Roman Gold Coin

When looking at Gold coin one should bear in mind Roman Coinage follows on to Greek traditios and technique. Note the pattern on the edge to guide the stamp. 

Hellenistic Gold Coinage - 2 examples

The Hellenistic era produced some very beautiful gold coinage with exquisitely detailed portraits of monarchs. The top image is Eucratides a ruler from Asia Minor and the bottom is Arsinoe an Queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty. These images are larger than the actual coins.

Mycenaean Gold Jewellery

This very modern looking piece is actually #mycenaeanjewellery

Note the contrast of the gold to darker material and the simple geometric shapes 

Yet Mycenaean Jewellery also includes pieces like this:

Simplicity and elegance appear before the classical era!

The ladies - Kore - 3

#kore #sculpture

I mentioned hair styles last post. Here's a close up showing more details.

For contrast here is an image of Hera 

and Artemis for further contrast 

How do they differ? Why? 

The Ladies - Kore - 2

The #Kore or Maiden was a popular sculptural theme in Archaic and Classical sculpture.

They can be disitinguished form other images of young women or godesses by their headress and elaborated pleated over robes and hair styles and also the skirt lifting and one foot before as the sculptors left the columnar styles of carving behind for more naturalistic renderings.

The Ladies - Kore in Sculpture - ONE

This months first theme will be #kore those lovely archaic era sculptures of women starting with this one !

The naturalism and grace of Classical Greek art was not an overnight development. 

However we can see beginnings of that in this work.

The column of stone is becoming a body and there is detail on the dress and the head. 

Most importantly is that trace of a smile the suggestion of personality.

In this work we see the first signs of greatness.

Follow me for more installments! 

Orchomenos

ORCHOMENOS 

Orchomenos was the citadel of the Minyans who once controlled NW Boeotia. It is one of those sites that have been continuously occupied since the Neolithic and maybe longer and there is still a village there today. 

As you can see from the maps it was one of those sites beloved by Helladic builders, triangular or oval shapes, steep on some sides but with at least one section with a more gentle slope for access and water nearby, in this case rivers on both sides  that flowed into Lake Copais.

This meant when lake levels were high they could control water and road traffic and when water levels were low had a fertile valley to the north for farming with a permanent water supply and still control over roads. 

The Lake has gone and the wetlands drained once perhaps the second or third time or more times over the millennia  for farmlands today.  The rivers still flow. 

And as in so many parts of Greece stone echoes linger.