#330BCE

[thatshowthingstarted]

The "Medici Riccardi Horse Head"

An extraordinary bronze sculpture of the head of a horse, which dates to the second half of the fourth century BC.

During the Renaissance Donatello used this as a model for his works, as did Leonardo da Vinci.  The head was once part of a full statue of a horse, but the body of the horse has been lost to history.

Cast bronze, once guilded.

National Archaeological Museum of Florence,

Photo: Ilya Shurygin.

[arthistoryanimalia]

Red-Figure Fish Plate, c.340–330BCE

attributed to Asteas/Python Workshop (South Italian, Paestan, active c.360–320BCE)

Ceramic, Dia. 38.3 cm (15 1/16 in.)

On display at Cleveland Museum of Art 1985.50

“Perfect for serving seafood, this plate features images of sea creatures (octopi, mullet, bream, and various shellfish) around a well for dipping or collecting juices. Although first developed in Athens, red-figure fish plates became popular in South Italy and Sicily in the 4th century BC. All feature a short foot and a small central depression, but those produced in the workshop of Asteas and Python, like this one, are the largest and most ornate. Archaeologists have studied the fish and other sea creatures represented, identifying many of them with species still found (and eaten) in the Mediterranean.”

[silverstrying]

Through The Ages Collab - Sam (Assyrian Empire 932-612BCE) and Ponk (Persian Empire 550-330BCE)

DEFINITELY didn't panic and decide to completely redo my project as a painting the night before 😖👍

Here, they're both dressed as (hyperbolic) kings of their time.

(Pay no notice to the fact that the time periods are in direct succession and the Persians *definitely* didn't conquer the Caldeans and Ponk *definitely* wouldn't have killed Sam they're besties okay nodders)

Look under the read more for details and !!~~fun ancient fashion facts~~!! :D

Ponks outfit looks like red, white, and black, but it's actually red, white, and (very dark) blue! In ancient Persia, each class wore a different color - the priests wore white, the military wore red, and the farmers wore blue. The king wore a combination of the three for the combination of social classes that he represented!

Sam is wearing a felt mitre(fancy hat) with fringed woolen lapets (that's what's coming over his shoulder, they're attached to the hat) and a tiara with carnelian (cough redstone) inlays. His staff is also meant to have a "redstone" head, and the head of ponks is meant to be a lemon! All noblemen had a staff that would be carved full of things to represent them.

The robes or drapery you typically think of when thinking of ancient Mesopotamia are called "Kaunakes". The longer your kaunakes, or robes, are, the higher class you are (because you can afford more fabric!) I really meant to make Sams kaunake even longer, but eh details get lost sometimes.

We tend to think of "ancient clothing" as having been threadbare and brown. This is mostly because of the few representations we have (figurines and wall carvings, etc, because almost no clothing survives from that period), all the paint has come off! In reality their clothing (the high class at least) was extremely colorful, and tended to be full of bright patterns, to the piont that we would think of it as extremely tacky today.

Basically all "ancient Mesopotamian fashion" is Drapes+Gold+FRINGE!!!=high class. They like. REALLY liked fringe. And Gold. And draping. But otherwise the combinations were honestly quite endless! Especially with the Persians, they were well known for adopting any adjacent cultures clothing into thier fashion, so Persia had a particularly diverse range of clothing styles!

I really liked doing this project, I was kinda shocked with how much I learned! There's a surprising amount of information and also a surprisingly little amount of information on ancient Mesopotamian clothing, mostly because like. None of it survives lol.

[punisheddonjuan]

WOW i love your handwriting. i write in cursive because the finger movements for print are difficult to sustain but it doesn't look nearly that nice. also leaving the floor open to you if you want to talk more about fountain pens/penmanship/&c

I didn't really develop a nice cursive hand until I was in university. I always had pretty neat print handwriting, and I'm old enough to be among the last cohorts of students who were taught to write cursive in elementary school, but by grade seven/eight our teachers were telling us to submit our work in print if it was handwritten and reprimanding those who submitted in cursive so I fell out of practice.

Flash to 2012 and I'm in university and not enjoying taking my notes on my laptop, and my print writing is a little too slow to keep up, what's worse is that our Greek history professor was an insane man —He once, unprompted, announced that his favourite US president was Nixon, a true marker for insanity if there ever was one. He was also heir to a candy fortune for a candy that was once very popular in the PNW, odd man, very entertaining anecdotes. He also lived in the same apartment building as David Byrne in the '80s, spent a year in Tehran and there was an anecdote about a Japanese bathhouse that I can't quite remember.— who for the final wanted us to write out a narrative history from 404BCE with the end of the Peloponnesian War to 330BCE with the beginning of Alexander the Great's campaigns. Madness.

Anyway the girl I was dating at the time, her name was Kate, —Also an autistic blonde of slavic extract, I suppose I have a type. She was the one who introduced me to Tumblr too. Hope she's doing okay.— she had absolutely gorgeous handwriting and she was a fountain pen user. She lent me one of her pens and I loved it and immediately started working on my cursive. It's just so much easier to write in cursive, and it's easier to write with a fountain pen. You don't strain your joints nearly as much and you don't fatigue your hand pressing the pen down on the paper, it just glides. It got me through that final. That Christmas she got me a Lamy Al-Star, which I still have (I had to swap out the nib after dropping it though), and I took all of my notes by hand after that.

[casskeeps]

apoxyomenos

basic information

name: apoxyomenos (the oil-scraper)

date: 330bce

artist: lysippos

size: 2.05 metres

function: votive statue

original, reconstruction, or copy: roman marble copy of a lost bronze original

subject

this statue depicts an athlete using a strigil, a tool used to scrape oil, sweat, and dirt off the skin

we're still depicting athletic naked men, although the everyday action of the sculpture is slightly less common

composition

the body of this sculpture is largely aesthetically pleasing - he stands in contrapposto, with his arms outstretched

the shift of weight off his right foot (demonstrated by the small point of contact - the ball of his foot rests on the floor, as opposed to the flat contact of his left foot

the anatomy is idealised but still naturalistic - the iliac crest is exaggerated, but the musculature surrounding the knee is subtly sculpted and depicted using realistic rounded planes

the anatomy of his face is damaged (especially where his nose has broken off)

his eyes look slightly too close together, which limits the aesthetic appeal of his face

again, he fails to show much emotion

lysippos adapted polykleitos' canon for the proportions of human figures - the head is at a 1:7 ratio to the body, slightly undersized when compared to the canon of polykleitos

scholars

woodford: "the stance is extraordinarily mobile"

boardman: "breaks with the one-view frontality of classical sculpture"

[hst101finalproject]

The Agora

As I was walking through the side streets of Athens, I could hear a rather large amount of people talking. It sounded as though there was a big gathering happening so I walked towards the noise. As I approached the commotion I realized I was at the Agora. The agora was the center of community life in Athens that was developed during the late 6th century (Athenian Agora, 1953). The agora was a meeting place where people could talk about politics, talk about business, conduct trades, hangout with friends and listen to philosophers.(Aristotle, 350BCE). Not only was this a meeting place, but it was also a marketplace (Athenian Agora, 1953). As I stood in the middle of the Agora, I could see a philosopher speaking in the space before me, friends meeting to my right, and a person selling fruits, vegetables and meats.

The agora was the central gathering place for political conversations and a big part of the Athenian democracy (Athenian Agora, 1953). It is important to note however, that the democracy was not a true democracy as Aristotle points out, the democracy only really benefitted the rich and excluded women (Aristotle, 330BCE). Walking the streets of Athens it was definitely noticeable that women were looked at differently than men and it was difficult being an independent woman in Athens. Regardless, the Agora is where most, if not all political meetings were held (Athenian Agora, 1953). Also, those that were not directly involved in politics would also meet simply to discuss what was happening politically in Athens (Athenian Agora, 1953).

Because the Agora was more of a meeting place than a symbol of wealth and power like the Parthenon, it had simple architecture. The agora was home to the Stoa of Zeus, the south Stoa and Bouleuterion (Athenian Agora, 1953). It had many open areas where all the discussions and performances would occur(Athenian Agora, 1953). Women were often not seen in the Agora, so I did not stay there very long, but I did buy some fresh fruits and meat and headed back to my home base to make some dinner for the evening (Athenian Agora, 1953).

[doctapuella]

Cyrus defeated Media and the Achaemenid Empire was formed around 550 BCE, and it lasted until Alexander the Great’s conquest in 330BCE (I think the date above is a typo)

Achaemenid golden bowl with lion imagery.

The Achaemenid Empire, also known as the First Persian Empire, was founded by Cyrus the Great in 6BC, who overthrew the Median confederation.

[As requested by primus-pilus.tumblr.com]