The Panathenaic Games

The Panathenaic Games PDF Author: Olga Palagia
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782979824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
The papers in this volume were presented at an international conference organised in Athens (May 11-14, 2004) and focus on the study of the Panathenaic Games, a Panhellenic athletic event that lasted for nearly a millennium. An international assembly of archaeologists, art historians, ancient historians, epigraphists and classical scholars contributed to the discussion of the origins and the historical development of the Panathenaic Games in general and of individual contests in particular. The role of royal and other patrons in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, as well as the form and meaning of victory dedications and other monuments generated by the games were also examined, making this a truly interdisciplinary study into this fascinating event. Two papers are in Greek. "This handsomely-illustrated conference volume is the first to concentrate exclusively on the games." Jackson, Journal of Hellenic Studies "A handsome, well-illustrated, large-format volume of the proceeding, mostly in English, of a conference held in Athens in 2004 in connection with the modern Olympics." - Tsetskhladze, Ancient West & East

The Panathenaic Games

The Panathenaic Games PDF Author: Olga Palagia
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782979832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
The papers in this volume were presented at an international conference organised in Athens (May 11-14, 2004) and focus on the study of the Panathenaic Games, a Panhellenic athletic event that lasted for nearly a millennium. An international assembly of archaeologists, art historians, ancient historians, epigraphists and classical scholars contributed to the discussion of the origins and the historical development of the Panathenaic Games in general and of individual contests in particular. The role of royal and other patrons in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, as well as the form and meaning of victory dedications and other monuments generated by the games were also examined, making this a truly interdisciplinary study into this fascinating event. Two papers are in Greek. "This handsomely-illustrated conference volume is the first to concentrate exclusively on the games." Jackson, Journal of Hellenic Studies "A handsome, well-illustrated, large-format volume of the proceeding, mostly in English, of a conference held in Athens in 2004 in connection with the modern Olympics." - Tsetskhladze, Ancient West & East

Serving Athena

Serving Athena PDF Author: Julia L. Shear
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108618022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 555

Book Description
In ancient Athens, the Panathenaia was the most important festival and was celebrated in honour of Athena from the middle of the sixth century BC until the end of the fourth century AD. This in-depth study examines how this all-Athenian celebration was an occasion for constructing identities and how it affected those identities. Since not everyone took part in the same way, this differential participation articulated individuals' relationships both to the goddess and to the city so that the festival played an important role in negotiating what it meant to be Athenian (and non-Athenian). Julia Shear applies theories of identity formation which were developed in the social sciences to the ancient Greek material and brings together historical, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence to provide a better understanding both of this important occasion and of Athenian identities over the festival's long history.

Goddess and Polis

Goddess and Polis PDF Author: Jenifer Neils
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691036120
Category : Arts, Greek
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
While the Olympics, because of their modern revival, enjoy the greatest fame today, in ancient Greece other religious festivals were equally elaborate and impressive spectacles. The lavishly illustrated Goddess and Polis is the first work devoted to the Panathenaia, the most significant of these festivals to be held in ancient Athens. Founded in 566 B.C., this complex ritual performed for the goddess Athena vied with other Greek festivals in grandeur and importance and was particularly distinguished by the works of art commissioned in its service. Among these were the painted vases known as Panathenaic amphoras, each of which contained forty liters of olive oil, awarded to athletic and equestrian victors. The contests depicted on these vases are the best extant illustrations of Greek sport. Although women were excluded from the competitions, they had an important role to play in the weaving of the peplos, an elaborate textile that took nine months to produce. The culmination of the festival was a long procession bearing this new robe to the cult statue of the goddess; the procession in turn was the subject of another great work of art, the Parthenon frieze. Combining art, spectacle, and civic consciousness, the Panathenaia contributed to the development of the high classical style of Periklean Athens. This book deals with every aspect of the festival and produces a vivid portrait of the worship of the patron goddess of the city. Essays by eminent classical scholars examine in depth the musical and poetic competitions, the athletic and equestrian contests, the peplos, and the evolving image of Athena as documented in sculpture from the Acropolis. Jenifer Neils, the curator of the exhibition Goddess and Polis, held at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, has contributed an introduction to the Panathenaia, an essay on the prize amphoras, and detailed entries for the seventy objects exhibited.

Worshipping Athena

Worshipping Athena PDF Author: Jenifer Neils
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299151140
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Ten papers from 1992 symposia at Dartmouth College and Princeton University are augmented by an original chapter and a translation of a Greek article, to explore the myth and cult of Athena, contests and prizes associated with her worship, and art and politics generated around her. Among the topics are women in the Panathenaic and other festivals, the iconography of shield devices and column-mounted statues on amphoras, and the Panatheniaia in the age of Perikles. Paper edition (unseen), $22.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece

Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Panos Valavanis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9786185209186
Category : Athletes in art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Twelve years after the first edition of this book the time has come for an enlarged and improved second edition. This was prompted by the need to update it with the new results of historical and archaeological research on the panhellenic sanctuaries and their games, as well as from the need to replace and supplement the photographic material of the many sites and monuments where excavation and restoration works have provided new insights. In this way readers have in their hands a book that is fully up to date about the Pan-Hellenic games and ancient Greek athletic. Modeled after physical exercises and competitions that existed in earlier Near Eastern cultures, hundreds of athletic games took place in Greek antiquity, extending across every area of the Mediterranean in which Greek culture flourished. Of the vast number of games, four attained the status of panhellenic games: the Olympic games, held at Olympia in honor of Zeus; the Pythian games at Delphi, at the festival of Apollo; the Isthmian games, at the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia; and the Nemean games, celebrated in the sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea. The Panathenaic games, which took place at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens in honor of Athena, were, at their peak, equal in brilliance to those held at the panhellenic festivals. In these five games, more than anywhere else, the magnificent culture and ideology of Greek antiquity flourished. The spectacle of the games gave rise to a sporting tradition that engages the world to this day. Founded as early as the 8th century BC, the games held at Olympia, however, were the oldest and most important and surpassed all the others in their fame and glory. Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece celebrates the athletes, the games, the sanctuaries, the cities and, above all, the inspiring spirit of the ancient Greeks over a span of a millennium and a half, from the earliest mentions of athletics in Homer's Iliad and other literary sources, through the Classical age, and into the Hellenistic, Roman and late antique periods. That our modern athletes still compete every four years in such contests as the pentathlon, discus, javelin, boxing, jumping, wrestling and running events, much as their ancient antecedents did centuries before them, is a testament to the longevity of competition, triumph and defeat.

Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music

Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music PDF Author: Gregory Nagy
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
This book examines the overall testimony of Plato as an expert about the cultural legacy of these Homeric performances. Plato's fine ear for language--in this case the technical language of high-class artisans like rhapsodes--picks up on a variety of authentic expressions that echo the talk of rhapsodes as they once practiced their art.

Ancient Greek Athletics

Ancient Greek Athletics PDF Author: Stephen Gaylord Miller
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300115291
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
Presenting a survey of sports in ancient Greece, this work describes ancient sporting events and games. It considers the role of women and amateurs in ancient athletics, and explores the impact of these games on art, literature and politics.

The Parthenon Enigma

The Parthenon Enigma PDF Author: Joan Breton Connelly
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385350503
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 521

Book Description
Built in the fifth century b.c., the Parthenon has been venerated for more than two millennia as the West’s ultimate paragon of beauty and proportion. Since the Enlightenment, it has also come to represent our political ideals, the lavish temple to the goddess Athena serving as the model for our most hallowed civic architecture. But how much do the values of those who built the Parthenon truly correspond with our own? And apart from the significance with which we have invested it, what exactly did this marvel of human hands mean to those who made it? In this revolutionary book, Joan Breton Connelly challenges our most basic assumptions about the Parthenon and the ancient Athenians. Beginning with the natural environment and its rich mythic associations, she re-creates the development of the Acropolis—the Sacred Rock at the heart of the city-state—from its prehistoric origins to its Periklean glory days as a constellation of temples among which the Parthenon stood supreme. In particular, she probes the Parthenon’s legendary frieze: the 525-foot-long relief sculpture that originally encircled the upper reaches before it was partially destroyed by Venetian cannon fire (in the seventeenth century) and most of what remained was shipped off to Britain (in the nineteenth century) among the Elgin marbles. The frieze’s vast enigmatic procession—a dazzling pageant of cavalrymen and elders, musicians and maidens—has for more than two hundred years been thought to represent a scene of annual civic celebration in the birthplace of democracy. But thanks to a once-lost play by Euripides (the discovery of which, in the wrappings of a Hellenistic Egyptian mummy, is only one of this book’s intriguing adventures), Connelly has uncovered a long-buried meaning, a story of human sacrifice set during the city’s mythic founding. In a society startlingly preoccupied with cult ritual, this story was at the core of what it meant to be Athenian. Connelly reveals a world that beggars our popular notions of Athens as a city of staid philosophers, rationalists, and rhetoricians, a world in which our modern secular conception of democracy would have been simply incomprehensible. The Parthenon’s full significance has been obscured until now owing in no small part, Connelly argues, to the frieze’s dismemberment. And so her investigation concludes with a call to reunite the pieces, in order that what is perhaps the greatest single work of art surviving from antiquity may be viewed more nearly as its makers intended. Marshalling a breathtaking range of textual and visual evidence, full of fresh insights woven into a thrilling narrative that brings the distant past to life, The Parthenon Enigma is sure to become a landmark in our understanding of the civilization from which we claim cultural descent.

Ancient Greece from Homer to Alexander

Ancient Greece from Homer to Alexander PDF Author: Joseph Roisman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118300955
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
With fresh, new translations and extensive introductions and annotations, this sourcebook provides an inclusive and integrated view of Greek history, from Homer to Alexander the Great. New translations of original sources are contextualized by insightful introductions and annotations Includes a range of literary, artistic and material evidence from the Homeric, Archaic and Classical Ages Focuses on important developments as well as specific themes to create an integrated perspective on the period Links the political and social history of the Greeks to their intellectual accomplishments Includes an up-to-date bibliography of seminal scholarship An accompanying website offers additional evidence and explanations, as well as links to useful online resources