Winter, I. J. (2000). Thera Paintings and the Ancient Near East: The Private and Public Domains of Wall Decoration. The Wall Paintings of Thera: Proceedings of the First International Colloquium. S. Sherratt (ed.). Athens, Thera Foundation. 2: 745-762. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Broadening Horizons 5. Civilizations in Contact: From the Prehistory of Upper Mesopotamia to the Bronze and Iron Age Societies of the Levant, ed. Marco Iamoni, 2020
Full Article Downloadable from: https://www.openstarts.units.it/handle/10077/30215 The Middle Bronze Age in the Near East was a period of particular commercial and political developments. Numerous polities rose in the Levant as a result of internal and external triggers. The material culture and finds from this area, which had no fixed boundaries or clear identity, reveals a continuous and vibrant interaction and exchange with the stronger surrounding cultures. This is clearly reflected in the architecture of the excavated palaces. A mélange of local and foreign features could be identified: Aegean frescoes, Egyptianizing wall paint- ings, Mesopotamian architecture and Anatolian building technique. The architecture of these palaces was used by the Levantine Elites to communicate their political power and reach to their peers. But what was the inten- tion and motivation of the various elites to integrate selected foreign features in the architecture and decora- tion of their palaces? This paper seeks to answer this question by identifying the preferences and the choices of foreign styles and features. Through defining the local or regional trends, some insights are gained about the na- ture of the relationship between the Levantine polities and their neighbors, and the various zones of influence.
Tracing Technoscapes. The Production of Bronze Age Wall Paintings in the Eastern Mediterranean , 2018
Abstract For a length of time Bronze Age stucco reliefs have been brought to light almost exclusively at sites in the Aegean with the ‘palace’ of Knossos as the most important example. Since the 1990s the palatial district of Helmi/Tell el-Dabca in the eastern Nile delta is now the first site beyond the Aegean which has produced such a kind of three-dimensional artistic expression within its élite architecture. Hence it seems very likely to assume an interrelation in the way this complex craft has been executed in both regions, but the question arises how and to which extent. Through an analysis of the involved raw materials and a reconstruction of the craft’s chaîne opératoire, this paper therefore aims at a better understanding of the characteristic technical choices and habitualized procedures of the craftsperson in the Nile delta. A comparison of these results with practices traceable in the Aegean should help us to carve out common craft tradition, as well as deviations, to finally approach the possible enmeshment of both craft activities. Keywords: stucco reliefs; technique; work flow; Tell el-Dabca; skill; knowledge transfer; Egypt; Aegean.
in A.G. Vlachopoulos (ed.), ΧΡΩΣΤΗΡΕΣ / PAINTBRUSHES. Wall-painting and Vase-painting of the Second Millennium BC in Dialogue. University of Ioannina / Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports - Archaeological Receipts Fund: Athens 2018, pp. 205-221
I had examined the relationship between pottery and wall-painting for the first time in 1997, at the conference organized on the Thera wall-paintings, in my paper entitled “The Attraction of the Pictorial: Observations on the Relationship of Theran Pottery and Theran Fresco Iconography”, which was published in the conference proceedings. In that paper I had argued that local Theran pattern-painted pottery (both Cycladic and Minoanizing shapes) comprises the richest corpus of pictorial motifs in the Aegean at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. I also suggested that the representations on certain Late Cycladic I ceramic vessels were influenced by those of wall-paintings and, conversely, that the swallow motif crossed over from pottery to Theran frescoes at the beginning of the LC I period. Over the years since that paper, there has been no essential change in the general picture regarding pictorial pottery and mural painting from the last habitation phase on Thera. Nonetheless, certain new evidence from excavations conducted at both Akrotiri and the recently discovered site at Raos, is the stimulus for a reconsideration of the topic, or at least some of its aspects. In addition, I would like to put the two arts under discussion in a broader context, emphasizing that in prosperous Thera just prior to its volcanic destruction, conditions were ideal for the flourishing of all the Aegean visual arts…
AH 209 The Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Who lived in the Tower of Babel? Who was buried in the Royal Tombs of Ur? How were the ziggurats built? Peoples of the Ancient Near East produced a unique body of works of art, artifacts, and monuments, using a remarkable variety of materials and technologies, and created a long-lasting and diverse visual and material culture. This introductory lecture course investigates the art, architecture, and visual culture of Near Eastern societies from prehistoric times to the time of Alexander the Great (ca. 330 BC). The art and architecture of the earliest urban centers in ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria, Iran and the Levant will be studied. We will explore not only how modern scholars make sense of pictorial, sculptural and architectural forms of Near Eastern art, but will also investigate various technologies of production. Art can be broadly described as the creative and imaginative work of human communities and individuals using their material skills and acquired bodies of knowledge, in order to build a meaningful world around them. Architecture involves the building arts that on the one hand allow human communities to construct shelters, houses, and public monuments, while on the other hand characterizes the culturally specific way that they shape the space, the landscape, and the environment around them. Material culture includes everything that one uses in everyday life from kitchen utensils to writing implements, from clothing to cell phones. These are our intimate companions as we live in and make sense of the world. We tend to categorize them as fetishes, souvenirs, heirlooms, tools, knick knacks, voodoo dolls, marionettes, toys, furniture, relics, fossils, pots and pans, amounting to what we cumulatively call “material culture”. Visual culture is the culture of looking at and seeing the world in a particular way and producing images that reflect and embody those specific ways of seeing. In this course, we explore these different categories of things, monuments, and art that are produced by the ancient Near Eastern cultures. We will start with a discussion of the history of research in/on the Middle East, by the antiquarians, the first archaeologists in the 19th century and the establishment of the first museums to exhibit their finds. The chronological journey of the course starts with the Palaeolithic cave paintings and Neolithic figurines from the oldest, prehistoric communities in the Middle East, and take us all the way to the time when the Middle East was gradually Hellenized after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the collapse of the last Near Eastern empire- the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The survey will highlight precious, sacred objects such as the Uruk Vase, burial goods such as the Royal Tombs of Ur, public monuments such as the Stele of Naram Sin or the Law Stele of Hammurabi, architectural complexes such as the Assyrian Palaces, legendary wonders such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Tower of Babel.