VIII. Ancient Aegean civilisation and Archaic Greece
Periods of Art History I: from Prehistory to Trajan
Plan of the lesson
1. Cyclades: anthropomorpic sculpture
2. “Minoan” art on the island of Crete and Thera (Santorini)
3. Mycenae culture
4. Archaic Greek sculpture: Kouroi and Korai
1. Cycladic civilisation and its sculpture
c. 3100 BCE – 1000 BCE
Cycladic “folded-arm figure”, ca. 2400 BCE, marble
Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu
Contents of a Cycladic grave from the Island of
Iralkia, ca. 2600–2400 BCE
Marble head with painted vertical striations, Cycladic II, H: 25,3 cm, marble
ca. 2800–2300 BCE,
Amorgos National Archaeological Museum, Athens
2. “Minoan” culture on the islands of Crete and Thera
The palace of Knossos, built from 1900 BCE, abandoned and destroyed around 1350 BCE
Blue monkey frieze, c. 1580–1530 B.C.E, fresco, found in the House of the Frescoes, room D (today in the Heraklion,
Archaeological Museum, Crete
Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941), Portrait 1907, by William Richmond
Theseus dragging the Minotaur out of the Labyrinth,
red-figure kylix from c. 440-430 BC
“Minoan Snake Goddess” figurine, c. 1600 BCE, Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. Before and after the restoration of Evans
Thera (Santorini)
Western house
Xeste 3
ca. 1600 BCE
The Monkey Fresco from Room B6
in Akrotiri, ca. 17th century BCE
Hanuman langurs
West house
La “Parisienne” from Knossos
Skin color convention in Egypt: Old Kingdom
Mycenian Civilization,
c. 1600 – ca. 1100 BCE
Linear B script
Myceane
The Lion Gate in the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae, ca. 1250 BCE
Funerary masks, from the tombs in Grave Circle A, Mycenae, ca. 1600–1450 BCE
Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890)
So-called ‘Mask of Agamemnon’, excavated in
1876 at Mycenae by Schliemann
Geometric period of Greek pottery and sculpture
Ca. 1100 to 700 BCE
Man and centaur, c. 750 B.C.E., bronze, 11.10 cm high
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Centaur of Lefkandi, maybe
Cheiron (?), height: 36 cm,
end of the 10th century BCE
Achaeological Museum,
Eretria
4. Archaic Greek Art
“Master of the Dipylon”, funerary amphora,
clay, height: 1,55 m, around 760 BCE
National Archaeological Museum, Athens
Greek territories and colonies during the Archaic period (750–550 BC)
King Menkaure and queen,
2490–2472 B.C.E., greywacke,
142.2 x 57.1 x 55.2 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Statue of a woman (Lady of Auxerre), c. 640–630
B.C.E., Daedalic (Early Archaic), Greek, possible
Crete, limestone, 75 cm high, Louvre
Orientalizing period
Ca. 700 to 600 BCE
Marble statue of a kouros (youth), 590–580 BCE, MET
Kleopis and Biton, twin kouroi, attributed to Polymedes
of Argos, height: 2,16 m and 2,18 m, c. 580 BCE
Archaeological Museum, Delphi
Statue of a Kore, ca. 520 BC, Height: 1.82 m,
Archaic Acropolis Gallery
Antenor Kore, 525–500 B.C.E.,
Pentelic and Paros marble, 205 cm
(Acropolis Museum)
Kore from the Heraion of
Samos, c. 570–560 B.C.E.,
marble, Louvre
Peplos kore, Parian marble
with traces of polychromy,
height: 1,17 m, c. 530 BCE
Acropolis Museum, Athens
Casts of the Peplos Kore with two
versions of restored painted decoration,
as Artemis or Athena
Acropolis Museum, Athens
Kroisos kouros, c.
530 BCE
Archaeological
Museum, Athens
MET kouros,
c. 590–580 BCE
Metropolitan Museum,
New York
Kouros of Tenea, c.
560-560 BCE
Archaeological
Museum, Athens
Piraeus Apollo,
c. 530-520 BCE
Archaeological Museum
of Piraeus
Aristokidos kouros,
c. 510-500 BCE
Archaeological Museum,
Athens