Ancient Greek Art and Archaeology

This article discusses the Arcadian nymph Anthrakia, whom Pausanias saw sculpted upon a table in the sanctuary of the Great Goddesses in Megalopolis and on the altar of Athena Alea in Tegea. Anthrakia is known only from these two monuments, where she appeared among other nymphs who attended the infant Zeus after his birth in Arcadia. On the
Megalopolitan table, she held a torch, and her name (< ἄνθραξ: “charcoal”) and iconography have prompted several interpretations. For example, her torch has been understood as a reference to the dark cave where Zeus was born, or as indicative of an ancient ritual performed after birth, while her name has suggested a connection with mountain sources of charcoal. I suggest that Anthrakia is in fact the nymph of the lignite (brown coal) deposits in the Megalopolis Basin, which since 1969 have been mined by Greece’s Public Power Company S.A. (Δημόσια Επιχείρηση Ηλεκτρισμού A.E., or ΔΕΗ) for the production of electricity. As such, I posit that she served to represent the neighborhood of the newly founded city of Megalopolis in the Arcadian tradition of Zeus’ nativity. The article concludes by discussing the further potential religious implications of a nymph associated with this geological formation, as well as the possibility of early fossil fuel use in southwestern Arcadia.

The proposed paper will focus on Manuel Gabalas’  Homeric works and 200 Chapters. Homeric gods are interpreted as mental and psychological forces and activities (e.g., prudence, reason, internal dialogue), which influence Odysseus’ behaviour. Gabalas further interprets polytheism to manifestations of a singular divine entity, akin to the Christian Godhead. In this way, Gabalas emphasizes human freedom and moral accountability.

Second preliminary workshop The second preliminary Greek Pottery Workshop falls within the program of the international colloquium project dedicated to the study of 8 th and 7 th century BC Greek ceramics in Southern Italy and Sicily. This project has the ambition to critically reexamine current horizons of both Greek and Italian archaeological researches in this field. To reach this aim, the two preliminary workshops are focused on defining the main issues and on selecting an accurate archaeological documentary sources for presentation at the final colloquium to be held at Centre Jean Berard de Naples in 2025 and organised by Mario Denti and Jean-Christophe Sourisseau, in collaboration with Lou De Barbarin and Josipa Mandić.

Dans les Troyennes d’Euripide, une formulation condense l’ambiguïté de Cassandre : « σ’ Ἀπόλλων ἐξεϐάκχευεν φρένας » (« Apollon faisait entrer ton esprit dans des transports bachiques » v. 408). L’inspiration par Apollon prend chez ce personnage des atours dionysiaques mais, dans la réception de cette pièce au XVIe siècle, le paradoxe de la formule disparaît.
L’objectif de cette contribution sera de réfléchir aux raisons qui peuvent expliquer, dans la réception de cette pièce, l’effacement de Dionysos et à l’inverse la mise en avant d’Apollon aux côtés de la Cassandre euripidéenne, ce qui nous amènera à avancer des hypothèses sur les valeurs attribuées à ces deux dieux au XVIe s. Pour ce faire, nous livrerons une analyse comparée de leur influence sur Cassandre dans ces textes dont l’hétérogénéité permet d’observer les stratégies des auteurs selon qu’ils proposent une œuvre érudite (traductions latines) ou poétique (traduction française d’Amyot, réécriture de Garnier). À partir d’un contexte précis, celui d’un personnage de tragédie, complété par le recours aux notices des dictionnaires érudits de l’époque, il s’agira de cerner les valeurs prédominantes accordées à ces deux divinités. Pourquoi Dionysos est-il devenu inadéquat à qualifier le comportement de Cassandre alors même que les bacchantes sont devenues dans la tragédie de l’époque un trope poétique pour caractériser les personnages pris de fureur ?
La présentation cherchera donc à affronter un triple enjeu : linguistique, dans les potentialités des langues latine et française pour rendre les realia grecques ; culturel, avec les conséquences de la disparition de la valeur cultuelle du dionysisme et la prédominance du dieu latin Bacchus ; littéraire, avec l’importance des traductions dans la sédimentation des images des dieux au XVIe s.

This paper investigates cases of anomalous aerial phenomena, abductions, and mysterious technologies depicted in ancient Greek mythology from a twenty-first century perspective, and in view of their commonality with occurrences observed worldwide and documented as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. The interdisciplinary approach aims to show that the descriptions of aerial phenomena and advanced technologies in ancient Greek myths are not solely the products of imagination but, perhaps, the rudimentary accounts of empirical observation of historical events expressed in a context of limited understanding of science and technology. The main themes of Classical Greek mythology are discussed, and their relation to the religious beliefs of the period. Key elements in the myth of The Abduction of Europe, and the myth of The Golden Fleece, point to the nation-building component of the ancient Greek mythical aerial phenomena.

Un maître de la Renaissance s’est inspiré de l’œuvre d’un grand artiste de l’Antiquité, reconnaissant un procédé utilisé par ce dernier en secret et le réutilisant presque deux millénaires plus tard avec une égale réserve. Cette opération est d’autant plus singulière qu’elle n’a pas été réalisée avec la même technique, ni dans le même genre : dans l’Antiquité, ce procédé a été appliqué à la sculpture et à l’époque moderne à la peinture, les deux maîtres en question étant Lysippe et Léonard. Ce qui est surprenant, c’est la similitude des intentions de l’artiste toscan et du bronzier grec, qui adoptent la même méthode pour obtenir un résultat identique et très original : tromper l’œil et l’esprit en montrant ce qui ne peut exister dans la nature, mais que l’ingéniosité des deux maîtres a rendu vraisemblable et crédible, au mépris de toutes les conventions et de tous les canons de beauté. Le résultat dans l’œuvre des deux artistes est la création de physionomies illu-soires, chimériques, dont la nature fantastique était jusqu’à présent restée cachée. Dans le corpus de Léonard, cela se voit dans les visages de la Monna Vanna, du Bacchus et du Saint Jean-Baptiste : ce sont de pures illusions, car elles ne sont pas, et ne pour-raient pas être, une représentation réaliste des traits d’un quelconque modèle, malgré la thèse répandue qui voit dans les deux figures masculines l’image de Salaì.

La redécouverte des sanctuaires grecs à travers l'étude du fonds Carl Haller von Hallerstein conservé à la Bnu de Strasbourg The rediscovery of Greek sanctuaries through the study of the Carl Haller von Hallerstein collection (Strasbourg-Bnu) STRASBOURG, Misha (Campus Universitaire) et Bnu (Salle du Conseil) 29 JUIN-1 JUILLET 2022 Organisation : D. Lefèvre-Novaro, C. Lorentz, M. Schlachter, C. Voisin. ITI Histoire, sociologie, archéologie et anthropologie des religions (HiSAAR) AXE 4 : « Pratiques rituelles : gestes, objets et représentations » MERCREDI 29 juin-Salle de visioconférence (Collège Doctoral Européen) 9 h 15 : Accueil des participants 9 h 30 : Daniela Lefèvre-Novaro (Unistra), Mot de bienvenu et introduction à l'école d'été

The present contribution focuses on extraordinary features with human remains of the 4 th century BC which have been discovered to the west of the core city area of Olbia Pontica. There are numerous multiple burials within former settlement structures. The deceased were put in them without any grave goods, mainly in irregular positions and in some cases with obvious traces of external violence. Based on the archaeological finding, which is presented here for the first time exhaustively, we review the suggestion of previous research: a possible connection of these features with human remains with the siege of the city by the Macedonian general Zopyrion, which has been recorded in literature.

Ancient Greek art is primarily concerned with the anthropomorphic. Idealized bodies of the human and the divine are central to every image, and it is through corporal interactions that narratives are told and responses evoked. Yet the primacy of the figural should not imply that the non-figural is unnecessary or expendable. Greek artists were fully aware of the potency of non-figural symbols for the enrichment of the pictorial worlds they created, and such symbols that could oscillate between the purely decorative to the narratively vital shape content and context more than most previous scholarship has recognized.
My research engages with a large group of such symbols – architectural elements that feature in scenes of worship, daily life, and mytho-history – to parse their visual and semiotic functions within the framework of the highly coded yet simultaneously innovative medium of vase painting. Through images that reflect both traditional and singular instances of sacred structures as conceived by Greek artists, my talk will aim to demonstrate the multivalent roles architecture assumes in images and what this may reveal to us about the processes behind the creation of visual language.

The purpose of this work is to study fourteen ancient sundials from in-situ measurements and discuss the significance and importance of time measurements in antiquity. The time measuring marble devices have been found in Attica, Greece (at National Archaeological Museum, Piraeus Museum, Stoa of Attalos at the Athens Agora, Epigraphical Museum of Athens). These sundials date from the Hellenistic and Roman period. Two of them still have the original gnomons. Six out of fourteen are preserved in good condition; the others are fragments of the original sundials. Detailed in-situ measurements along their present-day hour lines and curves (solstices and equinoxes) are taken. The methodology followed is based on Gibbs&#39; methodology for south-facing conical sundials with slightly modifications/alterations depending on the present-day grid of lines and curves of the sundials. Conclusions about their geographical latitude of operation and their accuracy construction are drawn.

Една от причините за по-ниските добиви от слънчоглед е липсата на устойчивост към стресовите фактори от биотичен и абиотичен характер. В групата на биотичните фактори се отнасят голям брой гъбни заболявания, които са от икономическо значение за страната ни. Основните за България болести, намаляващи добива и влошаващи качеството на слънчог-АГРОТЕХНОЛОГИИ И ЗАЩИТА НА РАСТЕНИЯТА

Cette publication fait suite à la journée d'études du 6 décembre 2020, organisée par l'Université de Rouen Normandie (Groupe de recherches d'Histoire/Grhis). Le projet avait été conçu initialement avec Dominique Boutet, professeur de linguistique à l'Université de Rouen, disparu prématurément cette même année. Cette publication lui est dédiée. Ouvrage publié sous forme numérique et en libre accès, avec le soutien de l'Université de Rouen Normandie (Grhis) et de l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Cehta), et un remerciement tout particulier à Giovanni Careri.

Full Citation:

Farinholt Ward, A., C. Marconi, and D. Scahill. 2023. "New Evidence for Seventh Century Perishable Building Materials from Selinunte", In C. Previato and J. Bonetto (eds.), Terra, legno e materiali deperibili nell’architettura antica. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Padova, 3-5 Giugmo 2021), 321-335, Edizioni Quasar: Rome.


RIASSUNTO

Gli scavi nel principale santuario urbano di Selinunte, promossi dall’Institute of Fine Arts della New York University e dall’Università degli Studi di Milano, in collaborazione con il locale Parco Archeologico, hanno portato alla luce testimonianze della prima architettura dell’insediamento.

Negli strati ben conservati, precedenti al Tempio R dell’inizio del VI secolo, che costituisce il primo esempio a Selinunte di struttura monumentale con un alzato interamente in pietra squadrata, sono state trovate tracce di fango, paglia e altri materiali da costruzione deperibili. Grazie alle scoperte effettuate tra il 2009 e il 2019, è possibile attribuire questi resti a due strutture del VII secolo realizzate nell’arco di una generazione a partire dalla fondazione dell’insediamento.

Pur costituendo un’importante testimonianza delle prime pratiche costruttive di Selinunte, la comprensione della funzione di queste strutture e del loro rapporto con il Tempio R richiede ulteriori considerazioni. Un paradigma di lunga data nello studio dell’architettura sacra greca vedrebbe queste strutture come predecessori del Tempio R e come prova della continuità cultuale. Occorre prestare attenzione nell’applicare questo paradigma alle nuove scoperte, da un lato per le specificità del contesto greco occidentale, dall’altro per una più ampia rivalutazione delle strutture considerate “predecessori” nella Grecia continentale.

Dopo una panoramica sulle evidenze archeologiche relative all’uso dei materiali deperibili nel VII secolo all’interno del settore meridionale del principale santuario urbano di Selinunte, proponiamo un approccio olistico all’identificazione delle strutture più antiche nei santuari dei Greci d’Occidente, che unisca lo studio architettonico a un’attenta considerazione delle attività rituali associate. L’identificazione del rituale costituisce infatti il modo più sicuro per collegare i primi santuari costruiti con materiali deperibili con i loro successori monumentali realizzati in pietra.

ABSTRACT

Excavations in the main urban sanctuary of Selinunte, sponsored by the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University and the University of Milan in collaboration with the local Archaeological Park, have uncovered evidence for the settlement’s earliest architecture.

In well-preserved strata predating the early-sixth century Temple R, itself the first example at Selinunte of a monumental structure with an entirely ashlar stone elevation, traces of mud, straw, and other perishable building materials were found. Thanks to discoveries made between 2009 and 2019, we can attribute these remains to two seventh century structures made within a generation of the settlement’s foundation.

While crucial evidence for Selinunte’s early construction practices, understanding the function of these structures and their relationship to Temple R requires further consideration. A longstanding paradigm in the study of Greek sacred architecture would see these structures as predecessors to Temple R and evidence for cultic continuity. Some care must be taken in applying this paradigm to new discoveries, due in part to concerns unique to the Western Greek context, as well as a broader reassessment of “predecessor” structures in mainland Greece.

Following a review of the archaeological evidence for the use of perishable materials in the seventh century within the area of Selinunte’s main urban sanctuary, we argue for a holistic approach to the identification of predecessors structures in western Greek sanctuaries, which weds architectural study with careful consideration of associated ritual activities, the identification of ritual habits being the surest way of linking predecessors built of perishable materials with their monumental stone successors.

In his Samian logos Herodotus emphasizes the successful ambitions of
the tyrant Polycrates in attaining control of the Aegean during his reign in the last half of the sixth century BCE. He achieved this extraordinary success with one hundred penteconters—fifty-oared ships—and is given credit for being the first Greek thalassocrat. This paper examines what resources were necessary, in general, to pull off such a feat. Using Polycrates’ Samos as a case study reveals that a penteconter fleet was a very expensive endeavor in terms of resources and manpower. But the fleet of Polycrates, probably composed, at least in part, of a
special design called the samaina, is illustrative of the fact that the penteconter went through a number of innovations in the Archaic period to facilitate its usefulness as a ship-of-the-line and cemented its popularity to the extent that it continued in use, in various iterations, for centuries.

J'ai publié dans cet ouvrage collectif "Le cosmisme russe est-il un transhumanisme ?".
Voici le plan de l'article :
Introduction
I Que veut le cosmisme ?
II Le cosmisme et la crise scientifique du début du XXe siècle
III Cosmisme contre totalitarisme
Conclusion : la "surhumanité" plutôt que le transhumain

The purpose of this work is to study fourteen ancient sundials from in-situ measurements and discuss the significance and importance of time measurements in antiquity. The time measuring marble devices have been found in Attica, Greece (at National Archaeological Museum, Piraeus Museum, Stoa of Attalos at the Athens Agora, Epigraphical Museum of Athens). These sundials date from the Hellenistic and Roman period. Two of them still have the original gnomons. Six out of fourteen are preserved in good condition; the others are fragments of the original sundials. Detailed in-situ measurements along their present-day hour lines and curves (solstices and equinoxes) are taken. The methodology followed is based on Gibbs' methodology for south-facing conical sundials with slightly modifications/alterations depending on the present-day grid of lines and curves of the sundials. Conclusions about their geographical latitude of operation and their accuracy construction are drawn.

Alexandre Dumas multiplie les mises en scene romanesques ou ses personnages s’evadent en reve de leurs devoirs. Mais « tout songe est mensonge », c’est-a-dire illusion. Toute une poetique s’exhume des fictions, ou tantot le reve est eveille, menant le lecteur sur le chemin de la pensee philosophique, tantot il est provoque par un narcotique puissant qui conduit les heros dans des mondes transfigures. Et parfois le reve devient cauchemar indicible qui s’etale sur la page qu’ecrit le romancier.

A statue found in the Corinth Theater represents a woman wearing a chitoniskos, cross-strap, belt, and high boots. Although the sculpture was first identified as Artemis, its identification is problematic because no other sculpture of the same type is known. Examination of its attributes suggests, rather, that it depicts an Amazon. The statue was also at first believed to be a copy of a Greek bronze of the second half of the fifth century, but close scrutiny of its stance, proportions, and style indicate that it is more likely to be a Roman Classical creation than a variant of a Greek original. Much about the piece is Roman in conception. A date in the first half of the second century A.D. and a location in the peristyle court adjoining the Corinth Theater are argued* During the course of the 1929 excavations in the Corinth Theater conducted by T. Leslie Shear, an over-life-size statue of a woman, complete except for the head and arms, emerged in a remarkably good state of preservation (figs. 1-6).' This statue, which represents a young woman dressed in a chitoniskos, would have formed part of the decoration of the Corinth Theater and related courts in the second century A.D. Since its presentation in Shear's preliminary excavation report in AJA and a subsequent notice in Gnomon by De Waele, the sculpture has gone largely unnoticed, despite its good condition, its continuous display in the Corinth Archaeological Museum, and its high artistic quality.2 The * Study of this sculpture was supported by grants from the Research Council of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I particularly wish to thank Charles K. Williams, II, Director of the Corinth Excavations, for permission to study the Corinth Theater sculptures and for his general assistance, and also Nancy Bookidis, Assistant Director. In addition, I am grateful to the Greek Ministry of Culture, in particular the Ephor of Antiquities of the Argolid and Corinthia, P. Pachyianni, and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, under whose auspices this work was carried out; to Brunilde S. Ridgway, Nancy Bookidis, and Gerhard Koeppel for careful reading of drafts of this paper; to Evelyn Harrison, Olga Palagia, and Alan Shapiro for helpful comments; to Giorgios Despinis for inspiration on several points; to Susan Rutter for bibliographic checking; to AJA's anonymous readers for their insightful comments; and to numerous students who have responded kindly to having this subject impressed upon them. All misconceptions are my own. The recent Corinth photographs (figs. 1-4, 6) are by I. Ioannidou and L. Bartzioti. The following abbreviations are used: Bieber 1961 M. Bieber, History of the Greek and Roman Theater2 (Princeton 1961). Bieber 1977 M. Bieber, Ancient Copies (New York 1977). Boardman J. Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases. The Classical Period (London 1989). Felletti Maj B. Maria Felletti Maj, Museo Nazionale Romano. I ritratti (Rome 1953). Harrison E.B. Harrison, "Two Pheidian Heads: Nike and Amazon," in D. Kurtz and B. Sparkes eds., The Eye of Greece, Studies in the Art of Athens (Cambridge 1982) 53-88.

In the last half-dozen years, the early fifth-century BC ‘Classical Revolution’ in Greek sculpture and painting has become ‘hot’ again. Did it develop gradually, incrementally, and logically out of the Archaic, or emerge quite suddenly (if so, when?), or involve some combination of both? This article critically re-examines the archaeological and textual evidence for its emergence. Offprints in PDF form for personal use only may be obtained from [email protected].

This volume offers a collection of essays dealing with the material and immaterial (metaphorical) reuse of Greek art in Roman times from various perspectives. Originating from the fruitful exchange and collaboration among the research teams hosted at the Laboratorio di Storia Archaeologia Epigrafia e Tradizione dell’Antico and further encouraged by the lively atmosphere of the seminar of Classical Archaeology at the Scuola Normale Superiore, this book project was spurred by the productive discussion and positive feedback received during the relevant dissemination activities in national and international venues. The first part of this book developed from the international conference Athena Nike della Fondazione Sorgente Group: un originale greco a Roma, held at the Scuola Normale Superiore in April 2014. The second part resulted from the session “Nobilia opera? Re-staging Greek Artworks in Roman Contexts: New Approaches and Perspectives” presented at the 25th Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, held in Leicester in March 2015. The common thread of the volume is the reuse of Greek artworks in Roman times from an object-oriented and cultural-historical perspective, taking into account the “history” or “biography” of the artworks as a whole. The metaphor of “restaging” highlights the interest in the transformation of artworks and their contexts over time and space.
--
(with G. Adornato – I.B. Romano – G. Cirucci) Restaging Greek Artworks in Roman Times. With an Afterword by C.H. Hallett (Archeologia e Arte antica), LED - Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto, Milano, 2018. ISBN 978-88-7916-832-8.

This material is under copyright. Any use outside of the narrow boundaries of copyright law is illegal and may be prosecuted. This applies in particular to copies, translations, microfilming as well as storage and processing in electronic systems.

This article briefly presents some of the author’s research on art in archaeology. Drawing on previously published works, the text reviews the general problems of art research in archaeology before focusing on investigations of prehistoric and ancient figurines, anthropomorphisation in ancient Greece, and figural motifs in Attic Geometric pottery.

This text consists of an interpretive essay about the meaning(s) of the “mirror” as an object in Mainland and Aegean Greece (in contrast to Western/Colonial Greece), based on iconography. I take into consideration two distinct repertoires of images: the paintings of Attic vases (late sixth – early fourth century B.C.) and the figurative decoration on the mirrors themselves, in relief or engraved (late fifth – early third century B.C.). The central focus of the analysis is the iconography registered on mirrors produced in the four main manufacturing centers of Greece (Athens, Corinth, Chalcis, Ionia). Greeks produced three types of mirrors between Late Archaic and Early Hellenistic times: hand-mirrors with handle, table mirrors with stand, and round box mirrors, the latter being the most important to this study. Box mirrors may bear iconography on their folding cover, in relief on the external surface (repoussé) or engraved on the interior surface. In contrast to the iconography of t...

The marble fragment Inv. BE 132 of the Archaeological Museum of Thebes comes from Thebes itself. It is a fragment from the lower part of a grave stele together with its left side, preserving part of the left shin of a male figure wearing a long himation (figs 1-3). Comparisons with parallels especially from Athens, where the theme first appeared before spreading to Ionia and the Cyclades, permit a valid reconstruction of the male figure in himation (fig. 7). This is the first known one-figure stele in Boeotia representing a man in a long himation, since on the slightly earlier Thespian stele of Gathon and Aristokrates (fig. 4) the man in a long himation is depicted in the background. The fragment under discussion should be dated to the end of the 6th or the very beginnings of the 5th century BC. Its high quality suggests an Athenian artist.

The present contribution deals with a marble fragment catalogued in the Inventory of the Sculpture Collection of the National Archaeological Museum under Nr. 3181. It represents three relief divine figures: two males and a female (Figs 1-3). The young male figure is identified with certainty as Hermes, while the mature one as Zeus or Poseidon. The female figure at the centre is in all probability Hestia. The fragment with the three figures constitutes a quadrant of a cylindrical altar (Fig. 4), whose relief representation would include twelve (Dr. 4). Subsequently the iconographic subject of the altar would be the Dodecatheon, with the twelve gods depicted in pairs. Stylistic criteria date the altar, to which the fragment NAM Inv. Nr. 3181 belonged, to the last twenty years of the 4th century B.C. Its provenance from Attica can be considered safe.

The article is devoted to the attribution of a golden finger ring with the image of a beardless nude youth with a diadem on his head and two wreaths – each in every hand, lowered down, on the bezel. The finger ring was found in 2018 in a room made of mud bricks (sanctuary
no. 835) under the stone foundation of a temple in Phanagoria. Both the shape of the ring and the style of the image on its bezel leave no doubt about the dating of the ring to the Late Archaic period, most likely around the turn of the 6th–5th centuries BC. The subject, presented on the ring’s bezel, is extremely rare and has practically no parallels in glyptics – in the items dated to the period under consideration, wreaths were most often depicted in the hands of Eros. Nevertheless, the parallels in the black-figure vase painting give reason to associate the image
of a naked, beardless young man in a diadem, with wreaths in lowered hands with motives of a pederastic circle or those associated with a symposium, rather than sports. in such an interpretation of a Greek piece of jewelry there is, in fact, nothing surprising, except that new facets of the life of the Greek population of the Late Archaic Phanagoria are revealed to us (in the event that the first version of interpretation is correct).

Ο Χριστιανισμός προκειμένου να διαδοθεί ο λόγος του σε ευρύτερα τμήματα του πληθυσμού της τότε Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας, χρησιμοποίησε και τις καλές, λεγόμενες, τέχνες. Αρχιτεκτονική, ποίηση, λογοτεχνία, μουσική, ζωγραφική, ακόμα και η γλυπτική, αποτέλεσαν τα «όπλα» με τα οποία διαδόθηκε η χριστιανική διδασκαλία στα πέρατα του τότε γνωστού κόσμου. Πρώτιστο μέλημα των ατόμωνφορέων αυτής τότε, η πνευματική μεταμόρφωση του ανθρώπου καθώς και η ηθική ανύψωσή του.

Monsters are one of the most mysterious and interesting feature of art. Every culture has its own legends and repertoire of mythical creatures, monsters and supernatural beasts. Those beings are incorporated into the visual representation of individual cultures. The art of the Achaemenid Empire is full of visual representations of mythical creatures of many shapes and forms. Winged bulls and ibexes, horned lions, griffins and beasts composed of various animals represent typical motives of Persian iconographical repertoire. Appearance of those beasts was influenced by Assyrian art, where the motives of demons are depicted especially on palace reliefs. Bodies of these beings consist of mixture of animals: lions, bulls and birds of prey. Achaemenid art is full of creatures, which bear anthropomorphic features. Winged sphinx with lion bodies or bulls with human heads, which is definitely inspired by Mesopotamian art, are examples of many representatives of this group of iconographical motives.

in the paper the finds of terracotta figurines from the excavations of the hellenistic settlement of Maslyny in north-western taurica (excavations by V. o. latysheva) are analyzed. the terracotta collection contains striking specimens of ancient coroplastic. the figurines illustrate the religious life of the population, including the worship of cults of a family nature. all terracottas were found on the territory of the living and utility homesteads of the settlement. Most of the figurines are located in a room at the south tower, which, according to the interior and related material, had several functions. other statuettes were also found in the non-ordinary rooms and this text also indicates their cultic purpose. sanctuaries in rooms at the tower were known before at Chersonesos chora. such practice of private sanctuaries corresponds to the choice of the most prominent and extraordinary places for arranging public sanctuaries of polis. terracottas of eros thanatos, doves, and female figurines are connected with the cult of aphrodite. one of three erotes is decorated with red ribbons crossed on his chest. such adornment is peculiar for aphrodite images and not known on terracottas of this type. Protomes hanged on the wall and doves hanged to the ceiling, as well as female bust serving for a thymiaterion illustrate the variety of religious practices conducted by the habitants. a tympanon held by nike reminds of mystery cults.
opperman, M. 2007. Thraker, Griechen und Römmer an der Schwarzen Meeres. Mainz am rhein. Paslaru, i., Colesniuk, s. M., ionescu, M. 2014a. stratigraphic observations in the surroundings of the kallatis City. Callatida.Mangalia, p. 83-124. Paslaru, i., Colesniuk, s. M., ionescu, M. 2014b. research in the hellenistic district area in surroundings of the kallatis City. Callatida. Mangalia, p. 125-146.
robinson, d. M. 1952. Terracottas, Lamps, and Coins found in 1934 and 1938 (excavations at olynthus. Part XiV). Baltimore. smith, h. r. W. 1976. Funerary Symbolism in Apulian VasePainting (ed. by J. k. anderson). Berkeley-los angeles. thür, h. 2009. die spätantike Bauphase der kuretestraße. Efeso paleocristiana e Bizantina. Frühchristliches und Byzantinisches Ephesos. Wien, s. 104-120. Надійшла 10.09.2019
ISSN 0235-3490 (Print), ISSN 2616-499X (Online). Археологія, 2019, № 338
the remains of ivy wreath on a tanagra type figurine and a tympanum in the hands of nika remind of dionysus cult. the figurines are dated, according to the general chronology of the site, not earlier than the third quarter of 4th—3rd c. BC. some statuettes were made in tauric Chersonesos, where similar cults are traced during the hellenistic period. terracottas from Maslyny settlement find the closest analogies at the sites of the north-western Black sea region, including olbia and Callatis. this fact allows tracing the relation between tauric Chersonesos and that region.

It is widely attested that the perioikoi and helots were an important component of the Lakedaimonian army and fought alongside the Spartans especially during the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars. The current study offers a new perspective on the importance of non-Spartans in the Lakedaimonian army by examining the weapon dedications from Laconian sanctuaries and by reviewing the location and importance of forts and fortifications near or at perioikic poleis. It argues that on the basis of finds from Laconian sanctuaries and of the military realities, the use and presence of archers in the Lakedaimonian army should be re-evaluated.

Notre compréhension de l’imagerie antique n’étant pas immédiate, l’identification de certaines scènes ou figures représentées est parfois problématique, en particulier en l’absence de codes iconographiques ou textuels univoques. Nous prendrons pour exemples deux en-têtes de traités d’alliance athéniens de la première moitié du IVe siècle avant notre ère entre Athènes et Corcyre d’une part et Athènes et quatre cités et territoires du Péloponnèse d’autre part. La composition des scènes de ces deux bas-reliefs est en effet similaire, pourtant l’identification de deux figures diffère : dans un cas il s’agirait de Zeus et d’Héra, dans l’autre, de personnifications de la cité de Corcyre ou du Péloponnèse et du Dèmos. Par ces deux exemples, nous illustrerons la complexité de l’articulation de ce type de représentation avec l’inscription qui y est associée, en interrogeant les critères de représentation et d’identification de figures de divinités ou de personnifications. Une étude plus poussée du geste du voile adopté par le personnage féminin central, dont l’identité est en question, permet ainsi une véritable lecture idéologique de ces documents, du côté de ce qu’on appellera une « scène de mariage diplomatique ».