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Rare Minoan sealstone in the treasure-laden tomb of a Bronze Age Greek warrior
- xref 9y agowow, amazing coincidence since I was just reading earlier today about the 425BCE Battle of Pylos in Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War. and that battle was a thousand years after this burial! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pylos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pylos
- autocorr 9y agoDonald Kagan is amazing. The lectures to his Introduction to Greek History course at Yale are also on Youtube [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL023BCE5134243987 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL023BCE5134243987
- argimenes 9y agoThe realism in the depiction of human figures is incredibly advanced and predates Classical Athens sculpture by 1000 years. Like finding an iPad in Mediaeval England.
- red75prime 9y agoIsn't it "Like finding Picasso in Medieval England"?
- benpbenp 9y agoExcept for the "realism in the depiction of human figures" bit.
- iamben 9y agoEarly / pre Blue Period Picasso was pretty real, iirc. The guy was very talented.
- fsloth 9y agoPicasso was a virtuoso artist from child: http://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/period-first.php http://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/period-first.php His later experiments with style were not an artifact of lack of talent, but conscious artistic experimentation. Sadly, modern artists try often to skip the mastering the basics and just start to splat color on canvas.
- fsloth 9y agoIf you are referring to middle age artistic maturity this portrait of Henry 8 by Hans Holbein the Younger[0] is pretty sweet https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Workshop_of_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_Portrait_of_Henry_VIII_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Workshop_of_Hans_Hol... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger
- eru 9y agoThat's past the middle ages though, isn't it?
- fsloth 9y agoWell, one definition for the end of middle ages is fall on Constantinopole (1453) and Hans died in 1543 at the ripe age of 45. So, yeah, renaissance. Now that I looked, the list of english monarchs gives a striking visual transformation from the stereotypically awkward european middle age art to renaissance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs And Henry the 8'th portrait seems to be the first one that does not contain obviously awkward shapes (to my untrained eye). So in 100 years we transform artistically from kindergarten to realistic portraiture. Pretty awesome - makes the original commment more apt, and my quip somewhat moot.
- eru 9y agoI had a similar experience in some art museums in Britain. In the late middle ages and early modern times a pigeon flying through the painting towards the viewer was a popular motif to symbolize the holy spirit. You could clearly tell that the depiction of the flying bird got better over time, but even with contemporaries you could see huge differences in terms of skill.
- mfukar 9y agoNot quite like that at all. The Minoans were known to carve semi-precious gemstones and the Mycenaeans known to have adopted it from them from the 16th century BC (source: "Encyclopedia of European Peoples, Vol 2, entry on "Mycenaeans", "Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete", R. Castleden). From Minoan sealstones which are already exhibited in museums, the level of detail seems comparable to me. I'm not quite sure where the contrast with classical Athens in the article comes from.
- ninjamayo 9y agoThis area has a lot more to uncover. I visited Pylos two years ago and there are excavations in numerous sites around it. Can't wait to see what is next.
- slitaz 9y agoThey discovered a cave nearby that was used more than 5000 years ago. The cave entrance collapsed 5000 ago and was discovered just recently. An undisturbed view of prehistoric life from some much time ago.
- nyc111 9y ago"Indeed, many of the seal's details, such as the intricate weaponry ornamentation and jewelry decoration, become clear only when viewed with a powerful camera lens and photomicroscopy." This suggests that 3000 years ago human eye was much much stronger than today and could see details that we are unable to see today. I've seen similar objects in museums with incredibly fine detail that I could not resolve (like circular seals made with clay) https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-east1/sumerian/a/cylinder-seals https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizat...
- Joe-Z 9y agoWouldn't it be possible that the material deteriorated over time and so today it's harder to view the details than back when it was created?
- ubernostrum 9y agoOr they had techniques to miniaturize things. Which is not out of the question; scaling a drawing up or down can be done with pretty simple tools (this is how a couple guys in Kentucky reproduced a Nazca-style giant figure back in the 1980s, with no access to flying saucers or mystically-levitating priests).
- michrassena 9y agoA pantograph is a simple machine that came along quite late. I can imagine a similar machine for carving, but I think it's quite easy to view the past with our own perspectives. The pantograph, and this speculative carving machine, are labor saving devices. I assume the Minoan sealstones were custom-made, one-of-a-kind items for those important enough to use them. While labor was cheap in most cases, those in need of this specialized skill were able to pay the cost.
- coldtea 9y agoNo, the details were originally that small.
- trowaybloway 9y agoone word: hercules
- dzdt 9y agoFor more detailed images of the stone, see National Geograpic coverage [1] or the University of Cincinnati magazine article (including micrographs of details) [2]. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/public/amp/2017/11/greek-sealstone-gemstone-combat-griffin-warrior-tomb-spd https://www.google.com/amp/s/relay.nationalgeographic.com/pr... [2] http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/unearthingamasterpiece.html http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/unearth...
- nkoren 9y agoThe micrograph details in the second link are staggering. Honestly none of the photographs in the original article do it the slightest bit of justice. You can see the fallen warrior's locks of hair, and the patterns on his dress. That's insane. This would be an impressive piece of art coming from any culture at any point in history.
- averagewall 9y agoCouldn't the idea that ancient people were bad at art just come from their small populations, small quantity of discovered artifacts and not teaching each other their skills? Surely a single person could figure out how to draw on his own and that might be as rare as it is today. I don't know anyone who could produce pictures of people's bodies of that quality. One such special person might have made this seal, but not been around to make other seals from a similar period.
- coldtea 9y ago>Couldn't the idea that ancient people were bad at art I don't thing there is such an idea -- not a widespread one, and not one held by archeologists at any rate. Even cavemen paintings (e.g. in france) show magnificent skill.
- empath75 9y agoThe idea of 'singular genius' is over done, and most great artists were well trained and built on the work of others.