bozo! Consider this spectacular wing hailing from Delphi… In keeping with the logical tradition of having flying divinities and creatures alighting on the roofs of sacred buildings, the wing belongs to an acroterion
Party tricks and drinking games on drinking cups continue to amuse and delight me as they surely did an ancient audience. This gentleman is deep into an evening of carousing as he shows off to his companions, balancing on his left hand and right foot while bringing his left leg up and over and managing
This unusual little aryballos (a vase for scented oil) was deposited near the temple of Apollo at Corinth in the early 6th century B.C. The inscription running jaggedly around its body reads ‘Pyrvias leading the dance / to him an olpa’, which is usually interpreted as referencing (and illustrating) competitive dance that might have taken
I’m frequently guilty of leaving off the dimensions of artworks posted here, and in this infernal grid it can be tricky to get a sense of scale. And I would argue never more tricky than for little treasures like this one in Basel. Head turned sharply, with tousled hair about her head, breathless parted lips,
Perhaps you’re familiar with the ‘Artemesion Zeus/Poseidon’ – a highlight among many at the Athens’ National Archaeological Museum and a masterpiece of Early Classical bronze casting. Nude, powerful, lifesized and bearded he tends to inspire some debate thanks to his missing attributes. Did his trident go astray (in which case he’s Poseidon) or was it
nless you’re a devout Sicily enthusiast you might not know this statue from Megara Hyblaea, which was one of the earliest of the Greek colonies founded on that island (ca. 728 B.C.) and today far less visited than nearby Syracuse or its daughter colony, Selinunte, owing to ancient city’s catastrophic state of preservation (…no pretty
Hailing from the wilds of 8th century Boeotia, meet my new favorite centaur, with all of the confused mingling of equine and human body parts one would hope for. Shown is just a section of the shoulder of the big Theban amphora it decorated. I like in particular how experimental the earlier artists were in
In terms of fantastical hybrid beasts, griffins are an intriguing breed. Half lion, half raptor, winged, there are so many body parts for ancient artists to elaborate upon, and any ideas about those blossom-like knobs ever-present on their foreheads? And this is a most remarkable 7th century example from Olympia – the very best century
This is quite a face, colossal in scale (clocking in at 64 cm) and unusual in many aspects. Based on comparison with coin portraits, it likely depicts Ptolemy IX (reigning late 2nd – 1st century B.C.). For these later Ptolemies, the weird bulging eyed hypothyroidic-‘second sight’ look and fleshiness has given way to heavy-browed brooding
Couldn’t tear myself away from watching the macabre spectacle in the frigid swamp of D.C. just now, which made me think this was a sort of appropriately depressing artwork for the day. It’s a white ground lekythos, one of the specialized vases with almost exclusively funerary overtones and typically matching imagery. This scene is hard
Beautiful and terrible, this fragment is a standout in every way. It is the preserved part of a large cup’s interior, and the dramatic arc of the woman’s shoulders would have followed the contours of circular tondo. She is a wonder, with the fine pleats of her chiton simultaneously swinging independent of her body while
When faced with iconographical remnants divorced from any context that could give a hint at original narrative meaning, classicists face a conundrum: to play the ‘fit that myth’ game, or accept our frustratingly fragmentary understanding of the ancient world. Case in point: this weird ivory plaque (13.6 cm tall) dating to the late 7th century
Chances are you’ve seen this brooding fellow before – he’s the ‘Blonde Boy’ from the Athenian Akropolis, with the nickname stemming from an ephemeral yellow pigment in his hair when he was excavated in late 19th century. The head had been buried in one of the pits of sculptural debris (Perserschutt!) left over from the
Kylikes – those broad, shallow, stemmed drinking cups – were a great boon for vase painters, in that the broad expanse of their exterior walls provided a convenient canvas for complicated narrative scenes. Inside, however, with its limited flat space at the center of those concave walls, the tondo presented a dastardly little challenge. And
This fragment (the interior of a mighty drinking cup attributed to Douris) has it all, but you have to peer at it closely… Front and center is a fierce warrior, striking in the way his face is drawn in three-quarters, framed by an ornate Chalcidian helmet (a thing of beauty: gleaming nose-piece, scaled culotte, checkered
Well it’s the season of ‘la battue’ in the forests behind my house in Eastern France, with weekends full of hopeful orange roly-poly men harassing the local dwindling population of puny wild boar. And impinging upon my meditative walks. Not a fan. But I am intrigued by this late 4th century B.C. sarcophagus from the
This is one fascinating gentleman, in several respects. He is a plaster Roman overcast of one of the most famous sculptural groups from Classical Athens: the Tyrannicides. The original bronze group hailed from 477 B.C. Athens, sculpted by the greats Kritios and Nesiotes to commemorate an important (and likely fictionalized and pretty juicy) moment in
Ah, Persephone and Hades…the unhappiest of divine couples, but one of the most important. Perhaps you know the myth: Hades (god of the underworld) spied the nubile maiden frolicking in a blooming meadow with her friends, and took it upon himself to forcibly abduct her to his frigid domain. Demeter (Persephone’s goddess mother) fell into
Ok, I’ll admit it…I have a tendency to poopoo South Italian vase painting, dismissing it as the sloppy, derivative cousin of Attic. But when it’s good it’s really good and this is an absolute treasure – the fragment of a large skyphos attributed to the Palermo Painter. Zeus is at his most regal here, seated
Naked as a jaybird apart from a choker necklace and baldric over one shoulder, this mirror handle is an utter oddity of the late 6th century B.C. – bucking the convention of demurely draped females that persisted until famous sculptural innovations two centuries later. She holds a pomegranate in one hand, but perhaps more telling
While it might not be the most thrilling fragment aesthetically (the surface is a bit worn and the painter not necessarily top tier), I love this black-figure survivor because it shows the very best of the frequently weird Greek mythological birth stories. Zeus’ extramarital proclivities are well known, and his dalliance with Metis (a nymph
Dozens of these terracotta figurines were found in 1898 during excavations of the sanctuary of Demeter in Priene, leading to consternation on the part of German archaeologists there and some fun theories as to their cultic function…. Worshipful belly dancing, anyone? This one was found in Samos (not so far away) because although fragmentary I
Captured in this sliver of a cup’s tondo is an athletically inclined gentleman in an ungainly squat. I say athletically not for his admirable bendiness, but because of that floppy stippled thing near his left knee. It’s certainly a sponge, one of the three basic accoutrements of post-athletic male hygiene, but shown far less than
This is perhaps my favourite vase (largely fragmentary, only about 20% of the big krater remains) and unfortunately one I’ve never seen in person. Euphronios’ special way of rendering the body and lining up a successful composition is clear, even in this extreme close up of the ne’er-do-well Kyknos as he lies dying on the
This fellow was found in a pit, during 1958 archaeological investigations in the Sanctuary of Hera at Samos. He is fairly small (just over 14 cm tall) but the ivory is beautifully preserved in the island’s boggy soil, preserving beguiling traces that are not terribly easy to pinpoint on any one culture. The style seems
After the Bacchic frenzy comes the crash, apparently. The sleeping woman here is beautiful in her slumber – her face a study of strong, peaceful features (rounded chin, straight nose, and best of all those carefully outlined lips) beneath fanned out curls. Her weary head rests on a pile of fancy cushions – a sure
Europe is gripped in a late-summer heatwave, and the air is alive with the sounds of amorous insects. Which brought to mind this extraordinary gem now at the Getty, showing a grasshopper balancing on a blade of grass. The stone is a striking mottled jasper, with those golden splotches somehow evocative of sun-drenched days. The
The photo might be less than thrilling (vases are hard!) but this is a seriously cool little lekythos in Taranto, with the sole decoration consisting of a woman gazing out from a window, her head and face nearly completely veiled (apart from some unruly blond curls). Veiling in Classical Greece and the extent to which
This is a most extraordinary scene in hammered bronze sheet showing a warrior stepping into his chariot en route to the battlefield. He turns to gaze back at the woman and young child on her shoulders. I can’t resist (a little self-indulgent) ‘reading’ the scene as a condensed illustration Hector’s famous farewell in book 6
The propitiously preserved part of a tall, slender grave stele, this head at the Met is one of my favorites. The relief is very low, but somehow the sculptor has managed to really nail the sense of volume: the planes of the cheeks and brow, the ornate ear and that terrific hair. I’m particularly interested
Fragments of two separate cups in white-ground were found in the grand sanctuary to Demeter at Eleusis and this one is small but it’s a stunner. With that jutting beard and imperious bearing, the man painted in the interior could be any number of gods or heroes save for the scales that begin under his
Misleading photo alert! Because what I woke up thinking of left precious few archaeological traces, of which these dozens of assorted bronze figurines and remnants of vessels are tangible exceptions….And that is the monumental ash altar (active and growing for centuries) standing near the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Olympia was a crucially important religious
Straight pins (this is an especially sumptuous Hellenistic example) were functional (primarily for securing swathes of cloth: think the feminine peplos) and frequently very beautiful. But when ogling them a few Greek vignettes highlighting their dangerous stabbing potential inevitably creep into my mind… Herodotus recounts a typical spat between city-states during which the Athenians launched
Odysseus was at his bravest and most wily when orchestrating his comrades’ grand escape from the cave of the dread Cyclops Polyphemus. After knocking him out with strong wine (a dirty trick) and blinding him with a heated and pointy branch, he tied the giant’s fleecy sheep together in threes with a Greek strapped to
Stark and stylized and utterly exposed, this little marble plaque is something of an oddity, but an oddity with a fun find-spot and somewhat helpful inscription. Female nether parts are shown – what’s the delicate term these days? Maybe one should stick to the Latin ‘pudenda’ (‘shameful parts’), but it seems a bit judgy. It
This is not the easiest vase to photograph or glimpse in nature (it is in the Hermitage’s permanent collection), but you might have been lucky enough to see it as I did in the glorious “Worshipping Women” exhibition some 15 years ago at the Onassis Cultural Center in midtown Manhattan. At 38 cm tall it’s
There’s not much better than High Classical relief sculpture, and this Athenian grave stele carved in the decades after the famed Parthenon frieze is second to none. Languid in her chair a young woman is gorgeously draped, with the crinkly fabric of her chiton dripping over her breasts to puddle in her lap and delicate
If you don’t like people and do like pots (specifically white ground lekythoi), head to the gorgeous and distressingly under-visited Kerameikos Museum. ‘Kerameikos’ refers to Athens’ potters quarter just to the northwest of the city. Refining and firing mass quantities of clay was stinky, smoky business best relegated just outside the city walls. The name
I admit to having a certain preference for the red-figure vases, with their elegant swooping lines, bodacious orange bodies, and fine drapery, and a special fondness great Athenian masters who pioneered and perfected the new technique. Shameful, I’m sure you would agree after taking a gander at this stunner! It’s from the tondo of a
Rings are so deeply personal, are they not? Visible and confronting each time one catches a glimpse of one’s hand. Which is all to say, the choice of subject matter matters, and in this case it is somewhat intriguing. It’s a masterpiece in miniature dating to the last decades of the 5th century B.C., found
Although the subject is tried and true (boy meets girl, war-torn romance, the allure of the Amazons, yada yada yada) this relief is groundbreaking in all the best ways. The metope was one of a dozen relief panels (one of four that survive) that once wrapped around the Temple of Hera (Temple E) at Selinunte
Spring is starting to make itself felt in the Northern hemisphere, which has me thinking about two real masterpieces of late Classical gold-working, whimsy, and observed nature. These are two wreaths (metal ones that served as honorifics, fancy dress for feasting, and the funeral…that eternal festival) that were excavated within ‘Tomb II’ at Vergina. Now
You might not have seen these before and if so might be at a loss about what exactly you’re looking at….I am to some extent, and would be out to sea without some good old archaeological context. Twenty-six life-sized smashed clay heads were found in an early 5th century B.C. tomb within the monumental necropolis