Rambling Readers

Carsten

I'm just a guy with a lot of hobbies - #brewing, growing stuff, making #vinegar, collecting #AncientCoins, #photography, #boardgames, #ComputerGames, and much more.

I need a new hobby like I need a new hole in the head, but I am also powerless to resist when a new hobby strikes. Such is life.

I work as a #TechnicalWriter at a Danish software company. I have three clever and independent children who shout at me a lot, and a wife who doesn't. We live a happy normie-life in suburbia.

Back in the before-times I studied #linguistics at #AarhusUniversity. I think about #AncientRome and #AncientGreece probably every hour or so.

Erotic Mythology (hire me) 🌹 replied to khthoniaa :pinkmoon:'s status

@khthoniaa Also, importantly, you can *eat* the offerings! The ancients did that and so can you! Unless it is an offering to chthonic deities, the idea is that the gods enjoy the smell (knise) of the offering but don't consume the food itself, so it's absolutely fine to eat.

#HellenicPaganism #HellenicPolytheism #ancientGreekReligion #paganism #ancientGreece

The Partial Historians

Top reason to go to Delos? To see these magnificent phalloi set up to show appreciation to Dionysus and Pan. Just a matter of finding where the tips went…

📸 Mark Cartwright via World History Encyclopedia

#PhallusThursday #AncientGreece #History @histodons @antiquidons @AimeeMaroux

Marble plinths topped with giant but broken phalloi. The balls form the base of the sculptures but the shaft and head of each phallus is missing.

Erotic Mythology (hire me) 🌹

It's the Day of Hermes aka Mercurius Day aka #Wednesday! 🐏

A premature #PhallusThursday for good luck in this #NewYears week: a young man carrying a sacrificial basket passes by a herm, a simple statue of #Hermes with a head and a #phallus at the appropriate height. He gives the phallus a rub for good luck. May your #NewYear2024 be happy and full of joy!

@mythology @antiquidons
#DayOfHermes #Mythology #GreekRomanArt #ancientGreece

Red-figure vase painting of a youth carrying a sacrificial basket and, turning to the right, rubs the phallus of a herm with his right hand.

The Partial Historians

This Greek marble stele commemorates a young girl. Although there is some damage to her face and what she holds (pomegranates?), the poignant grief of saying goodbye to a child too soon is clear.

🕰️ c. 440–425 BCE
📍Boeotia
🏛 The Met, 11.141

#ReliefWednesday #AncientGreece #History @histodons @antiquidons

Description from the museum: “The girl's rather chubby body and the garment worn without a belt suggest a young age. It is interesting to note that of her sandals, only the soles are sculpted; the straps would have been painted. The objects in her hands are probably fruit, specifically pomegranates.”

Flavia Frisone 🎓 Greek History

🌊 SICILY/GRECE/MAGNA GRAECIA: how to tell the story of a seminal relationship, that built the #AncientMediterranean giving shape to our cultural imaginary. An exhibition of extraordinary artefacts from various #museums of #Sicily, southern Italy and from Athens at the Salinas Archaeological #Museum of Palermo

#Exhibition curated by F. Frisone,
C. Greco, E. Bonacini @antiquidons #ancientgreece @archaeodons @AimeeMaroux
@phistorians #GreekHistory #archaeology

The Partial Historians

Greek golden wreath ~ c. 350–300 BCE

This golden wreath is thought to represent oak indicated by gold acorns. Interwoven with the foliage is a bee and two cicadas. Breathtakingly beautiful!

🏛 British Museum, 1908,0414.1

#AncientGreece #History @histodons

Description from the museum: “Gold oak wreath with a bee and two cicadas. This wreath consists of two branches. At the back the stems have obliquely cut end-plates; at the front the two branches are held together with a split pin fastener that has a bee as its cap. The branches are made of sheet-gold tubes, over a modern copper core. Each branch has six sprays with eight leaves and seven or eight acorns, as well as a cicada. In addition, there are about a dozen single leaves set straight into each branch. The leaves are of three different sizes and are made in one piece with their stalks. The acorns are made in left and right die-formed halves; the cups are cross-hatched and there is a point on the top of the fruit. The cicadas are constructed from four separate sheets of gold - lower body, upper body, two wings.”

Flavia Frisone 🎓 Greek History

Heracles fights against the Queen of the Amazons

There are many ways to reflect on the theme of violence against women, let us also try the eternity of myths that help us explore the memory of contemporary culture.
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📍 Antonino Salinas Archaeological Museum in Palerno, metope from Temple E of Selinunte [5th cent. BC]
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#ancientgreece #archaeology #mythology #greekhistory #museum #ancienthistory #attheschoolofwomen

Heracles fights against the Queen of the Amazons 📍 Antonino Salinas Archaeological Museum in Palerno, metope from Temple E of Selinunte [5th cent.

The Partial Historians

Greek marble grave stele of two figures ~ c. 400–390 BCE

The portrait of a young woman that adorns this stele seems to capture her wistful essence of character. Next to her may be a young relative or an attendant.

🏛 The Met
📍Unknown
#ReliefWednesday #AncientGreece #History

Description from the museum: “The young woman leans against the framing pilaster of her grave stele in a pose that may have been inspired by a famous contemporary statue of Aphrodite. Like the child with doves on the stele found on Paros (acc. no. 27.45), the little girl wears an ungirt peplos that is open at the side. Her hair is cut short in mourning. She holds a jewel box and may be a younger sister of the deceased or a household slave.”

Erotic Mythology (hire me) 🌹

It's the Day of Ares / Mars' Day / #Tuesday! 🗡️

"He was red with blood as if he were slaying living men, and he stood in his chariot. Beside him stood Deimos and Phobos, eager to plunge amidst the fighting men."
Hesiod, The Shield of Heracles 191

🏛️ #Ares among Greeks and #Amazons, detail of an Apulian volute krater, 5th century BCE. Today in the National Archaeological Museum Jatta, Ruvo di Puglia.

@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfAres #mythology #ancientGreece #GreekRomanArt

Red-figure vase painting of Ares riding a war chariot in a rare fronal view. He is wearing a black breast-plate and a crested helmet and a star-pattern cloak. Beside him, one of his amazon daughters stands holding a spear.

Erotic Mythology (hire me) 🌹

It's the Day of Selene / Luna's Day / #Monday! 🌛

"Swelled like young Mene's [Selene's] arching chariot-rail when high over Okeanos' fathomless-flowing stream she rises, with the space half filled with light betwixt her bowing horns."
Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 1.147

🏛️ Red-figure vase painting of #Selene.

@antiquidons @mythology
#DayOfSelene #MoonMonday #ancientGreece #GreekRomanArt

The Partial Historians

Marble relief of a warrior ~ C2nd CE

This fragment depicts a wounded Greek warrior - a Roman era reimagining of the ancient Greek style of sculpture of the C5th BCE.

🏛 Art Institute, Chicago; 1928.257
📍 Piraeus harbour, off the coast of Athens

#ReliefWednesday #AncientRome #AncientGreece #History

Description from the museum: “The dying warrior’s noble countenance, the fillet or ribbon tied around his forehead, and his powerful, athletic body epitomize what Pheidias and his pupils sought to project as the ideal of mature male dignity in the decade when Athens was at the height of its power in the eastern Mediterranean world. Some five centuries later, collectors such as the Roman emperor Hadrian sought this Pheidian style, translated from a circular golden shield to a rectangular marble relief, to decorate their palaces and villas. Athenian sculptors of the Roman era made a good living creating and exporting such memories of past glories. This relief and a number of others were found near Athens in the harbor of Piraeus, where they had been lost in a disaster, likely while awaiting shipment.”

The Partial Historians

Greek marble pelican’s foot shell ~ c. 400 BCE

The artistry involved in capturing nature is breath-taking. One of my favourite pieces from the ancient Greek world. Sadly, the provenance is not recorded…

🏛 The Met, 1995.19

#AncientGreece #History

Description from the museum: “
This work imitates a pelican's foot shell, which is common to the Mediterranean. Only a handful of marble shells are known. They must have been manufactured in the same Greek workshops that produced elegant marble vessels intended as grave offerings for the dead.”

Erotic Mythology (hire me) 🌹

Not just men can party - not even in #ancientGreece - as this female reveller proves. She is playing the popular party game kottabos, flinging drops of wine sediment at a target not seen here.

🎨 Red-figure kylix attributed to Onesimos ca 490 BCE: woman reveller playing kottabos

#FannyFriday @antiquidons @phistorians #GreekRomanArt

Red-figure vase painting of a female reveller playing kottabos. She is in the nude, lounging on a couch, with a walking stick in the background often shown with male revellers. She holds a cup of wine in one hand, flinging it with the other in a game of kottabos.

The Partial Historians

Greek marble stele of a woman ~ C4th BCE

This funerary marker captures a portrait of a woman in thoughtful repose. Who is the subject? The overlife size and the captivating artistry suggests someone of great wealth.

🏛 The Met, 48.11.4
📍 Acharnae (Attica)

#AncientGreece #ReliefWednesday #History

Description from the museum: “This noble image of a woman brings to mind the philosopher Aristotle's description of commonly held beliefs about the dead: "In addition to believing that those who have ended this life are blessed and happy, we also think that to say anything false or slanderous against them is impious, from our feeling that it is directed against those who have already become our betters and superiors" (Of the Soul, quoted in Plutarch, A Letter to Apollonius 27). Larger than life and seated on a thronelike chair, this figure assumes almost heroic proportions.”