Chapter 4: Ancient Aegen Flashcards
Buon Fressco
Color absorbed by the plaster becoming permanent part of the wall
Fresco secco
Painting on dried plaster, colour may eventually flake off
Archaeology
Study of human activity through recovery and analysis of material culture
Seafaring culture
People that are fit to travel the sea… ?
ceramics (faience)
Covering clay with water colours.. Like plates and stuff
Dressed stone
Cut block of stone finely cut, like really finely cut, like just cut so nice wow
‘palace’ complex
Entire area of a palace
labyrinth
Maze?
Rhytons
Drinking vessel usually in the shape of an animal head or a horn
Filigree
Ornamental work of fine (typically gold or silver) wire formed into delicate tracery
granulation
Tiny metal balls are fused onto solid surface
Krater
Greek vessel for mixing wine and water
Repousse
Hammering metal from the back to create a protruding image
Niello
Black sulfur alloy is rubbed into fine lines engraves into metal
Gliding
Applying of paper leaf gold to an object made from another medium
Megaron
Main hall of myceanean place or ground
Cyclopean
Method of construction using huge blocks of rough-hewn stone
Arch
Curved symmetrical structure
Shaft Graves
Deep pit used for burial
Tholos/beehive tombs
e.
Corbeled vault
Vault made by projecting courses of stone
Ashlar
Cut stone shaped stuff lol
Minoan (Thera and Crete)
Minoan - Bronze age arose on the island of Crete and other Aegean islands
Crete - Island southeast of Greece in the Mediterranean Sea
Thera - Greek island in Southern Cyclades
Mycenaen (Hellas)
Late Bronze Age civilization in Greece (rep by finds at Mycenae and other ancient cities of peloponnesus
Cycladic (cyclades)
Group of Greek islands
Aegean and Mediterranean Seas
Aegean is elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the Greek and Anatolian peninsulas
King Minos
First king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa
Knossos
Ruined City on North Crete … capital of ancient Minoan Civilization
Heinrich Schliemann
German arch.. Troy, Mask of Agamemnon
Iliad
Ancient Greek poem in dactylic hexameter
Photo: Female Figure of Late spedos type
c. 2500-2400 BCE, Paul Getty Museum
- Strictly symmetrical, arms folded just under breasts
- Long neck, feautures faces except for prominent elongated nose
- Incised lines to indicate joints/juncters
Planned with compass
Photo: Head of Woman from island of Keros
c, 2700-2300 BCE
- often found in graves..
Photo: Girl gathering saffron Crocus flowers
c, 1630 BCE. Greece
- Adolescent girl gathering saffron - Saffron used as yellow textile dye and to produce medicine to alleviate menstrual cramps - Girl shows characteristics of childhood & adolescence - Fresco may have adorned room housing coming of age ceremonies for young women - Minoan influences
The Old palace Period
c. 1900-1700 BCE
The new Palace period
c. 1700-1450 BCE
Photo: Minotaur, Greco-Roman copy after figure from a Theeseus group
- Legend of king Minos
- Minotair in maze called Labyrinth (at knossos) son of the wife of King Minos and a bull belonging to Poseidon
- Minos ordered Athenians to send 14 young men and women
Photo: Karmares Wear Jug
Phaistos Crete, Old Palace period, c. 2000-1900 BCE
- Exported as far as Egypt and Syria
- Very thin, colorful, and gracefully decorated
- Beaked pouring spout
Bold, curving decoration derived from plane life seems to swell with contours of the jug
Photo: Corridor near Central Stair, east wing upper level.
Palace of Minos, c. 1700-1450 BCE
- Built on croc of the earlier acrch complex in new palace period after earthquake
- Multistoried, flat-roofed, many columns
- Designed for maximum light and air and to define access and circulation patterns
- Large, central courtyards with rooms arranged around them
- Commercial centers with workshops and foodstuffs
Columns made from inverted tree trunks with wide capitals
Photo: Bull leaping, wall painting with areas of modern reconstruction
Palace complex Knossos, c. 1450-1375 BCE
- Geometric borders
- Buon fresco and fresco secco
- Outlined figures with elegant lines, bright, unshaded pure color
- Usually profiles or full faces views
- Light-skinned women and dark-skinned men
- Stylized bull in “flying gallop pose”
Photo: Statue from crete
Second Palace Period, c. 1550 BCE
- Male figure in ritual bull leap
- Precisely modeled veins and muscles
- Holes in head would have held glided bronze wires for swept hair
- Piece of set, originally showing bull, sacred pillar, and possibly a goddess connected to sacred bull games
Photo: Harvester Rhyton
Hagia Triada, c. 1650-1450 BCE
- Stone vessels used for pouring liquids likely as part of rituals
- 27 male figures overlap in 3D space
- Bold facial features show emotions
- Sinewy bodies show ribs
- Possible interpretations?: spring planting or fall harvested festival, religious procession, dance, crowd of warriors, gang of forces laborers
Photo: 2 Bull head Rhytons
- Carved stone vessels
- Detail in the bull’s coat
- White shell outlines nostrils
- Horns made of wood covered with gold leaf
Fluid flowed from mouth
Photo: Octopus flask
Paalaikastro, New Palace period, c. 1500-1450 BCE
- “marine style” depictions of sea life in surface decoration
- ”.. Grace and energy of natural forms” presented as stylized design
- Decoration complements bulging shape of the flask
Photo: Pendant of Gold Bees,
Old period, c. 1700-1550 BCE
- Sophisticated use of filigree and granulation
- Stylized bees around honeycomb of gold granules with one pair of wings
- Filigree spider-like form with legs encircling global ball
