birthday break 2021

Please visit older posts or my  metousia Patreon while I take a short birthday break 

The Unswept Floor Mosaic

 The Unswept Floor. 

A #mosaic #masterpiece that reminds us yes the Greeks could do detailed still lifes not just gods warriors and heroes. My favorite detail every time I see this is the mouse sniffing. 

A note on the Medousa Tile

 MEDOUSA #medousa #medusa 

This is thought to be a roof tile and illustrates the strange ambiguity of Medusa half woman half monster with her elaborate curls and long thin braids carefully rendered eyebrows elegantly arched yet bulging eyes and tongue and fangs and an arch of sakes around her 

My suspicions are that these images originated with Perseus bringing back some kind of statue or mask from North Africa or Egypt as a later part of one version of the story says he buried the head in or near Argos. If a very strange non Mycenaean art work ever gets exposed by a dig in that area in a strata with early helladic arttfacts ...

Watch for my next blog ... theres something I want to point out about her name and other names using the root of the medomai verb.

Marginalia of Herodotus

MARGINALIA 

 This is a #renaissance #manuscript of #Herodotus 

The #marginalia were added by scholar called VALLA 

While many scholaras might have added notes in Latin Valla  has chosen to add them in Greek.

Yes it doesnt look like modern Greek or a printed Greek font but remember refugees from the Fall of Byzantium were teaching in Italy. so this style of writing is not the same as that seen on earlier manuscripts or the fonts we use in modern books.

The Kamares Krater

 May is early summer a time of Flowers so here's a Minoan Krater.

KAMARES KRATER

#kamares #krater #minoan 

We can see elements on this that appear in later Greek art though it was long centuries before Greek potters regained the skills of the Minoans.

May and Maia

 MAY and MAIA

I've always thought it strange there are so few depictions of Hermes' mother MAIA

The one below is part of a painting on a vase dated to about 500 BCE 

I love the way the position of her hands suggest she's having a lively discussion and you can just make out in this closeup traces of a hair ribbon binding up her undeniablely thick wavy less than perfectly orderly maybe even frizzly hair also suggesting a busy mum!