Maenad Seal Ring

#maenad #seal #ring

This object creates questions?!

WHO WOULD WEAR A RING WITH THIS IMAGE?

Seal rings like this were used to verify documents by making an impression in wax.
They were used by both the literate and illiterate since even if you could write your own name the seal impression created extra security.

So why a Maenad?
Was the owner a priest or temple official for a Dionysian cult?
Was the owner an actual female Maenad?

Maenads and Ecstasy

#maenads

Ever notice how so many art critics and historians talk about "graceful curves" when discussing images of Maenads in Classical Greek art and avoid discussing in depth that these are possibly the oldest known images in Western / European art of women in a state of religious ecstasy (okay possibly with a little or a lot of help from wine and mushrooms and whatever else they consumed during rituals) ? Think a bout that question and maybe go (re)read Euripides' Bacchae ?

Maenads One

Our next theme and series is MAENADS

#Maenad #satyrs #southitalianceramics

Southern Italy had many Greek colonies who produced ceramics in a looser style of drawing than mainland Greek painters of ceramics.

The Maenad is carrying a thyrsus and an unlighted torch. The satyrs are more human in appearance than mainland versions. And better behaved they are not trying to grope or grab the Maenad a pleasant change from some depictions of Maenads and Satyrs interacting.

More Maenads next time.