#ancient statuary

[yebreed]

Extreme Baroque: Iron Temple On The Rice Mountain

Grotesque images from the Buddhist Iron Temple (鐵佛寺).

Located on the Rice Mountain (米山), Mixi (米西村) village, Jincheng, Shanxi, the temple is of an unknown construction date. The earliest record on the stone pillar in the main hall dates back to the seventh year of the Dading (大定) period of the Yuan or Jin dynasties. There is evidence that the temple was reconstructed in the third year of Wanli (1575). However, in the county annals, it is mentioned no earlier than the Qing dynasty.

These astonishing, presumably Ming statues owe their creation to the proximity of an iron ore. Iron frames made it possible to give the clay figures intricate poses and frilly decor.

Photo: ©大关沿路拍

[canopiancatboy]

I've been sick and really out of it, and felt possessed to print out some classic statues. I asked my partner for one to start with, and they chose Winged Victory of Samothrace

I love that museums and independent organizations just go around using high quality scanners to help make history more accessible, even in small ways like this. I'll likely never visit the Louvre, or Greece if they ever get it back, but I can print my own

[eincline]

Prismatic Perseus | AI-assisted art by @eincline

[mythosphere]

When will lost ancient grecian weaving techniques come back from the war

[cassowary-rapture]

Mechs vest update: I've only sewn on the bloody crown patch and look like I'm still pissed at the British re: the Revolutionary War

[anthropolite]

"The temple of Artemis at Corcyra (modern day Corfu) is an early attempt to fit multiple figures, some of them gods, some of them monsters, within the triangular temple pediment. Centre-stage is the gorgon Medusa, a figure of fear in Greek myth, with a monstrous gaze which could turn her victims to stone. Here, she goes it alone: huge, crazed, uncompromising. Enormous panthers flank her and share her frontal gaze, making her appear all the wilder. The panthers are a nod to Artemis, whose temple this is but who does not appear. Her absence maintains her enigma. Zeus with his thunderbolt, and other male figures, inhabit the corners of the pediment, but this is Medusa's show." - Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology, commentary on the Corcyra Medusa.

[petzel]

thinking about how this cat belongs to forsythe and i's professor

[phoenix-joy]

Author: Sarah E. Bond  Publication: Hyperallergic Timestamp: June 7, 2017 [roughly 9 years old]

Note: this is an article cited in the other one I made an extract for, but I think it's worth giving it its own post.

Extract:

Modern technology has revealed an irrefutable, if unpopular, truth: many of the statues, reliefs, and sarcophagi created in the ancient Western world were in fact painted. Marble was a precious material for Greco-Roman artisans, but it was considered a canvas, not the finished product for sculpture. It was carefully selected and then often painted in gold, red, green, black, white, and brown, among other colors.

[Several] museum shows throughout Europe and the US in recent years have addressed the issue of ancient polychromy. [For instance,] The Gods in Color exhibit travelled the world between 2003–15, after its initial display at the Glyptothek in Munich. [...]

Digital humanists and archaeologists have played a large part in making those shows possible. In particular, the archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann, whose research informed Gods in Color, has done important work, applying various technologies and ultraviolet light to antique statues in order to analyze the minute vestiges of paint on them and then recreate polychrome versions.

[...]

Most museums and art history textbooks contain a predominantly neon white display of skin tone when it comes to classical statues and sarcophagi. This has an impact on the way we view the antique world. The assemblage of neon whiteness serves to create a false idea of homogeneity [...] across the Mediterranean region. The Romans [...] did not define people as “white”; where [...] did this notion of race come from?

In early modern Europe, [...] the “scientific revolution” was marked by a desire to categorize, label, and rank everything from plants to minerals. [Inevitably,] humans were similarly subjected to such [man-made] systems of classification. [A]rtists began to engage with mathematics and anatomy and to use classical sculpture as a means [to replicate] beauty through proportions.

One of the most influential art historians of the era was Johann Joachim Winckelmann. He produced two volumes recounting the history of ancient art, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764), [...] which came to form a foundation for the modern [...] art history. These books celebrate the whiteness of classical statuary and cast the Apollo of the Belvedere — a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic bronze original — as the quintessence of beauty. Historian Nell Irvin Painter writes in her book The History of White People (2010) that Winckelmann was a Eurocentrist who depreciated people of other nationalities, like the Chinese or the Kalmyk.

[...]

Too often today, we fail to acknowledge and confront the incredible amount of racism that has shaped the ideas of scholars we cite in the field of ancient history.

[...]

If we want to see more diversity in Classics, we have to work harder as public historians to change the narrative — by talking to filmmakers, writing mainstream articles, annotating our academic writing and making it open access, and doing more outreach that emphasizes the vast palette of skin tones in the ancient Mediterranean.

I’m not suggesting that we go[...] repaint every white marble statue [...]. However, [...] better museum signage, [...] 3D reconstructions alongside originals, and the use of computerized light projections can help produce a contextual framework for understanding classical sculpture as it truly was.

It may have taken just one classical statue to influence the false construction of race, but it will take many of us to tear it down. We have the power to return color to the ancient world, but it has to start with us.

/end of extract

[whencyclopedia]

A Gallery of Mesopotamian Religion

Mesopotamian religion was informed by the belief that humans were co-workers with the gods in maintaining the order created at the beginning of time and so religious expression was integral to daily life in ancient Mesopotamia in how they chose to perform tasks on the job, behave toward others, and honor those gods.

Among the most common displays of respect for the divine was Mesopotamian art and architecture in which the deity's depiction emphasized some defining characteristic. The terracotta plaque, Ishtar Standing on a Lion, for example, shows the goddess armed above a subdued lion, symbolizing her role as a powerful war deity. The stamp-seal of Gula, goddess of healing, depicts her in the presence of one of her dogs – also associated with healing – welcoming a supplicant, in keeping with her primary role.

The gods of ancient Mesopotamia were not only venerated through formal artwork like plaques or reliefs, however, but through everyday objects – amulets, charms, figurines – one would carry or keep around the home to court a certain deity's favor or ward off the threats from evil spirits or demonic energies. This was also true of temples where foundation figures, in the form of the king who commissioned the building, were ritually buried to mark off the sacred from the common areas.

Since the world was understood as alive with spiritual energies – positive and negative – it was considered prudent to take measures to attract the bright energies and defend against the dark through sacred objects used to ward off bad luck, ghosts, the schemes of sorcerers, and the physical maladies that were recognized as either a spiritual attack or the result of one's own sins and a god's displeasure.

The following gallery presents a sampling of the stele, amulets, statuary, figurines, and temples, which developed from Mesopotamian religious belief. Among these are some of the most famous works from the region such as the Code of Hammurabi, the Mask of Warka, the Warka Vase, and the Nimrud Dogs along with lesser-known pieces including the votive figures, stamp seals, cylinder seals, spells, and reliefs.

Continue reading...

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

"Ram in the Thicket" Statuette from Ur (Iraq), c.2600-2400 BCE: this statuette is made of lapis lazuli, shells, gold, silver, limestone, copper, and wood

This sculpture is about 4,500 years old. It was unearthed back in 1929, during the excavation of the "Great Death Pit" at the Royal Cemetery of Ur, located in what was once the heart of Mesopotamia (and is now part of southern Iraq).

Sir Leonard Woolley, who led the excavations at the site, nicknamed the statuette "ram caught in a thicket" as a reference to the Biblical story in which Abraham sacrifices a ram that he finds caught in a thicket. The statuette is still commonly known by that name, even though it actually depicts a markhor goat feeding on the leaves of a flowering tree/shrub. Some scholars refer to it as a "rampant he-goat" or "rearing goat," instead.

It was carved from a wooden core; gold foil was then carefully hammered onto the surface of the goat's face and legs, and its belly was coated in silver paint. Intricately carved pieces of shell and lapis lazuli were layered onto the goat's body in order to form the fleece. Lapis lazuli was also used to create the goat's eyes, horns, and beard, while its ears were crafted out of copper.

The tree (along with its delicate branches and eight-petaled flowers) was also carved from a wooden base, before being wrapped in gold foil.

The goat and the tree are both attached to a small pedestal, which is decorated with silver paint and tiny mosaic tiles made of shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone.

This artifact measures 42.5cm (roughly 16 inches) tall.

A second, nearly-identical statuette was also found nearby. That second sculpture (which is also known as the "ram in the thicket") is pictured below:

There are a few minor differences between the two sculptures. The second "ram" is equipped with gold-covered genitals, for example, while the first one has no genitals at all; researchers believe that the other sculpture originally had genitals that were made out of silver, but that they eventually corroded away, just like the rest of the silver on its body.

The second "ram" is also slightly larger than the first, measuring 45.7cm (18 in) tall.

Both statuettes have a cylindrical socket rising from the goats' shoulders, suggesting that these sculptures were originally used as supports for another object (possibly a bowl or tray).

The depiction of a goat rearing up against a tree/shrub is a common motif in ancient Near Eastern art, but few examples are as stunning (or as elaborate) as these two statuettes.

Sources & More Info:

Penn Museum: Collections Highlight

Penn Museum: Ram in the Thicket

Expedition Magazine: Rescue and Restoration: a History of the Philadelphia "Ram Caught in a Thicket" (PDF version)

The British Museum: Ram in the Thicket

A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art: Statuary and Reliefs

World Archaeology: Ram in the Thicket

Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Colour in Sculpture: a Survey from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present (PDF excerpt)

Goats (Capra) from Ancient to Modern: Goats in the Ancient Near East and their Relationship with the Mythology, Fairytale, and Folklore of these Cultures

[whatsfourteenupto]

Fourteen’s wandering an art museum. Managed for a bit to behave like the Good Normal Quiet Thoughtful Art Patron but couldn’t keep it up, so:

Asks an incredible amount of increasingly-detailed questions and has long, in-depth conversations with the attendants.

Spends a ridiculous amount of time in the Van Gogh section just grinning from ear to ear.

There are several incorrectly labeled more ancient art items but for once he keeps his damn mouth shut. They’ll tell Mel later and she’ll get in touch with them

Doesn’t linger very long in the statuary section. There’s nothing obviously suspicious about it, but they’d just rather not.

Pleasantly surprised to come across a few of Clyde Langer’s pieces. The gun in that one looks so familiar, though, one of the must have shown him the painting at some point…

Fiddles with the audio tour headset so much he accidentally breaks it. He’ll fix it before he gives it back, and it’s super weird but that headset never runs out of battery ever again.

Of course they’re going to visit the Little Shop.

[egypt-museum]

Tomb Chapel of Queen Meresankh III

Meresankh III was one of the most famous Queens in the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. Her grandfather was King Khufu, an important ruler in the 4th Dynasty, who is well known as the builder of the largest pyramid on the Giza plateau.

On April 23, 1927 the tomb was discovered and excavated by George Reisner. with subsequent excavations undertaken by his team on behalf of Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

They found extraordinarily preserved statuary and colorful relief sculpture with a remarkable emphasis on the female figures. Meresankh’s husband, King Khafre, was not shown in the tomb at all. This indicates the importance of female nobility during the queen`s life.

Photo: Sandro Vannini

Read more

[talonabraxas]

Sun in Gemini II (5/30 – 6/10 2024) The middle decan of Gemini is called the Hermaphrodite, after a child of Hermes and Aphrodite, who bore the external and internal genitalia of both men and women in their own body.

According to one story of Hermaphrodite, found in Ovid, he was a remarkable beautiful young man of extraordinary gracefulness and easiness of manner. A naiad, or water-spirit named Salamis observed him bathing one day, and jumped into the pool to fondle the youth who was too young to understand or consent to these advances. She tried to have her way with him, either through rape or seduction; yet the boy resisted, and Salmacis cried aloud her wish — to be united with this boy forever. A passing god, hearing her prayer, solemnly knitted them into one being — and Hermaphrodite became a god in themselves, a god of the unified masculine and feminine. They blessed — or cursed? — the spring in such a way that anyone else who bathed there would be similarly transformed.

Other accounts suggest that Hermaphrodite was an androgynous figure from birth. Roman theologians attributed the birth of human hermaphrodites to the influence of Hermaphrodite and their father Hermes’ influence. “Serious” scholars of natural history noted that hermaphroditic births were rare but regarded as significant omens of the future, while satirical authors made hermaphrodites into funny figures worthy of derision. Whether by alchemical change in a pool or divine birth, the Greeks and Romans depicted Hermaphrodite with both female breasts as well as penis and scrotum in naked depictions; I’m not aware of a statue that also shows a vagina — but it’s possible. Despite Ovid’s account connecting Hermaphrodite’s origins to female-on-male sexual assault, this boy-girl deity was highly sensualized and sexualized in Roman fresco and statuary, and was considered to be the patron of marriage. Since they united in themselves both the masculine and feminine, their feast day (the fourth of every month) was considered highly auspicious for weddings in many community around the Roman Mediterranean.

And Hermaphrodite stood in contrast to another figure, far more terrifying to the ancient Romans — that of Magna Mater, the Great Mother Cybele. She had been carried into Rome in procession in the form of a Black Stone that was said to have fallen from heaven — and she was placed in the porch of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter in the heart of the city during the Second Punic War, and spiritually married to Jupiter as the principal god of the Romans, an extra consort to be recognized alongside Juno. Her high priestess and priestesses were not scions of Rome, either, but foreigners from Phrygia in what is now Turkey — and there is symbolic evidence that Cybele had been worshipped there in some form since at least 6000 BCE. Even more than the women priestesses wielding significant power in the cult of the Great Mother, though, were the strange and androgyne priests of Cybele — eunuchs all — who had voluntarily allowed themselves to be castrated in service to the Mother. The Roman Senate, with the same kind of shrill horror that some modern US senators reserve for anti-immigration screeds, forbade any Roman man from joining the cult of Cybele as anything other than an observer.

So, here, in miniature, echoing from twenty-two centuries before our own time, we find some of the same kinds of strange dismay and fear of foreign customs, alchemical-medical recreations of the mortal frame, and ancient powers that do not seem to belong to “the modern rational world” —and yet do. Public officials have no trouble vilifying transgender people, and comedians satirize them, and preachers sermonize about the way they warn us that dire changes are coming. And yet, the presence of transgender people in the world is unnecessarily sexualized, their romance is celebrated (both their actual relationship lives and the fantasies we spin about their lives), and their presence in a community is a remarkable signpost (and perhaps talisman) that points to tolerance, diversity, and healthy community norms.

And maybe we react with such a strange mix of hope, unease, joy, and concern around transgender persons today, for the same reasons the Romans did — they’re proof that Mother Nature can bring forth a far vaster range of possibilities and potentials into the world, than our allegedly rational minds can understand. The Great Mother is truly greater, and more awe-inspiring, than we can conceive — and patriarchy has little choice but to bow down to her revelation.

Maybe that’s one of the key messages of Gemini more generally, and of The Hermaphrodite specifically. We humans want to control a lot of things: the wind, Mother Nature, the structure of sex and gender, what are the acceptable desires of flesh and heart — and Cybele and Hermaphrodite both say, “Terribly sorry, but those are not in your power to rule.”

The Dodeks of Gemini II are Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Capricorn — and they also tell this complex story of dualities turning into uncontrollable multiplicities. Libra indicates a balance between two — this exactly equals that. But Scorpio is the many-handed monster of desire, carrying both healing and poison in its stinger. Sagittarius is the human, the divine, the technical, the feral and animalistic, all wrapped up in a strange hybridized package. Capricorn is the fish caught in the moment of chan into a goat — a reminder that evolution is ongoing, for sure; but also suggesting the Egyptian crocodile, 250 million years old and counting, reminding us that there are forms of nature far more enduring and steady than ourselves. --Wanderings in the Labyrinth

Hermaphrodite in Dreams Johfra Bosschart

[readyforevolution]

Some of the earliest depictions of dreadlocks or Sacredlocks date back as far as 1600–1500 BCE. In ancient Egypt, examples of Egyptians wearing locked hairstyles and wigs have appeared on bas-reliefs, statuary and other artifacts. Mummified remains of Egyptians with locked wigs have also been recovered from archaeological sites. This culture is still carried on today in Africa.

[blueiscoool]

The Long-Lost Top Half of an Enormous Ramses II Statue Found

A German researcher found the lower section of the Egyptian pharaoh’s likeness nearly 100 years ago.

Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered the upper half of a towering statue of Ramses II, cracking a century-long mystery. Found in the ancient city of Hermopolis (now Ashmunein), the 12.5-foot-tall limestone fragment lines up perfectly with the lower section of a sculpture discovered nearby in 1930.

The ancient statue depicts Ramses in a seated position, adorned with a crown and a headdress topped with a cobra, according to a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The dual crown indicates Ramses’ simultaneous authority over the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt, while the cobra represents royalty, writes the National’s Kamal Tabikha.

The upper area of the back column of the statue is etched with hieroglyphs that list Ramses’ many titles, glorifying the king as “one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs,” says Bassem Jihad, head of the excavation team, in the statement, per a translation by Reuters.

Preliminary scans have confirmed that the carved limestone block is a continuation of the lower section of the statue, which was found in the same area in 1930 by German archaeologist Günther Roeder. With its halves combined, the statue would have loomed at a height of nearly 23 feet.

As the third pharaoh of Egypt’s 19th dynasty, Ramses ruled over a sprawling empire that stretched from modern-day Sudan to Syria. During his reign—which spanned 1279 to 1213 B.C.E., making it the second-longest of any Egyptian monarch—he ushered the kingdom into a golden age of power and wealth. Known as Ramses the Great, the pharaoh’s legacy was cemented by a slew of monuments and statues constructed in his name, both during and after his reign.

The joint Egyptian and American dig team originally began its exploration of the Ashmunein area with the goal of discovering a religious complex from Egypt’s New Kingdom era (1550 to 1070 B.C.E.). Though the researchers ultimately stumbled onto something entirely different, they remained pleased with their results.

“Though we have not found the complex we were initially looking for, a statue of such importance is a sign that we are digging in the right place,” Adel Okasha, an antiquities official who oversaw the dig, tells the National.

Next, the team will create a model envisioning what the statue looked like in antiquity, when it was fully intact.

“Not only is it a wonderful opportunity to have a whole other massive statue of the famed king, it also adds to our general understanding and fills gaps in our data on the large corpus of Ramses II’s statuary,” Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo, tells the National. “Through each discovery, we have been able to trace changes in the style during the course of his very long reign.”

By Catherine Duncan.

[headlessmage]

One thing I think people forget about when looking at heka, or Ancient Egyptian magic, is that it wasn't just prayers and praising the Gods to convince Them to help.

Sometimes it was more forceful, in the manner of bargaining or threatening, where the magician made their intent clear and the Gods either acted upon it or accepted the results.

Obviously I do not go around threatening my Gods (no need to straddle the line between earned respect and anger), but I do bargain with Them a good amount.

For example, I found a job within my niche that I desperately wanted. When I applied, I fit most of their requirements (besides missing a strongly preferred certification). I also knew that as it was a remote position, there would be plenty of other, more well qualified candidates. Of course I focused on preparing for the interviews appropriately, but figured extra divine help couldn't hurt.

I went to my shrine, and asked the Gods, "do these offerings and paintings and statuary please you? Are you content with just what I have already given freely, or do you wish for more?"

I told Them that as it stands, I cannot afford much else with this current job. However, if They helped get a new job, I could afford more for Them. More space, more offerings, more paintings and statuary. After all, I want to please Them with this shrine and fill it with all that Their hearts desire, and yet how can I supply it with no help?

And so They provided Their strength and assistance, with the promise that should things go well, I will compensate Them. I received the offer for the position, and am slowly working on providing Them with new offerings and statuary as thanks and payment.