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Mourning Athena
The so-called Mourning Athena is an Athenian marble relief dated circa 460 BC. The relief is 0.48 m high and made of Parian marble. It is displayed at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, inventory no. 695. Description The goddess, marked by her helmet of the Corinthian type, wears a peplos, clasped at the shoulders and cinched at the waist. She rests her right hand on her hip and crosses her left leg over her right. Her left hand grasps a spear on which she leans, and her head is inclined. The meaning of her bowed head has been a matter of debate since the relief's excavation from the Acropolis of Athens in 1888. As the conventional name suggests, many have taken the posture to indicate sadness or pensiveness, and thus to interpret the rectangular object on the viewer's right as a stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List of urban areas in the European Union, largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Classical Athens was a powerful Greek city-state, city-state. It was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, and the home of Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum (classical), Lyceum. It is widely referred to as the cradle of civilization, cradle of Western culture, Western civilization and the democracy#History, birthplace of democracy, larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. When a relief is carved into a flat surface of stone (relief sculpture) or wood ( relief carving), the field is actually lowered, leaving the unsculpted areas seeming higher. The approach requires a lot of chiselling away of the background, which takes a long time. On the other hand, a relief saves forming the rear of a subject, and is less fragile and more securely fixed than a sculpture in the round, especially one of a standing figure where the ankles are a potential weak point, particularly in stone. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be simply added to or raised up from the background. Monumental bronze relief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parian Marble
Parian marble is a fine-grained semi translucent pure-white and entirely flawless marble quarried during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea. It was highly prized by ancient Greeks for making sculptures. Some of the greatest masterpieces of ancient Greek sculpture were carved from Parian marble, including the '' Medici Venus'', the ''Venus de Milo'', and the ''Winged Victory of Samothrace''. The original quarries, which were used from the 6th century BC onwards, can still be seen on the north side of the island on the slopes of its central peak. The Parian's main rival in antiquity was Pentelic marble, which is also flawless white, albeit with a uniform, faint yellow tint that makes it shine with a golden hue under sunlight. It is today mined mostly on the neighbour island of Paros, Naxos, in the mountains near the village of Kinidaros. Parian ware is an artificial substitute for marble, originally a brand name for a variety of unglazed biscuit po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acropolis Museum
The Acropolis Museum ( el, Μουσείο Ακρόπολης, ''Mouseio Akropolis'') is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. It also lies over the ruins of part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens. The museum was founded in 2003 while the Organization of the Museum was established in 2008. It opened to the public on 20 June 2009. More than 4,250 objects are exhibited over an area of 14,000 square metres. History The first museum was on the Acropolis; it was completed in 1874 and underwent a moderate expansion in the 1950s. However, successive excavations on the Acropolis uncovered many new artifacts which significantly exceeded its original capacity. An additional motivation for the construction of a new museum was that in the past, when Greece made requests f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as ''Polias'' and ''Poliouchos'' (both derived from '' polis'', meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corinthian Helmet
The Corinthian helmet originated in ancient Greece and took its name from the city-state of Corinth. It was a helmet made of bronze which in its later styles covered the entire head and neck, with slits for the eyes and mouth. A large curved projection protected the nape of the neck. Out of combat, a Greek hoplite would wear the helmet tipped upward for comfort. This practice gave rise to a series of variant forms in Italy, where the slits were almost closed, since the helmet was no longer pulled over the face but worn cap-like. Although the classical Corinthian helmet fell out of use among the Greeks in favour of more open types, the Italo-Corinthian types remained in use until the 1st century AD, being used, among others, by the Roman army. Physical evidence Apparently (judging from artistic and archaeological evidence) the most popular helmet during the Archaic and early Classical periods, the style gradually gave way to the more open Thracian helmet, Chalcidian hel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peplos
A peplos ( el, ὁ πέπλος) is a body-length garment established as typical attire for women in ancient Greece by circa 500 BC, during the late Archaic and Classical period. It was a long, rectangular cloth with the top edge folded down about halfway, so that what was the top of the rectangle was now draped below the waist, and the bottom of the rectangle was at the ankle. One side of the peplos could be left open, or pinned or sewn together.Ancient Greek Dress ''Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History'', , 2000-2013. Retrieved 7 October 2013. In Latin and in a Roman context, it could be called a '' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acropolis Of Athens
The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. The word '' acropolis'' is from the Greek words (''akron'', "highest point, extremity") and (''polis'', "city"). The term acropolis is generic and there are many other acropoleis in Greece. During ancient times the Acropolis of Athens was known also more properly as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the supposed first Athenian king. While there is evidence that the hill was inhabited as far back as the fourth millennium BC, it was Pericles (c. 495–429 BC) in the fifth century BC who coordinated the construction of the buildings whose present remains are the site's most important ones, including the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. The Parthenon and the other buildings were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stele
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), when derived from Latin, is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on the battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erichthonius Of Athens
In Greek mythology, King Erichthonius (; grc, , Erikhthónios) was a legendary early ruler of ancient Athens. According to some myths, he was autochthonous (born of the soil, or Earth) and adopted or raised by the goddess Athena. Early Greek texts do not distinguish between him and Erechtheus, his grandson, but by the fourth century BC, during Classical times, they are distinct figures. Etymology Erichthonius of uncertain etymology is possibly related to a pre-Greek form *''Erekteu-''. The connection of with ἐρέχθω, "shake" is a late folk-etymology; other folk-etymologies include , ''erion'', "wool" or ''eris'', "strife"+ ''chthôn or chthonos'', "earth". Mythology Birth According to the '' Bibliotheca'', Athena visited the smith-god Hephaestus to request some weapons, but Hephaestus was so overcome by desire that he tried to seduce her in his workshop. Determined to maintain her virginity, Athena fled, pursued by Hephaestus. He caught Athena and tried to rape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
5th-century BC Greek Sculptures
The 5th century is the time period from 401 ( CDI) through 500 ( D) ''Anno Domini'' (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar. The 5th century is noted for being a period of migration and political instability throughout Eurasia. It saw the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, which came to an end in 476 AD. This empire had been ruled by a succession of weak emperors, with the real political might being increasingly concentrated among military leaders. Internal instability allowed a Visigoth army to reach and ransack Rome in 410. Some recovery took place during the following decades, but the Western Empire received another serious blow when a second foreign group, the Vandals, occupied Carthage, capital of an extremely important province in Africa. Attempts to retake the province were interrupted by the invasion of the Huns under Attila. After Attila's defeat, both Eastern and Western empires joined forces for a final assault on Vandal North Africa, but this campaign was a sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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