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From the Cyclades to the Euboean gulf : Tracking a 7th c. BC iconographic theme

Μελέτες - Articles

• Σημαντώνη-Μπουρνιά, Εύα

Birds of prey lacerating fallen human ligures, probably fallen warriors, is a rare iconographie theme which makes its first appearance in Greek iconography in the last decade of the 8th c. BC on a relief sherd from Tenos. The subject is repeated on the last zone of a fragmentary relief amphora from Eretria of the first quarter of 7th c. BC and on a relief amphora sherd from Xombourgo, Tenos, ofc. 660 BC. Two more possible instances of the subject are known, on a bronze shield band from the Akropolis of Athens and on a steatite gem from Melos (?), both o f the 6th c. BC. The present article deals with the ancestry of this iconographie theme and seeks the causes for its disappearance from Greek art o f the classical and later periods. The iconographie ancestors of the "birds of prey devouring corpses" are to be found in the Near East as early as the 3rd millennium BC and its immediate relatives on a stone relief commemorating a victory of Sennacherib in Nineveh, of the late 8th/early 7th c. BC. It is suggested that the iconographie subject decorating a small hydria of LH IIIA2 date could be considered as a Mycenaean parallel for the subject, which illustrates in the most eloquent way the first verses of the Iliad, «αυτούς δ’ ελώρια τεύχε κύννεσσιν αιωνίσι τε πάσι». The reasons for the disappearance of the "birds of prey devouring corpses” from later art are sought in the prevalence of a more humanitarian and idealistic spirit in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. The distribution of this iconographie theme in the Cyclades, Attica and Euboea, is a possible indication of the route followedby Cycladic itinerant artists of the early 7th c. BC bringing along and disseminating new and sometimes peculiar iconographie subjects.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

Κυκλάδες, Ανάγλυφη κεραμική, 7ος αιώνας

Το παρόν κείμενο αποτελεί προσαρμογή ανακοίνωσης μου στο Διεθνές Αρχαιολογικό Συνέδριο: Η Εύβοια κατά τον αρχαιότητα. Όψεις τον Δημόσιον και Ιδιωτικού βίου, που πραγματοποιήθηκε στη Χαλκίδα από 7 έως 10-10-2004.