Anne Mackay | The University of Auckland (original) (raw)
Books (authored and edited) by Anne Mackay
A monograph on the extant works of Exekias, other than the funerary plaques.
... 8 pp. Imprint: BRILL. Language ... Contributors include: Geoffrey Bakewell, Egbert Bakker, Ha... more ... 8 pp. Imprint: BRILL. Language ... Contributors include: Geoffrey Bakewell, Egbert Bakker, Han Baltussen, Anna Bonifazi, Edwin Carawan, Thomas Hubbard, André Lardinois, Elizabeth Minchin,Alexandra Pappas, Ruth Scodel, Niall Slater, and Jocelyn Penny Small. Readership. ...
Papers by Anne Mackay
Ὁ παῖς καλός Scritti di archeologia offerti a Mario Iozzo per il suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno, eds. B. Arbeid, E. Ghisellini and M.R. Luberto, pp. 219-28, 2022
In Athens during the second half of the sixth century BC there was a sharp increase in the number... more In Athens during the second half of the sixth century BC there was a sharp increase in the number of representations of ships on black-figure vases, more than half of which were strings of little longships (pentekonters and triakonters) sailing around in series within the mouths of lebetes and kraters, as well as in some cup tondos. It is suggested, in the absence of an evident mythological association, that these depictions were a sociohistorical construct, reflecting awareness among the symposion-going Athenian elite of the significance of contemporary maritime activities in strengthening the position of Athens and her economic well-being. Although other elite families also engaged in shipping as raiders and traders, the most influential stimulus is likely to have been the seafaring enterprises of Peisistratos.
Social Science Research Network, 2022
Although the shapes of ancient Greek vases have been studied for a century, these studies have b... more Although the shapes of ancient Greek vases have been studied for a century, these
studies have been nearly entirely qualitative. Here we develop a quantitative method to
study their shapes that relies on a rich and largely untapped resource: the photographs
of vases from which outline profiles can be extracted that are readily available in online
repositories and museum archives. As a demonstration of our method we compare profiles of 140 Iron-Age Greek vases derived from photographs to those derived from either manual measurement or 3d scans of their cognate vases, and test their accuracy by means of a machine classifier. We show that photograph-derived profiles are almost as good as manual or 3d-derived profiles for classification purposes. We also show that photograph-derived profiles can be used to detect subtle changes in shape such as those that arise over short time evolution of vase shape, suggesting that they are sufficiently accurate to enable the analysis of large corpora of vase images.
Jounal of the Royal Society Interface 19, 2022
We often wish to classify objects by their shapes. Indeed, the study of shapes is an important p... more We often wish to classify objects by their shapes. Indeed, the study of shapes is an important part of many scientific fields, such as evolutionary biology, structural biology, image processing and archaeology. However, mathematical shape spaces are rather complicated and nonlinear. The most widely used methods of shape analysis, geometric morphometrics, treat the shapes as sets of points. Diffeomorphic methods consider the underlying curve rather than points, but have rarely been applied to real-world problems. Using a machine classifier,we tested the ability of several of these methods to describe and classify the shapes of a variety of organic and man-made objects.We find that one method, based on square-root velocity functions (SRVFs), outperforms all others, including a standard geometric morphometric method (eigenshapes), and that it is also superior to human experts using shape alone.When the SRVF approach is constrained to take account of homologous landmarks it can accurately classify objects of very different shapes. The SRVF method identifies a shortest path between shapes, and we show that this can be used to estimate the shapes of intermediate steps in evolutionary series.
Diffeomorphic shape analysis methods, we conclude, now provide practical and effective solutions to many shape description and classification problems in the natural and human sciences.
Kennis en Passie, 2021
The multiple interpretations of ships sailing around within the mouth of a symposion vessel in 6t... more The multiple interpretations of ships sailing around within the mouth of a symposion vessel in 6th century BC Athens.
Humanities Australia 10: 40-53, 2019
[This paper is an abbreviated version of the 20th Annual Trendall Lecture, delivered at the Unive... more [This paper is an abbreviated version of the 20th Annual Trendall Lecture, delivered at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, 30th January 2018.]
In early Greek society, when literacy was rare and memory essential for defining and recording the cultural identity, it was tradition that set the parameters of the world view. This is seen most clearly in the Homeric epics, for these reflect a long-standing oral poetic tradition in which, for the contemporary hearers of the bards’ performances, the shaping of the narrative sequence was conveyed as much by the form as by the content of the poetry. As is now well documented in oral-traditional theory, the traditional bards drew upon a massive repertoire of formulaic phrases, set-piece situations and story patterns, all well-familiar through generations of repetition, which through recurrence over time had acquired laminations of extra-contextual associations that vastly enriched the listeners’ reception process and response to the story as it unfolded.
In this article, the initial objective will be to demonstrate that the black-figure vase-painting of Athens in the 6th century BC was just as much governed by its painting tradition as oral epic was by its poetic tradition: the painters were equipped with a repertoire of figure-forms, iconographic motifs and scene-types, each of which increasingly over time developed associative significations over and above the overt content of the scene. Thereafter, the focus will shift to the tension between the constraints of the tradition and the urge for creative innovation, exploring how new ideas could be visually expressed within the traditional horizon of viewer-expectations. (Any venture to push beyond that horizon in a traditional context would almost inevitably lead to rejection by the tradition-trained recipients.) Close analysis of some examples of scenes that might initially appear to challenge traditional patterns will reveal that they are in fact largely built up out of pre-existing elements, each bringing its own traditional associations, and that the originality of the painter consisted in drawing upon those associations innovatively to evoke an exceptionally rich viewing response.
“Exekias hat mich gemalt und getöpfert”, ed. C. Reusser, M. Bürge, Archäologische Sammlung der Universität Zürich ISBN 9783905099348, 2018
An examination of Exekias' relationship with his workshop: Group E and associates through to the... more An examination of Exekias' relationship with his workshop: Group E and associates through to the Manner of the Lysippides Painter.
TÖPFER MALER WERKSTATT Zuschreibungen in der griechischen Vasenmalerei und die Organisation antiker Keramikproduktion. BAYERISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Band VII, 2016
Anyone who has worked closely on the pots of Exekias will have wrestled with the problem of some ... more Anyone who has worked closely on the pots of Exekias will have wrestled with the problem of some ‘B-sides’, where certain characteristic stylistic features on the reverse do not coincide with those on the obverse. The problem is particularly to be seen on the vases of Exekias’ middle phase, several of which present a superbly observed obverse, teamed with a reverse that is by comparison noticeably less impressive in composition and execution. Although one must allow for artistic variation of quality, it is puzzling to encounter a divergence of style from obverse to reverse of the same vase: within days, if not hours, the master apparently represented numerous small and relatively insignificant details of human and equine anatomy in a quite different way, thus running counter to the expectations of Morellian attribution. Some of these ‘alternative’ details recur in scenes by painters variously identified as Near Group E, Manner of Exekias, Near Exekias, as well as the Lysippides Painter and his Manner, on vases that in some cases present other similarities to Exekias’ works. These scenes cannot be attributed to Exekias, but the phenomenon calls for a reconsideration of how we understand the relationships between members of a group of vase-painters working close to one another, and also challenges our purist expectation that an ancient vase-painting is the jealously guarded creation of a single hand.
![Research paper thumbnail of 'Fragment of Rim from a Louterion or Perirrhanterion', in R.T. Ridley (ed.), Fifty Treasures. Classical Antiquities in Australian and New Zealand Universities, Melbourne 2016: 39-41 [To purchase a copy of this book, please visit www.ascs.org.au/fiftytreasures.html]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/52003265/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Fifty Treasures. Classical Antiquities in Australian and New Zealand Universities
This is the first publication of a 6th century relief fragment from the rim of a large basin, mos... more This is the first publication of a 6th century relief fragment from the rim of a large basin, most likely from Sicily; it exemplifies the technique of applying a cylinder-matrix to a strip of fine clay around the rim of a very large coarse ware vessel.
![Research paper thumbnail of The Baneful Hedgehog of Ancient Greece [Fs Spalinger]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/48736762/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](This paper examines the associations of the hedgehog as an element occasionally included in Greek... more This paper examines the associations of the hedgehog as an element occasionally included in Greek vase-painting: analysis of the range of painted contexts in which it is depicted, in light of ancient literary references and some modern observations of its habits, leads to the conclusion that hedgehogs were regarded as inauspicious and sinister.
C. Lang-Auinger – E. Trinkl (eds.), ΦΥΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΖΩΙΑ. Pflanzen und Tiere auf griechischen Vasen. Internationales Symposion Graz 2013 (CVA Österreich Beiheft 2) pp., 2015
On many Attic black-figure vases, animals and birds are either included in the scene or juxtapose... more On many Attic black-figure vases, animals and birds are either included in the scene or juxtaposed in an adjacent zone. This paper will explore the potential for interpreting at least some of them as providing an additional lamination of meaning that often serves an adverbial function: commenting on how the action of the main scene was performed, for instance. It will be proposed that this is a system of meaning construction that is predicated upon the existence of a substantial corpus of folk-comparisons, and that it works in parallel to the process of iconographical meaning generation, so extending a communicative approach that is fundamental to the technique.
Description: a small, hand-modelled globular bowl with a flat, incurving rim and a round base; a ... more Description: a small, hand-modelled globular bowl with a flat, incurving rim and a round base; a high loop handle from below the rim, opposite a tubular spout from the upper body; an upright rounded projection on the rim above the spout (see ). The fabric is light pinkish buff, with a slightly lustrous red slip, somewhat abraded on one side (see ) and with minor incrustation; there are a few small inclusions. The incised decoration may have been filled with a whitish chalk paste for contrast. A darker brown mark on the lower body on one side (see ) seems to be evidence of a firing irregularity; 1 a paler area below the left handle root (see ) may result from over-thin application of red slip, or also from a localised variation in the kiln heat.
Acta Classica, 2001
This paper presents a comparative exploration of what effect the disruption of the standard form ... more This paper presents a comparative exploration of what effect the disruption of the standard form of narrative expression has on the reception process within an established traditional context, examining first the early Greek oral poetic tradition represented by Homeric epic, and then comparing the Athenian black-figure vase-painting tradition of the 6th century BC. The two phenomena to be examined are the narrator's apostrophe of a character in epic, which disrupts the normal flow of third-person narrative, and the frontal face in Attic black-figure vase-painting, which disrupts the normal representation of figures with profile heads.
Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Amsterdam, July 12-17, 1998 (eds. R.F. Docter & E.M. Moormann), 1999
The famous krater attributed without hesitation to Exekias, was probably not painted by him but b... more The famous krater attributed without hesitation to Exekias, was probably not painted by him but by a painted within the later workshop of Exekias and the Lysippides Painter, influenced by both masters.
Signs of Orality, ed. E A Mackay: 115-42, Jan 1, 1999
Akroterion, 1999
From "Change and Continuity in the Ancient World" to "Change, and Continuity OF the Ancient World... more From "Change and Continuity in the Ancient World" to "Change, and Continuity OF the Ancient World:" this paper is an edited version of the Chairperson's Address to the 23rd Biennial Meeting of the Classical Association of South Africa, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, January 1999. In the time between delivery and publication it was up-dated to reflect registration and staff statistics for 1999 instead of the 1998 figures originally discussed, in the interests of providing as immediate an evaluation as possible of the situation of Classics in South Africa.
Voice Into Text (ed. Ian Worthington), Jan 1, 1995
A monograph on the extant works of Exekias, other than the funerary plaques.
... 8 pp. Imprint: BRILL. Language ... Contributors include: Geoffrey Bakewell, Egbert Bakker, Ha... more ... 8 pp. Imprint: BRILL. Language ... Contributors include: Geoffrey Bakewell, Egbert Bakker, Han Baltussen, Anna Bonifazi, Edwin Carawan, Thomas Hubbard, André Lardinois, Elizabeth Minchin,Alexandra Pappas, Ruth Scodel, Niall Slater, and Jocelyn Penny Small. Readership. ...
Ὁ παῖς καλός Scritti di archeologia offerti a Mario Iozzo per il suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno, eds. B. Arbeid, E. Ghisellini and M.R. Luberto, pp. 219-28, 2022
In Athens during the second half of the sixth century BC there was a sharp increase in the number... more In Athens during the second half of the sixth century BC there was a sharp increase in the number of representations of ships on black-figure vases, more than half of which were strings of little longships (pentekonters and triakonters) sailing around in series within the mouths of lebetes and kraters, as well as in some cup tondos. It is suggested, in the absence of an evident mythological association, that these depictions were a sociohistorical construct, reflecting awareness among the symposion-going Athenian elite of the significance of contemporary maritime activities in strengthening the position of Athens and her economic well-being. Although other elite families also engaged in shipping as raiders and traders, the most influential stimulus is likely to have been the seafaring enterprises of Peisistratos.
Social Science Research Network, 2022
Although the shapes of ancient Greek vases have been studied for a century, these studies have b... more Although the shapes of ancient Greek vases have been studied for a century, these
studies have been nearly entirely qualitative. Here we develop a quantitative method to
study their shapes that relies on a rich and largely untapped resource: the photographs
of vases from which outline profiles can be extracted that are readily available in online
repositories and museum archives. As a demonstration of our method we compare profiles of 140 Iron-Age Greek vases derived from photographs to those derived from either manual measurement or 3d scans of their cognate vases, and test their accuracy by means of a machine classifier. We show that photograph-derived profiles are almost as good as manual or 3d-derived profiles for classification purposes. We also show that photograph-derived profiles can be used to detect subtle changes in shape such as those that arise over short time evolution of vase shape, suggesting that they are sufficiently accurate to enable the analysis of large corpora of vase images.
Jounal of the Royal Society Interface 19, 2022
We often wish to classify objects by their shapes. Indeed, the study of shapes is an important p... more We often wish to classify objects by their shapes. Indeed, the study of shapes is an important part of many scientific fields, such as evolutionary biology, structural biology, image processing and archaeology. However, mathematical shape spaces are rather complicated and nonlinear. The most widely used methods of shape analysis, geometric morphometrics, treat the shapes as sets of points. Diffeomorphic methods consider the underlying curve rather than points, but have rarely been applied to real-world problems. Using a machine classifier,we tested the ability of several of these methods to describe and classify the shapes of a variety of organic and man-made objects.We find that one method, based on square-root velocity functions (SRVFs), outperforms all others, including a standard geometric morphometric method (eigenshapes), and that it is also superior to human experts using shape alone.When the SRVF approach is constrained to take account of homologous landmarks it can accurately classify objects of very different shapes. The SRVF method identifies a shortest path between shapes, and we show that this can be used to estimate the shapes of intermediate steps in evolutionary series.
Diffeomorphic shape analysis methods, we conclude, now provide practical and effective solutions to many shape description and classification problems in the natural and human sciences.
Kennis en Passie, 2021
The multiple interpretations of ships sailing around within the mouth of a symposion vessel in 6t... more The multiple interpretations of ships sailing around within the mouth of a symposion vessel in 6th century BC Athens.
Humanities Australia 10: 40-53, 2019
[This paper is an abbreviated version of the 20th Annual Trendall Lecture, delivered at the Unive... more [This paper is an abbreviated version of the 20th Annual Trendall Lecture, delivered at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, 30th January 2018.]
In early Greek society, when literacy was rare and memory essential for defining and recording the cultural identity, it was tradition that set the parameters of the world view. This is seen most clearly in the Homeric epics, for these reflect a long-standing oral poetic tradition in which, for the contemporary hearers of the bards’ performances, the shaping of the narrative sequence was conveyed as much by the form as by the content of the poetry. As is now well documented in oral-traditional theory, the traditional bards drew upon a massive repertoire of formulaic phrases, set-piece situations and story patterns, all well-familiar through generations of repetition, which through recurrence over time had acquired laminations of extra-contextual associations that vastly enriched the listeners’ reception process and response to the story as it unfolded.
In this article, the initial objective will be to demonstrate that the black-figure vase-painting of Athens in the 6th century BC was just as much governed by its painting tradition as oral epic was by its poetic tradition: the painters were equipped with a repertoire of figure-forms, iconographic motifs and scene-types, each of which increasingly over time developed associative significations over and above the overt content of the scene. Thereafter, the focus will shift to the tension between the constraints of the tradition and the urge for creative innovation, exploring how new ideas could be visually expressed within the traditional horizon of viewer-expectations. (Any venture to push beyond that horizon in a traditional context would almost inevitably lead to rejection by the tradition-trained recipients.) Close analysis of some examples of scenes that might initially appear to challenge traditional patterns will reveal that they are in fact largely built up out of pre-existing elements, each bringing its own traditional associations, and that the originality of the painter consisted in drawing upon those associations innovatively to evoke an exceptionally rich viewing response.
“Exekias hat mich gemalt und getöpfert”, ed. C. Reusser, M. Bürge, Archäologische Sammlung der Universität Zürich ISBN 9783905099348, 2018
An examination of Exekias' relationship with his workshop: Group E and associates through to the... more An examination of Exekias' relationship with his workshop: Group E and associates through to the Manner of the Lysippides Painter.
TÖPFER MALER WERKSTATT Zuschreibungen in der griechischen Vasenmalerei und die Organisation antiker Keramikproduktion. BAYERISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Band VII, 2016
Anyone who has worked closely on the pots of Exekias will have wrestled with the problem of some ... more Anyone who has worked closely on the pots of Exekias will have wrestled with the problem of some ‘B-sides’, where certain characteristic stylistic features on the reverse do not coincide with those on the obverse. The problem is particularly to be seen on the vases of Exekias’ middle phase, several of which present a superbly observed obverse, teamed with a reverse that is by comparison noticeably less impressive in composition and execution. Although one must allow for artistic variation of quality, it is puzzling to encounter a divergence of style from obverse to reverse of the same vase: within days, if not hours, the master apparently represented numerous small and relatively insignificant details of human and equine anatomy in a quite different way, thus running counter to the expectations of Morellian attribution. Some of these ‘alternative’ details recur in scenes by painters variously identified as Near Group E, Manner of Exekias, Near Exekias, as well as the Lysippides Painter and his Manner, on vases that in some cases present other similarities to Exekias’ works. These scenes cannot be attributed to Exekias, but the phenomenon calls for a reconsideration of how we understand the relationships between members of a group of vase-painters working close to one another, and also challenges our purist expectation that an ancient vase-painting is the jealously guarded creation of a single hand.
Fifty Treasures. Classical Antiquities in Australian and New Zealand Universities
This is the first publication of a 6th century relief fragment from the rim of a large basin, mos... more This is the first publication of a 6th century relief fragment from the rim of a large basin, most likely from Sicily; it exemplifies the technique of applying a cylinder-matrix to a strip of fine clay around the rim of a very large coarse ware vessel.
This paper examines the associations of the hedgehog as an element occasionally included in Greek... more This paper examines the associations of the hedgehog as an element occasionally included in Greek vase-painting: analysis of the range of painted contexts in which it is depicted, in light of ancient literary references and some modern observations of its habits, leads to the conclusion that hedgehogs were regarded as inauspicious and sinister.
C. Lang-Auinger – E. Trinkl (eds.), ΦΥΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΖΩΙΑ. Pflanzen und Tiere auf griechischen Vasen. Internationales Symposion Graz 2013 (CVA Österreich Beiheft 2) pp., 2015
On many Attic black-figure vases, animals and birds are either included in the scene or juxtapose... more On many Attic black-figure vases, animals and birds are either included in the scene or juxtaposed in an adjacent zone. This paper will explore the potential for interpreting at least some of them as providing an additional lamination of meaning that often serves an adverbial function: commenting on how the action of the main scene was performed, for instance. It will be proposed that this is a system of meaning construction that is predicated upon the existence of a substantial corpus of folk-comparisons, and that it works in parallel to the process of iconographical meaning generation, so extending a communicative approach that is fundamental to the technique.
Description: a small, hand-modelled globular bowl with a flat, incurving rim and a round base; a ... more Description: a small, hand-modelled globular bowl with a flat, incurving rim and a round base; a high loop handle from below the rim, opposite a tubular spout from the upper body; an upright rounded projection on the rim above the spout (see ). The fabric is light pinkish buff, with a slightly lustrous red slip, somewhat abraded on one side (see ) and with minor incrustation; there are a few small inclusions. The incised decoration may have been filled with a whitish chalk paste for contrast. A darker brown mark on the lower body on one side (see ) seems to be evidence of a firing irregularity; 1 a paler area below the left handle root (see ) may result from over-thin application of red slip, or also from a localised variation in the kiln heat.
Acta Classica, 2001
This paper presents a comparative exploration of what effect the disruption of the standard form ... more This paper presents a comparative exploration of what effect the disruption of the standard form of narrative expression has on the reception process within an established traditional context, examining first the early Greek oral poetic tradition represented by Homeric epic, and then comparing the Athenian black-figure vase-painting tradition of the 6th century BC. The two phenomena to be examined are the narrator's apostrophe of a character in epic, which disrupts the normal flow of third-person narrative, and the frontal face in Attic black-figure vase-painting, which disrupts the normal representation of figures with profile heads.
Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Amsterdam, July 12-17, 1998 (eds. R.F. Docter & E.M. Moormann), 1999
The famous krater attributed without hesitation to Exekias, was probably not painted by him but b... more The famous krater attributed without hesitation to Exekias, was probably not painted by him but by a painted within the later workshop of Exekias and the Lysippides Painter, influenced by both masters.
Signs of Orality, ed. E A Mackay: 115-42, Jan 1, 1999
Akroterion, 1999
From "Change and Continuity in the Ancient World" to "Change, and Continuity OF the Ancient World... more From "Change and Continuity in the Ancient World" to "Change, and Continuity OF the Ancient World:" this paper is an edited version of the Chairperson's Address to the 23rd Biennial Meeting of the Classical Association of South Africa, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, January 1999. In the time between delivery and publication it was up-dated to reflect registration and staff statistics for 1999 instead of the 1998 figures originally discussed, in the interests of providing as immediate an evaluation as possible of the situation of Classics in South Africa.
Voice Into Text (ed. Ian Worthington), Jan 1, 1995
Akroterion, 1996
The quest for the origins of tragedy has a long history, and its emphasis has tended to be on for... more The quest for the origins of tragedy has a long history, and its emphasis has tended to be on form rather than concept, with good reason since for the ancient writers the stem .,pa-y-conveyed a primary denotation of dramatic performance. Yet Aristotle in the Poetics is far more concerned with the concept than the form. In discussing the nature of tragedy, he is at pains to describe the best kind of tragic figure and the best kind of plot-structure in general terms.
Scholia, 1996
In the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Durban, a stone stele representing the child Horus' maste... more In the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Durban, a stone stele representing the child Horus' mastery over creatures that imply danger to humans, and topped by the protective head of Bes, is an example of an established type of magical amulet-stele, often (although not in this instance) featuring magical inscriptions.
BMCR, 2023
Critical review of L. Puritani & N. Zimmermann-Elseify, CVA Berlin 20, Attisch schwarzfigurige Ha... more Critical review of L. Puritani & N. Zimmermann-Elseify, CVA Berlin 20, Attisch schwarzfigurige Halsamphoren und Hydrien (Munich 2022).
Review published BMCR 2023.12.15
Mouseion. Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, 2016
Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus 10 the dust that had settled in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian Wa... more Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus 10 the dust that had settled in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War" [137]). However, the book achieves its aims and succeeds in bringing to life the sanctuary and the ancient people engaged with it. Scott's admirable determination to focus on all aspects of the site itself is evident across the book's organization. It is preceded by three useful maps that offer different geographical perspectives on Delphi (its position in the Mediterranean world, in the Aegean, and in its immediate surroundings), and there are several fine colour plates as well as a number of black and white prints, the quality of which varies. Finally, the book also includes a very useful short tour of the site and the museum.
The Classical Review (New Series), Jan 1, 2011
![Research paper thumbnail of Review of B. Fellmann, Antikensammlungen, ehemals Museum Antiker Kleinkunst, München. Band 13 Attisch-schwarzfigurige Augenschalen [Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Deutschland Band 77]. In Classical Review 56.2, 466-7, 2006.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58603758/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Classical Review, Jan 1, 2006
are given for some Russian and Ukrainian collections but not for others (p. 85), and so on. The v... more are given for some Russian and Ukrainian collections but not for others (p. 85), and so on. The volume would have beneμtted from more forthright editing.
The Classical Review (New Series), Jan 1, 2005
a phenomenon of Athenian sculpture. Most of the examples in the catalogue were found either on th... more a phenomenon of Athenian sculpture. Most of the examples in the catalogue were found either on the Acropolis or in Athens, and a strong argument could be made for most of those found elsewhere that they were produced either by Athenian sculptors or by sculptors in·uenced by Athenian style. The book is useful in bringing together this small genre of Archaic and Classical relief sculpture in an organized and logical fashion and should be consulted by those with an interest in all the forms of Greek sculpture.
The Classical Review (New Series), Jan 1, 2005
This volume need not detain scholars long, though instructors may µnd it pedagogically useful. It... more This volume need not detain scholars long, though instructors may µnd it pedagogically useful. It o¶ ers, in anthological format, a sampling of similes from Homer, Apollonius Rhodius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius. Each author is assigned his ...
![Research paper thumbnail of Vases in Mannheim: Review of Federico Utili: Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Deutschland [Band 75]. Mannheim, Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, ehemals Reiss-Museum. Band 2. In in Classical Review 55.1, 339-41, 2005](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58603829/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](The Classical Review (New Series), Jan 1, 2005
of course, makes relating the scene to the shape on which it appeared a problem. No real attempt ... more of course, makes relating the scene to the shape on which it appeared a problem. No real attempt was made then to imitate the original painting technique-though there is some half-hearted shading to indicate colour di ¶erences-which is an added obstacle to identiµcation. Plates A-H therefore really are a minor miracle: they show, in colour, and on the same scale, a selection of the fragments laid on the Tischbein plates which illustrate the vase scene from which they come. The ingenious black and white plates, by the photographer John He ¶ron and draughtswoman Candida Lonsdale, assemble associated fragments opposite or next to a meticulous drawing; if there is a related Tischbein plate, it appears there too. The authors' catalogue text is, I think rightly, allowed greater length than usual, so as to accommodate the description of what is there and its condition, but also to allow for some judicious interpretation, and extended attribution commentary and parallel-citation, all of which is particularly revealing and constructive in this context. This review could be read, if you like, as another report from the CVA front, on a volume which broadens the frame of reference of the series yet again, and certainly contributes to current debate about its purpose, content, and format. This volume is in some ways an extreme version of many of the characteristics which have evolved in the history of the series, in that its contribution to collection studies is presented more explicitly and deliberately than in many fascicles for well-established assemblages. Its extended introduction gives us not only the history of the collection, but also the history of its afterlife, its recovery, and the speciµc job of reconstructing a collection in more than one sense, and records a major piece of research and conservation work. In many ways its priorities mirror those of Hamilton and Tischbein in their original publication of the collection-not only connoisseurship, but dissemination, education, history, and an aid to the acquisition of technical expertise. That makes this fascicle an impressive volume, quite apart from its evident glamour.
![Research paper thumbnail of Review of Elke Böhr, Berlin, Antikensammlung, ehemals Antiquarium, Band 9: Attisch rotfigurige Hydrien. Attische Firnis-Hydrien. [Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Deutschland Band 74]. In Classical Review 54.2, 545-45, 2004](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58602415/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](The Classical Review (New Series), Jan 1, 2004
The Classical Review, Jan 1, 2004
Scholia, 2000
Greece' (p. 234) is important, !? and hc provides a good brief account (pp. 235f.) of the crucial... more Greece' (p. 234) is important, !? and hc provides a good brief account (pp. 235f.) of the crucial passage of Photius comparing the extant Onos and the lost Greek Metamorphoses. But the chief contribution of this chapter is the comparison of the l\tfelamorphoses with Greek novels (pp. 242-51), sharing much with Sandy's article in Aufstieg IInd Niedergang der riJmischen Wefl. I ' Th is importantly stresses that the papyrus discoveries of Greek low-life novels such as the lolaus narrative and Lollianus' Phoinikika provide important predecessors for Apuleius. 19 Sandy's view of Apuleian allusion here seems rather ambivalent: he can state that 'Apuleius rarely develops and s ustains literary imitation beyond isolated phrases' (p. 252), but also that 'Apuleius ' use of literary allusion is far more complex than appears 10 be the case in any of the Greek novels ... one find s here subtlcties worthy of Alexandrian writers and their Roman disciples in the Augustan period and what would now be callcd intcrtextuality ' (p. 252). The latter approach would I think bc that more widely held by modem Apuleian scholars and therc is now a vast bibliography.20 ApuJeian scholars should be grateful to Sandy for his ach ievement in supplying the first broadly effective modem account of Apuleius' cultural and intcllectual background. While this work does not provide the last word in bibliography, sUIVey of scholarl y debate or detailed analysis, there is no doubt that it provides a firm contextual isation of ilS author and many useful con tributions to ongoing Apuleian arguments and issues.
Scholia , 1996
One should not complain, however, about what is missing but rather should enjoy what is at hand: ... more One should not complain, however, about what is missing but rather should enjoy what is at hand: a masterful ovetview ofYergil' s so*called ' influence' or, if you like, Nachleben from the ancient vi/ae to Hermann Broch's Der Tod des Virgil. For the Middle Ages we still have Comparetti's ViriiiJio nel Mediaeva, recentl y supplemented by Fabio Slok in an important article. Ziolkowski 's book provides many insights into the ancient poet' s followers in our time, some of them doubtful personae, some of them great creators; it also provides a deepened understanding of how ' The Classical Tradition ' works in Ihis century.
Scholia, 1993
But then that was John Lydus from beginning to end. From his student years he specialized in Lati... more But then that was John Lydus from beginning to end. From his student years he specialized in Latin, by this time a language nOl much needed in government. Maas sums up Lydus' non-Christian view of society as a 'wilfu] denial of reality' (p. 117), but there is more that must be drawn from the personal side. John Lydus followed an obscure specialism. He left the palace for the relative backwater of the Prefecture. He stayed stubbornly Joyal to a boss who had only held office momentarily. He was a man who did everything to avoid accepting the responsibility (and risks) that exerting his abilities fully could have brought.
2021 Trendall Lecture, presented by the Trendall Research Centre, La Trobe University, 2021
[This presentation was recorded, but for reasons of museum copyright over images it cannot be pub... more [This presentation was recorded, but for reasons of museum copyright over images it cannot be publicly posted. For more information on this paper please contact the author.]
If you have ever studied a masterpiece of Greek painted pottery from photographs alone, it is a revelation when you encounter it "in the flesh." There is the immediacy of its three-dimensional corporeality: the orange clay-colour glows; the black gloss gleams and coruscates with the change of light as you move around it. You see subtle variations in the decorative surface: matt additional colours contrast with the glossy black; your eye is caught by the filigree-like intricacy of incised details, and perhaps by relief elements glinting as they catch the light. The figures in the scenes, static in fixed-view photographs, are enlivened by the shifting dynamics of the pictorial composition. Even in the sterile context of a museum, you can capture something of how ancient vases were perceived by their contemporary users. But did ancient viewers respond as we do to the colours and textures applied by the vase-painters? That question, in particular reference to the Athenian black-figure tradition, will be a major focus of this illustrated lecture: while we tend to interpret overlaid added-red and added-white in terms of our own culturally constructed spectrum, there is evidence that vasepainters used them beyond mere chromatic variation to add extra layers of meaning to their depictions.
Inscriptions on Attic black-figure vases can be categorised according to different functions: the... more Inscriptions on Attic black-figure vases can be categorised according to different functions: the naming of mythological figures, the signatures of the potter and/or the painter, the praise of citizen-names as καλός, second-person addresses to the viewer, occasional utterances of depicted figures, and the very rare identification of context (excluding nonsense-inscriptions made up of jumbled Greek letters, and imitation-inscriptions consisting of rows of small blobs). In recent years there has been a lot of scholarly attention paid to vase-inscriptions in which variously individual categories have been analysed: for instance the assorted essays edited by Yatromanolakis (2016), Hurwit’s monograph on signatures (2015), and the important article by Osborne and Pappas (2007). This paper will more holistically examine the phenomenon of inscriptions in the black-figure tradition, pointing out that although initially they start as text-messages, identifying figures that are otherwise largely unmarked, they very soon become visually active and form part of the intended impact of the picture, as well as being assimilated into the traditional formulation of recurrent mythological figures, albeit in an optional capacity. Furthermore several inscription-categories can be seen to serve as vehicles for conveying κλέος in the Homeric sense.
WHAT PAINTED LADIES DO: Representations of female agency in Attic black-figure vase-painting, wit... more WHAT PAINTED LADIES DO: Representations of female agency in Attic black-figure vase-painting, with particular reference to the series of fountainhouse scenes
Anne Mackay, University of Auckland
While there have been quite a few specialised studies of depictions of women on Attic vases in the past quarter-century (from Harvey [1988] to gender-studies publications by scholars such as Rabinowitz, Blundell, and Ferrari in the last decade) these have focused in large part on Attic red-figure vases of the 5th century, where the depictions can seem comparatively accessible to modern interpretation. The women represented on archaic black-figure vases, by contrast, are difficult to interpret, not least because few of them are iconographically identified. Furthermore, black-figure vase-painting is strongly traditional in its nature, so that it tends to use what may be termed a ‘restricted code’ (in contrast to the much more flexible ‘elaborated code’ of classical red-figure painting) that can limit interpretative response. In the vase-painting of archaic Athens as preserved, images of women generally represent polarised extremes: either they directly affirm (male) societal expectations of women’s roles, or they reinforce those expectations through alterity expressed in mythological contexts. This paper will discuss a selection of black-figure scenes featuring women represented in an unusually active role, fetching water from the fountainhouse. Although a number of different interpretations have been proposed for these scenes, they remain problematic as not all the scenes fit any one explanation. A careful consideration of the constraints and emphases of the sixth century black-figure painting tradition, along with recognition of the shape and function of the vase-form on which most are painted, suggests a new (re-)construction of the potential meaning of the scenes in their historical and social reception-context.
Conference programme, 2019
The quality of Exekias' painting and potting as perceived in the 21st century AD (including the p... more The quality of Exekias' painting and potting as perceived in the 21st century AD (including the proposed attribution of a fragment to Exekias' oeuvre), and an overview of the evidence for how it was perceived in his own time.