Download or read book The Derveni Krater written by Beryl Barr-Sharrar and published by ASCSA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beautifully illustrated book represents the first full publication of the most elaborate metal vessel from the ancient world yet discovered. Found in an undisturbed Macedonian tomb of the late 4th century B.C., the volute krater is a tour de force of highly sophisticated methods of bronze working. An unusual program of iconography informs every area of the vessel. Snakes with copper and silver inlaid stripes frame the rising handles, wrapping their bodies around masks of underworld deities. On the shoulder sit four cast bronze figures: on one side a youthful Dionysos with an exhausted maenad, on the other a sleeping Silenos and a maenad handling a snake. In the major repousse frieze on the body a bearded hunter is associated with Dionysian figures. What was the function of this extraordinary object? And what is the meaning of the intricate iconography? The krater is placed in its Macedonian archaeological context as an heirloom of the descendants of the man named in the Thessalian inscription on its rim, and in its art-historical context as a highly elaborated, early-4th-century version of a metal type known in Athens by about 470 B.C.

Download or read book Dionysos in Archaic Greece written by Cornelia Isler-Kerényi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An interpretation of the god Dionysos as seen by Greek vase painters before the golden age of classical culture, which will help understand his wide popularity beyond wine consumption, which lasted until the end of antiquity.

Download or read book Instructions for the Netherworld written by Alberto Bernabé and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-01-30 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orphic gold tables are key documents for the knowledge of rites and beliefs of Orphics, an atypical group that configured a highly original creed and that influenced powerfully over other Greek writers and thinkers. The recent discovery of some tablets has forced a noteworthy modification of some points of view and a review ofthe different hypothesis proposed about them. The book presents a complete edition of the texts, their translation and some fundamental keys for their interpretation, in an attempt at updating our current knowledge on Orphic ideas about the soul and the Afterlife stated in those texts. The work is improved with an appendix of iconographic annotations in which some plastic representations in drawings are reproduced related to the universe of tablets, selected and commented on by Ricardo Olmos.

Download or read book Ritual Texts for the Afterlife written by Fritz Graf and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-06-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascinating texts written on small gold tablets that were deposited in graves provide a unique source of information about what some Greeks and Romans believed regarding the fate that awaited them after death, and how they could influence it. These texts, dating from the late fifth century BCE to the second century CE, have been part of the scholarly debate on ancient afterlife beliefs since the end of the nineteenth century. Recent finds and analysis of the texts have reshaped our understanding of their purpose and of the perceived afterlife. The tablets belonged to those who had been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus Bacchius and relied heavily upon myths narrated in poems ascribed to the mythical singer Orpheus. After providing the Greek text and a translation of all the available tablets, the authors analyze their role in the mysteries of Dionysus, and present an outline of the myths concerning the origins of humanity and of the sacred texts that the Greeks ascribed to Orpheus. Related ancient texts are also appended in English translations. Providing the first book-length edition and discussion of these enigmatic texts in English, and their first English translation, this book is essential to the study of ancient Greek religion.

Download or read book Noctes Campanae written by William Vernon Harris and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Red figured Vases of Lucania Campania and Sicily written by Arthur Dale Trendall and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Vergina written by Manolēs Andronikos and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from the prologue written by the author MANOLIS ANDRONICOS, "It has been necessary to try to produce a text which will serve the needs of the specialist without ignoring those of the general reader. Such attempts are far from easy in execution and not infrequently succeed only in sacrificing academic integrity without providing adequate information for the non-specialist. It is not for me to say if I have achieved what I set out to do. Nevertheless, in addition to the text, there are the illustrations to the book which I believe contribute to the success of its purpose as I have defined it. A picture is always the best means - after the objects themselves - for every reader, specialist or not, to gain a closer idea of archaeological finds. Once I had decided to write the book I considered it essential not to limit myself to the recent impressive finds from the royal tombs, but to set before the reader a synoptic but solid account of all the archaeological finds in the area. In this way its considerable interest becomes comprehensible - an area which has yielded graves containing hand-made prehistoric pottery and bronze jewellery, a magnificent architectural complex dating to the last years of the fourth century, the theatre of a city, a small temple and a series of monumental Macedonian tombs with unique painted compositions of the classical period, masterpieces of jewellery made by Greek goldsmiths, of miniature sculpture and the most magnificent products of Greek metalworking. The brilliance of the latter sheds new light on the older finds so that these acquire their proper perspective. In addition to all this, the finds from Vergina provide new information about Macedonian Hellenism, our knowledge of which so far is based almost exclusively on literary sources emanating from Athens. It is natural that that city, the only serious political rival to Macedonia, should frequently distort its enemy's true face and denigrate its historical contribution to the development of Hellenism, at least before the meteoric rise of Alexander the Great."

Download or read book The Painted Tombs of Paestum written by Angela Pontrandolfo Greco and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: