Category Archives: Culture

Centuries ago, from every corner of the Mediterranean, people traveled to Greece to get answers about their life and future by the Oracle of Delphi. It was there that the god Apollo, through different women named Pythia chosen by local priests, sent his messages to those who needed them… as well as to those who could afford them. This was how it happened for the 12 centuries the oracle was active.

Delphi, along with Olympia and Nemea, was considered an inter-urban sanctuary but also a pan-Hellenic sanctuary: “they were located away from major cities, although they were under the administrative control of their nearby city-states or amphictyonies, they had an aura of neutrality”.

While at least four temples were built for Apollo at Delphi, there were many more around the ancient Mediterranean world. In fact, Delphi was not even the only ancient city with an oracle, however it was one of the most significant.

While the oracle was active, wealthy people and leaders from different territories occasionally paid to get to the front of the line to see the oracle. Indeed, there are records that state that the Pythia was sometimes forced to take her position on the tripod by the temple priests in order to satisfy rich clients.

At Delphi, there were always a lot of people waiting in line to see it. We know about them because the ones who paid a lot of money are immortalized in stone inscriptions.

Interestingly, these aren’t the only stone inscriptions… Despite wars, the rise and fall of different empires, two messages still survive to this day on the entrance of the temple: “Know thyself” and “Nothing too much”.

According to some records, the oracle delivered its pronouncements on an annual basis; the day chosen for the event was the seventh day of Bysios, Apollo’s birthday.

Other records state that nine times each year the woman went to the tripod, initiated the trance state, and gave Apollo a voice to deliver his messages. These sessions were held on the seventh day after each new moon in spring, summer, and fall. It did not occur during winter because Apollo was believed to have gone north to the land of the Hyperboreans (giants who lived “beyond the North Wind”).

The Pythia was always a woman from Delphi, regardless of her age or social class. While she was serving as oracle, she lived in the sanctuary, abstained from sexual activity, and fasted on or before the days scheduled for oracular sessions.

During days of oracle activity, the Pythia would initially be brought by priests of the temple from a private residence and led through a series of purification and religious rituals before her performance. Eventually she was led down into the inner sanctum of the temple (the adyton).

Rulers and wealthy citizens of the known world (as well as famous philosophers) made the journey to this mountainous site to make the most important decisions of their lives… and the lives of those around them. Indeed, war and peace were determined by these messages.

The Pythia delivered their oracles on a tripod over the cleft in the ground of Apollo’s temple, which was constructed around 800 BCE on Mount Parnassus. Over the years different women would take on the sacred role and pronounce their prophecies, but they were always inspired by the same vapors.

For centuries, different researchers underestimated the theory of the cleft and vapors because they couldn’t find any geological indicators that led them to their location. However, ancient writers such as Plutarch, Homer or Euripides described the vapors and modern studies are finally validating their reports. Evidence from a chemical analyses of water samples and travertine deposits in the adyton have shown that the springs on site have in the past and continue at present to emit small volumes of hydrocarbon gases.

The Oracle started its decline in late Hellenistic and early Roman times. In 389 CE, Theodosius I started persecutions against Old Religion and prohibited the cult of Apollo and the celebration of the Pythian games in honor of Apollo. In 391 CE, Christianity was the exclusive state religion and older temples were closed.

Even though temples were shut down and the oracle was “silenced”, splendid structures still stand today, preserving the magnificent, if not fantastic, history of the Pythia and the Oracle of Delphi.

It easily falls into the ‘conspiracy’ category – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fun story to tell.

We are all taught that empires rise and fall and that every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt were no exception. The year was 1336 BC and the Egyptian Pharaoh, Akhenaten, had just died.

Akhenaten was a strange Pharaoh who shook many of the essential foundations of Ancient Egyptian culture. For one thing, Akhenaten was a monotheist. He only believed in Aten, a Ra-like sun God, a fact that drives some scholars to debate whether he is a founding father of judaism.

Akhenaten was also a romantic, conferring unusual, elevated status to his wife, the famed beauty Nefertiti. He also may have had a strange syndrome or disability which he passed on to his children… something that may have resulted in the early death of his son, Tutankhamun or King Tut.

One the strangest things about Akhenaten though, was that he changed the way art was done in those ancient days. He shunned the rigid rules that maintained 3000 years of artistic stability. Depictions became more naturalistic, especially of plants, animals and commoners. They showed a sense of movement and action.

The royals too were depicted differently. Instead of showing the Pharaoh as god-like, immobile and eternal, the artists began producing tender images of him. He is drawn playing with his daughters beneath the rays of the Aten, while showing his wife affection. The lines surrounding the king are soft and curved. The hard straight features of the previous pharaohs are banished.

But then Akhenaten, the man who is considered “the first individual in history”, died.

Change at first was gradual, but eventually all the reformations faded away and returned to the previous, traditional way of doing things. The time referred to as the ‘Amarna period’ came to an end.

But what happened to all those artists who had just tasted creative freedom? The return to regulation meant the end of artistic liberalism. Did they stay in Egypt after the reversion to the mean? Or did they, perhaps, make their way up north, across the mediterranean?

Around this time, we start to see, for instance, the emergence of Etruscan hieroglyphics, in the land of the Minoans, a pre-Greek civilization.

Eventually, around 750 BC, we come to ‘Archaic’ Early Greek Art.

This time period is characterized by statues that are free standing, frontal and solid. They wear the strange, so-called archaic smile. One foot is placed forward, the fists are clenched. There are three types of figures, the standing nude youth (kouros), the standing draped girl (kore), and the seated woman. All of the different types of sculptures emphasize and generalize the essential features of the human figure.

Now these Greek statues look a lot like the Ancient Egyptian statues.

Of course this story of runaway sculptors, bringing an artistic renaissance and revolution to Ancient Greece, has a lot of holes. The time periods, for instance, are vastly contradictory. It is difficult to imagine keeping this new artistic approach alive for 500 years. The Ancient Greek Kouros also look more like the traditional Ancient Egyptian art, rather than the unique Akhenaten style.

So why did Ancient Egyptian-like statues start emerging in Ancient Greece? Could this just be a coincidence?

We, unfortunately, do not know. They are many other potential explanations, such as the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which was founded in the 6th century BC by Cyrus the Great. This huge empire, which encompassed approximately 8 million km and spanned three continents, would have brought Egypt and northern Greece, Macedonia, under the same umbrella.

The Achaemenid Persian empire also instituted infrastructures, such as road networks, a postal system, and an official language throughout its territories. It even had a bureaucratic administration which was centralized under the Emperor, as well as a large, professional army and civil services.

Maybe the famous Egyptian memorials made their way on these new found roads to Greece’s fledging shores. It is, after all, in this time period when the first Archaic sculptures start to appear.

Or maybe not. History is not an exact science. Dots that seem important might only stick out with hindsight, and connections between them weakened by improbabilities. All we do know, is that Early Greek art starts getting even more interesting from here on out.

—

“Walk Like an Egyptian: Early Greek Art” was written by Anya Leonard

The immense trade routes of the ancient world allowed for substantial amounts of wealth, knowledge, innovations and mythological tales to traverse vast distances. Cultures often adopted items and ideas from far-away lands and repurposed them for their own needs. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was a highly sought-after item in the Bronze Age (c. 3300 BC – 1200 BC) trade networks, imbued with divine significance and symbolism. 

Classicist R. Drew Griffith believes that lapis lazuli gained such an enchanting status due to its bright blue colour that mimicked the sky, the home of the gods: “brilliant by day, and deep blue flecked with stars by night” (Griffith, 2005:333). This view of lapis lazuli is identified throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt and Mesopotamian regions during the Bronze Age, but did this divine attribution appear independently across the cultures, or is lapis lazuli an example of how deeply trade networks can influence cultural hybridity and interconnectivity?

The name ‘lapis lazuli’ is an amalgamation of Latin and Persian meaning ‘blue stone’. The craftsmen who work with lapis to carve sculptures are deemed exceedingly skilled due to difficulties drawing out the aesthetic capacity amongst the abundant mineral impurities; these impurities are the cause of the characteristic ‘flecks’ amongst the deep blue.

The ancient market for lapis lazuli boomed in central Asia, the Persian Gulf, the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, and from here it then traversed through the ancient Near East to the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. Even before lapis reached these regions from where it was mined in the Badakhshan region (modern-day Afghanistan), some fifteen hundred miles away, it would have gathered a narrative connected to its journey.

Unfortunately, after the route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley crumbled, the complex societies in the Iran region disintegrated during the first half of the second millennium BC and lapis lazuli became a scarce, prestigious good.

Allegedly, lapis lazuli first reached Mesopotamia during the Ubaid period (c. 4500 – 3500 BC), when the region experienced an exponential increase in wealth and leisure time that state emergence had allowed. Furthermore, the development of an effective administration ensured that long-distance trade and close cultural relations were well-maintained.

The mountainous route from the Indus Valley and Iran to Sumer is sprinkled with evidence of lapis lazuli. However, the rich deposits are mostly restricted to cities, with the smaller settlements of the region only producing handfuls of the stone. This treacherous route was only open for half a year, meaning that import was difficult.

During the Ubaid period, lapis figurines were prominently connected to the voluptuous female, or bull figurines, which are often connected to divine representation. However, after a socio-political power shift saw wealth annexed from the northern states to more southerly sites, zoomorphic figurines became more prevalent indicating a slight disconnection from the divine.

At Ur, the inhabitants emphasized religious architecture during the earlier periods of construction. Excavations of the religious precinct Eanna III revealed a hoard of lapis lazuli. This find demonstrates a direct link to lapis used within divine portrayals and ideology.

Scholars propose that the statues of Ianna, and possibly the goddess herself, were made of lapis due to a descriptive line in the myth of her descent into the Underworld. Unfortunately, there is no archaeological evidence to prove this claim, but it is thought that the lapis statues were recycled at a later date.

Inanna (known as Ishtar to the Assyrians) is further connected to lapis lazuli through a tale involving the second king of the First Dynasty of Uruk, Enmerkar. The goddess bequeathed a quest upon him; search for semi-precious stones, including lapis lazuli. After the king had successfully completed the quest, the trade route from Iran to Mesopotamia reopened and the lapis economy thrived once more.

Excavations of the Royal Tombs of Ur have revealed a lapis lazuli bull figurine buried alongside a king, which is symbolic of kingship rites. Beside the king, lay his queen, who would have also been the high priestess. Amongst her grave goods, there were abundantly more lapis items than that of the king, which could indicate a strong link between lapis and the goddess Eanna through priestesses.

Below this royal family, another earlier grave housed a mosaic, named the ‘Standard of Ur’. The image is adorned with segments of lapis and portrays royalty and the divine manifestations of Peace and War. This indicates that lapis was used extensively in symbolising divine and kingship ideology. This notion is enhanced further by another mosaic found at the Ishtar temple at Mari, as well as rich evidence of lapis used in the gift exchange of royals.

For the early Mesopotamians, lapis symbolised status, both in divine and kingship realms. The Sumerian language links lapis lazuli, and its vibrant colour, to ‘the metal of the gods’, and remained a favoured material in the land between the rivers throughout its history. As the stone was traded to other regions, its significance to royalty and divinity journeyed with it.

Evidence of lapis lazuli use extends into the Pre-Dynastic period, although it was not very common. It disappears from the archaeological again during the 1st-3rd dynasties and is generally limited in Old Kingdom contexts, despite an Egyptian and western Asia trade route being well established by the 4^th millennium BC.

However, this break in lapis trade appears to mirror the one in Mesopotamia, demonstrating the far-reaching impact of a discontinued trade route in an age of cultural interconnectivity. Not to be deterred by the lack of lapis, the Egyptians were the first to attempt imitations of the gold-flecked stone.

The largest predynastic find was discovered in the Main Deposit of Hierakonpolis but the finds are thought to be a manufactured in foreign lands, imported from sites such as Zahi (the coast of Phoenicia), Retenu (Syria), Isy (Cyprus), Naharin (Mesopotamia), and Assur (Assyria).

During the Old Kingdom, lapis is often found with old, but rarely silver, within high-status graves, including royalty, indicating high value and possibly connections to divine ideology. This is affirmed by grave goods found in the tomb of Djer, where lapis figurines of Sekhmet and Anubis have been uncovered.

A set of feline figurines (part of Langton’s Cat Collection) dating to the Middle Kingdom emphasise a connection between cat-headed deities and lapis lazuli. It is unknown whether these figurines represent Bastet or Sekhmet. Nonetheless, both goddesses are important in the Egyptian pantheon and indicate that lapis lazuli was highly respected.

In Egyptian art, blue was frequently used to represent kings, divinity and even the dead, who were accorded great respect: “gods’ flesh to be gold and their hair lapis lazuli” (Griffith, 2005:332). The king of the afterlife, father to Horus and husband to Isis, Osiris, was said to be made of gold and lapis lazuli.

This connection to the king of the afterlife is potentially why lapis was used to adorn the funerary masks of Egyptian Pharoahs, who were often divine in their own right. The most famous of these is that of Tutankhamun. Many small zoomorphic statuettes are also carved from the stone, while others are made from other materials but feature inlaid lapis lazuli.

The use of lapis within heavily religious royal funerary rites specifically, indicates the high status this stone was accorded in Egypt. This ideology may have been passed on as it journeyed through Mesopotamia; for example, Babylon deemed lapis lazuli as a sacred stone and its terminology was often used in reference to divine hair, for example, the Moon gods’ beard being of lapis blue. 

During the pre-palatial period (or Final Neolithic) of Crete, there is minimal evidence for lapis lazuli, except at the site Koumasa. During the later Early Minoan and Middle Minoan era’s, the semi-precious stone was rarely used, despite the abundance of other prestigious items being imported from the East such as gold, ivory and other semi-precious stones. These exotic goods were frequently deposited by the elite within religious contexts, such as votive offerings on altars.

The limited use of lapis lazuli could indicate the regal and religious significance had not reached Crete by this time. Or, because Crete was only just emerging as a major player on the Bronze Age board, it could not afford such a prestigious item.

The latter could be the case, for the Minoans understood the symbolic power that lapis lazuli had – this is shown by its use within the fresco known as the Ladies in Blue. The expense of the stone could be linked to the extensive maritime effort required to gain it along with the difficulties of working the stone if the Cretan lapidary craftsmen were not yet capable of handling the material with the necessary expertise to bring out its aesthetic majesty.

However, the craftsmen were determined to join the lapis market and do it with style. A sarcophagus found on Crete shows a hybridization of Minoan and Mycenaean iconography and is inlaid with lapis lazuli. The use of a sarcophagus implies also Egyptian influence. As time went on, the Minoans incorporated more and more lapis into their high-value goods.

Artwork attributed to the Myceneans, found in Boetia, is the first evidence of lapis lazuli on mainland Greece. The fresco was created using a technique born in Crete; buon fresco or the use of water to mix pigments and then applying them to lime plaster. The site where this painting was found was a specialised administrative centre, not a palatial settlement, which evidences the use of lapis outside its divine or royal context.

Nonetheless, it is thought that the Egyptians had a heavy influence on the Mycenean culture, with the latter respecting the antiquity of the former. It was more likely that the Greeks gained their representations of the gods from the Egyptians, rather than Mesopotamia, despite a lot of the Grecian mythology coming from Asia Minor.

Within the Classical literature of Homer, blue hair is a frequent feature of gods or heroes, variously attached to the scalp, forehead or chin. He used it when speaking of Poseidon, Dionysus, Hades and even several female deities; Thetis, Nike, and Thebe.

It is a common misconception that Homer never uses the word blue in his Homeric Cycle. However, older translations failed to understand the Greek conception of colour. Dark blue in Greek is “kyaneos” (often simply translated as ‘dark’) and lighter blue is “glaukos” (often translated as grey, but is more of a grey-blue).

The Greeks understood the colour spectrum as having ‘brilliant and shining’, white, black, red and dark. Colours were often described via different routes and more inherent to the thing being described – like the wine sea, meaning that the sea was more a tinted, intoxicating liquid rather than implying a red sea.

Hector and Odysseus, famous heroes of the Trojan war, also have blue-related epithets attached to them. Homer also uses the term when speaking of Achilles’ shield, which holds a wealth of cosmological symbolism, and the breastplate of Agamemnon. Both of these famous artefacts are entirely mythical for the time being, as they have not been identified in the archaeological record.

The references to lapis lazuli in connection with divinities and heroes, who would come to encompass part of the Grecian sense of identity, indicate the superior feeling attached to the colour blue, quite possibly due to the prestigious influence of lapis lazuli, which gained mythos with it as it traversed along trade routes.

During the Bronze Age, cultures were trading items, ideas and innovations. Part of this age of exchange and experimentation was the transfer of artistic ideas and the development of multi-national iconographic styles and techniques. Amongst this immense cultural milieu was the symbolism of lapis lazuli and its attachment to divinity or royalty.

Often, a culture took an idea, or an item, and adapted it, making it their own. This was also incorporated into the existing understanding of the idea/item and provided another chapter to the tale of trade. Simply by following the path of lapis lazuli, it is evident that the cultures of the Bronze Age were involved in an interconnected network that caused the hybridization of the stone’s story, as well as cultural ideology.

Ben-Tor, A. (1991). New Light on the Relations between Egypt and Southern Palestine during the Early Bronze Age. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, (281), 3-10. doi:10.2307/1357161 

Breasted, J. (1894). The New Found Treasure of the Twelfth Dynasty. The Biblical World, 3(5), 362-364. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/3135127 

Brysbaert, A. (2006). Lapis Lazuli in an Enigmatic ‘Purple’ Pigment from a Thirteenth-Century BC Greek Wall Painting. Studies in Conservation, 51(4), 252-266. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/20619462 

Burke, B. (2005). Materialization of Mycenaean Ideology and the Ayia Triada Sarcophagus. American Journal of Archaeology,109(3), 403-422. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/40026119 

Colburn, C. (2008). Exotica and the Early Minoan Elite: Eastern Imports in Prepalatial Crete. American Journal of Archaeology, [online] 112(2), pp.203-224. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20627447 [Accessed 4 Apr. 2018]. 

Daniels, G. (1971). The First Civilisations: The archaeology of their origins. Hammondsworth: Penguin. 

E. B. (1930). The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 56(327), 326-326. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/864358 

Frankfort, H. (1948). Kingship and the gods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

George, A. (1985). Observations on a Passage of “Inanna’s Descent”. Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 37(1), 109-113. doi:10.2307/1359964 

Griffith, R. (2005). Gods’ Blue Hair in Homer and in Eighteenth-Dynasty Egypt. The Classical Quarterly, [online] 55(02), pp.329-334. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4493341 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018]. 

Heersmink, R. (2017). The narrative self, distributed memory, and evocative objects. Philosophical Studies. 

Kopytoff, I. (1988). The cultural biography of things: commoditiztion as process. In: A. Appadurai, ed., The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge University Press, pp.64-91. 

Lapis Lazuli. (1867). Scientific American, 17(21), 325-325. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/26026574  

Lawler, A. (2009). Going the Distance to Uncover The Roots of Trade in the Near East. Science, [online] 324(5928), pp.717-717. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20493868 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018]. 

MacKay, E. (1925). Sumerian Connexions with Ancient India. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,(4), 697-701. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/25220818 

Majidzadeh, Y. (1976). The Land of Aratta. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, [online] 35(2), pp.105-113. Available at: https://http:..www.jstor.org/stable/545195 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018]. 

Manfred Cassirer. (1958). Two Amulets of Cats. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 44, 117-118. doi:10.2307/3855073 

Miner, D., & Edelstein, E. (1944). A Carving in Lapis Lazuli. The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 7/8, 82-103. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/20140244 

Mortazavi, M. (2005). Economy, Environment and the Beginnings of Civilisation in Southeastern Iran. Near Eastern Archaeology, [online] 63(3), pp.106-111. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25067608 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018]. 

Payne, J. (1968). Lapis Lazuli in Early Egypt. Iraq, 30(1), 58-61. doi:10.2307/4199837 

Pinches, T., & Newberry, P. (1921). A Cylinder-Seal Inscribed in Hieroglyphic and Cuneiform in the Collection of the Earl of Carnarvon. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 7(3/4), 196-199. doi:10.2307/3853566 

Schafer, J. (1928). News from Ancient Ur. The Wisconsin Magazine of History, 12(2), 221-224. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/4630756 

Smith, S. (1938). An Egyptian Stele and Other Antiquities. The British Museum Quarterly, 12(4), 138-138. doi:10.2307/4422101 

Soldier’s Grave at Ur Yields Statue of Woman. (1934). The Science News-Letter, 25(682), 284-284. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/3910510 

Tut-Ankh-Amen’s Golden Coffins, the Work of Ancient Egypt’s Most Skilled Artisians. (1926). Scientific American, 134(5), 305-305. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/24976639 

Woolley, C. (1928). Excavations at Ur, 1927-8. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (3), 635-642. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uwtsd.ac.uk/stable/25221380 

Many animals were associated with Greek and Roman gods; they were believed to represent some aspect of the god or goddess. A good example of this is the Owl of the Greek goddess Athena. The Owl of Athena was one of the most important religious symbols in ancient Greece: it became a political, literary, and philosophical symbol which still resonates to this day.

Animals have long had symbolic associations for humans. In ancient Greece, the twelve Olympian gods all had animals that were deemed to be sacred to that deity. The attributes of the animals were believed to overlap or represent that of a god, and as a result, that animal was held to be sacred to that particular god. For example, Zeus was associated with eagles, which symbolized the strength and power of the leading Olympian deity.

Athena was a virgin warrior goddess, and was widely worshipped in the Greek world. The goddess was the embodiment also of strategy, wisdom, warfare and technical skills. Athena played a major role in the works of Homer, and is often shown as the patron of heroes such as Odysseus.

Athena was long associated with the owl. Some believe that the association between Athena and the Owl in ancient Greece was inherited from the Indo-Europeans or Minoans.  Another strand of thought is that the particular abilities of the owl made it a suitable symbol for the Goddess of wisdom, strategy and skills. Owls are intelligent birds and highly effective hunters: these qualities are those that represent many of the aspects of Athena.

The sight of an owl was believed to be a sign of favor from Athena. At the naval Battle of Salamis, the appearance of some owls was seen as a blessing from the goddess of warfare, wisdom and strategy. Because of the association with the daughter of Zeus, owls had a very high status in Greece. There were many depictions of Athena with her companion animal, the owl. According to myth, the owl sat on the blind side of the Goddess and allowed her to see everything and to comprehend the whole truth.  

Interestingly, there was a large population of owls in the vicinity of Athens. Athena was the patron of the city, and she attained this honor in a contest with the sea-god Poseidon. Some believe that the name of the greatest Greek city came from the goddess. While Athena was a Panhellenic deity, she was the object of special reverence in Athens. The owl became a symbol of the city. It represented not only Athens’ patron goddess but also the qualities that they admired, including warcraft, reason, strategy and practical skills. Many Athenian coins have the symbol of Athena. There is one source that claims that owls were kept at the Temple dedicated to Athena in the city.  

The Romans were deeply influenced by Greek religion and myth. One of Rome’s most important deities was Minerva, the old Latin Goddess of reason, wisdom, strategy, poetry, handicrafts, and commerce, became associated with Athena. The Romans adopted the Owl of Athena to represent the powers and characteristics of Minerva, who was less bellicose but was regarded as being as wise as the Hellenic goddess. Like her Greek counterpart, the Roman deity came to  be represented by the symbol of the nocturnal raptor in art and coins.

Philosophers across the ages have adopted the symbolism of the owl of Athena. Aristotle used the symbol of the owl to denote the wise. The 19^th German idealist philosopher Hegel famously wrote that the ‘”the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk”. This refers to the fact that people only become wise after the event has passed.

The owl is still a symbol of wisdom to this day. This is in part due to the fact that the bird was sacred to the Greek goddess of wisdom. The owl of Athena or Minerva became associated with secret knowledge in the early modern period and was the symbol of the notorious secret society, the Illuminati.

Many gods and goddess had sacred animals and they were deemed to represent some characteristic of the goddesses. The owl was thought to represent the wisdom and foresight of Athena, the virgin goddess in the Greek Pantheon. The owl became associated with Athens and later with the Roman goddess Minerva.  The Owl of Athena resulted in, the bird becoming a symbol of wisdom.  Today being as ‘wise as an owl’ is a popular expression.

Graves, Robert (2000). Greek Myths. London: Pelican.

Few things impact a budding art scene like an imperial power showing off. The ruling class often invest heavily in propaganda and self grandeur, paid into the hands of the artistically gifted. They might even commission a few temples, as thanks to the gods for their new found positions. The artists, as long as they celebrate approved figures, are rewarded with extravagant commissions. Their political patrons, in return, shower their favorite sculptors and painters with prestige and honor.

Pericles, the Athenian Statesman, and Alexander the Great, the king of Macedon, were no exception. In fact, the Golden Age of Athenian art – the high Classical greek art period – is broadly defined by these exceptional gentlemen, book holders for fabricated historical boundaries.

Apparently it all started in 479 B.C. when Athens beat the Persians and founded a confederacy of allies to ensure the freedom of the Greek cities in the Aegean islands. Participants supplied either ships or funds in order to secure protection. This so-called “Delian League”, however, didn’t last long.

Athens wanted an empire, and that’s exactly what it got. First it moved the treasury closer to home – to the imperial city of Athens itself. Then the city-state put forth the Coinage Degree, which imposed Athenian silver coinage, weights and measures on all of the allies. Any left overs from the mint went straight to Athens, and any other use was punished by death.

Now the ordinary Greek members of the Delian league were, in fact, Athenian subjects.

This is where the man who was “surrounded by glory” comes into play. Pericles, who lived from ca. 461–429 B.C., was one of the masterminds behind Athens assuming full control over the league and a famous proponent for Athenian democracy. He then orchestrated one of the greatest human embezzlements of all time. He used the league’s treasury to build some of the most amazing artistic creations of the ancient world. He launched Greek Art into the “High Classical Greek Art”.

Pericles transformed the Acropolis (including the Parthenon) into a lasting monument of Athens’ political and cultural power. He worked tirelessly, with the likes of the Greek sculptor Phidias, to promote Athens as the artistic center of the Ancient World.

This catalyst propelled Athens further, innovating art on every level, from theatrical works to sculpture to vases. In regards to the last item, a major development occurred in this time period. The red-figure technique superseded the previously traditional black-figure technique. This change may not, at first, seem monumental, but it allowed a greater ability to portray the human body, clothed or naked, at rest or in motion.

Meanwhile, the solid, archaic figures of early Greek sculpture transitioned into more naturalistic statues, revealing movement, grace and the female form. The nude Aphrodite of Knidos, by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles, was one of the first to break the convention of hiding female figures behind heavily draped attire. In addition to realistic bodies, statues began to depict real people. Democracy trickled down from politics to art.

Among these changing stylistic innovations, developed the art of studying art. For the first time, artistic schools were established, such as the school at Sicyon in the Peloponnese. There students learned the cumulative knowledge of art, the foundation of art history.

It would seem as if the creative boom of the Golden Age would never end. The artistic funds of Athens, however, eventually dwindled along with Athens’ defeat in the second Peloponnesian war.

Fortunately for art, another champion came forward, along with grand commissions and an immense bank account. Alexander the Great, known for his ruthless wars and expanding empire, became a patron of the arts as never before seen… loot from plundered lands will do that. Man is seldom shy of spending other people’s money and Alexander was no different.

It is here that the artificial boundaries of history are vaguely drawn. Alexander the Great, founding great cultural cities around his empire, brought together artistic ideals which had previously never been in contact. Styles and techniques drastically changed throughout the empire’s reach. Was this the peak of Classical art or the beginning of a new age of Art? No one knows precisely when the one period ends nor when the next begins…  What follows though, is the final stage of Ancient Greek art… the Hellenistic Period.

—

“High Classical Greek Art: Political Patrons” was written by Anya Leonard

If you’ve ever taken even an hour of Latin class, then—more likely than not—the words of the title will have been the first that you learned in this ancient tongue.

This conjugation of the verb ‘to love’ (i.e. I love, you love, he/she/it loves…) is indelibly inked on the minds of schoolchildren the world over; though many may rather forget that they’d ever learnt it—because there’s no sugar-coating the fact that the study of Latin, despite how fascinating and rewarding it can doubtless be, is not for everyone.

Latin’s complexity undoubtedly plays a part in this; it is by no means the easiest language for a native English speaker to get their head around, in part due to the fact that, as seen above, a word’s suffix can drastically alter its meaning. That Latin’s nouns have seven cases, three genders, two numbers, five declensions, and its verbs have six tenses, four moods, two voices, and four conjugations (each with six different endings) only gives a taste of why it is not the most easily mastered of dialects.

This above passage cannot help but bring to mind the centurion character from Monty Python’s Life of Brian forcing the hapless protagonist to write Romani ite domum (“Romans go home!”) a hundred times as punishment for incorrectly daubing Romanus eunt domus (“people called Romanus they go the house”) on the side of Pontius Pilate’s palace.

The Most Logical Language?

From Monty Python’s Life of Brian

However, despite this apparent disconnect from our own language, Latin is infinitely more logical, consistent and well-organised than English. Much like a jigsaw or a cryptic crossword clue, once the constituent pieces are in their correct places everything becomes a lot clearer.

Complexity aside, many turn away from Latin due to the fact that it’s a ‘dead language’ (i.e. one which has no living native speakers).

N.B. A word of caution here – unless you take a particular glee in raising the blood pressure of linguists, it might be best not to refer to Latin as ‘dead’, but instead state that it has suffered a type of pseudoextinction.

“Much like a jigsaw or a cryptic crossword clue, once the constituent pieces are in their correct places everything becomes a lot clearer. “

In other words, it has evolved and survived in the form of the Romance languages (e.g. Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian) even if it is no longer anyone’s native tongue. Of course, for all intents and purposes Latin is distinctly dodo-esque… but linguists can be such a prickly bunch!

Is Latin really “dead”?

What is striking about a language which has about it, at the very least, an aura of mortality is that it is actually in remarkably fine fettle! Don’t believe me? Check down the side of the sofa or under the fridge – there’s probably a bit of Latin hiding there.

“Many turn away from Latin due to the fact that it’s a ‘dead language’ (i.e. one which has no living native speakers). “

E pluribus unum (out of many, one) can be found on the reverse of U.S. pennies and both annuit coeptis (he favours our undertakings) and novus ordo seclorum (new order of the ages) encircle the creepy pyramid on the back of the U.S. dollar bill.

The above mottos are but the tip of the iceberg; it is not difficult to call to mind bits of Latin officially used for states, universities, sports teams, social clubs and even some countries: Switzerland uses ‘CH’ for its ISO code in reference to its Latin name, Confoederatio Helvetica.

Though these official renderings may seem like no more than ornamental pomposity, Latin pervades a lot deeper and more significantly than mere slogans.

First and foremost there is Latin’s most obvious legacy, its alphabet. Prone as we are to egocentrism, we often consider it remarkable that the vast majority of the world’s countries (including much of South East Asia and most of Africa) have adopted ‘our’ alphabet—so much so that we neglect to remind ourselves that said script isn’t ‘ours’ at all and, in fact, we are merely another in the long list of countries who have been linguistically colonised in this way – as such we have no greater claim to the ABC’s than late-comers like Turkey or Vietnam.

(N.B. We have a similar collective blind spot for numbers, being as they are, in fact, Arabic.)

However, we have taken more from Latin than merely its text. You’ve probably not even consciously noted that this article has been liberally strewn with abbreviations such as ‘e.g.’, ‘N.B.’, ‘i.e.’ etc.

(Oh, and now ‘etc’!)

The fact that countless others effortlessly spring to mind (AD, A.M., cf., et al., ff., per cent, Ph.D., P.M., P.S., re, s.o.s., sic., vs.) shows that Latin is clearly a pervasive force within contemporary society… Q.E.D.!

We could, but shall not, make an ad infinitum list of ‘English’ phrases borrowed from Latin; to do so would be to stress the point ad nauseam.

The Institution That Kept Latin Alive

Probably the greatest, if slightly inadvertent, champion of the Latin language, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, is the institution that was, in many ways, the heir to that institution, the Catholic Church.

The opening lines of Genesis in Latin

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the Church’s insistence that Latin was the only suitable vehicle for transmitting the ancient and sacred words of a Nazarene Jew to the masses of Europe. Furthermore, not only did the Latin mass endure until the 1960’s, but Latin is even to this day the official language of the Holy See – meaning it is the official language of a nation state, albeit a rather small and select one.

Charmingly, Vatican City has the world’s only Latin ATM, but surprisingly is not the only country with Latin radio stations (Germany and Finland being two notable examples).

The topic of Latin is so vast that there is no time in these pages to talk either about the nuts and bolts of the language itself (its phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax etc), or about its history and evolution from Old Latin (that of the ancient Roman Empire), to Classical Latin

“Latin is even to this day the official language of the Holy See – meaning it is the official language of a nation state, albeit a rather small and select one. “

(an artificially rarefied version of the language designed to distinguish itself from the speech of hoi polloi i.e. Vulgar Latin), to the corruptions of Medieval Latin, to the corrections of Renaissance Latin, through Early Modern Latin, and finally Modern Latin. Not to mention the numerous ways different people and nationalities pronounce Latin words today.

Obviously all of the above is only a brief précis of what is a topic huge in both importance and size, though this alone may be reason enough qualify it for further investigation.

A rare copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the original Latin

Regarding the study of this paradoxically obsolete and relevant language, many people may offer you convincing arguments that you should, or indeed convince you that you want to (or indeed, do not want to) learn Latin. As we can all recall from our schooldays, desire is the key to learning, and with languages, the desire to learning ratio is, if anything, intensified.

Should you decide that these ancient, though far from outmoded words are not ones you desire touching your lips, then it would be fruitless to convince you otherwise. However, I would insert two caveats to the above absolution: 1. even the slightest inkling, the most miniscule curiosity, is worth pursuing – it could turn an ignored itch into something quite beautiful, and 2. Latin is one of those things that, even when not actively engaged with, still bears fruit worthy of awareness (or perhaps the converse is true – it is pitiful to be wholly ignorant of that fruit).

On the other hand, if you are already full of vim and vigour and are itching to make these ancient words become newly learned, then I’ve only one thing to say to you, which is, rather predictably, carpe diem.

Such a flat and trite ending has me doffing my cap while shuffling my feet in the acknowledgment that the words of another, the popular classicist Mary Beard, give a far more poignant and no-nonsense justification for the merits of Latin. So it is with her winged words that I shall leave you: