Spotted cats: Mythological beasts of both the Old World and the New

 This unusual vase shows a human head of which all but the area of the eyes, nose, and mouth is enclosed in the head of an animal. The softness of the pelt is indicated by the way in which it tightly fits the human head. The small ears and spots are further animal attributes. It is difficult to identify the figure. It may possibly be a very Egyptianized interpretation of Herakles wearing the lion skin. - Metropolitan Museum of Art

This vessel caught my attention because it reminded me very much of ancient pre-Columbian American art.  All major Mesoamerican civilizations prominently featured a jaguar god, and for many, such as the Olmec, the jaguar was an important part of shamanism. The jaguar's formidable size, reputation as a predator, and its evolved capacities to survive in the jungle made it an animal to be revered. The Olmec and the Maya witnessed this animal's habits, adopting the jaguar as an authoritative and martial symbol, and incorporated the animal into their mythology. 

In the surviving Olmec archaeological record, jaguars are rarely portrayed naturalistically, but rather with a combination of feline and human characteristics. These feline anthropomorphic figures may range from a human figure with slight jaguar characteristics to depictions of shamanistic transformations in the so-called transformative pose, kneeling with hands on knees, to figures that are nearly completely feline.

One of the most prominent, distinctive, and enigmatic Olmec designs to appear in the archaeological record has been the "were-jaguar". Seen not only in figurines, the motif also may be found carved into jade "votive axes" and celts, engraved onto various portable figurines of jade, and depicted on several "altars".  The were-jaguar figure is characterized by a distinctive down-turned mouth with fleshy lips, and almond-shaped eyes.

The Maya, whose territory spanned the Yucatán Peninsula all the way to the Pacific coast of Guatemala, depicted gods with jaguar attributes as well.  The jaguar is said to have the ability to cross between worlds, and for the Maya daytime and nighttime represented two different worlds.  The living and the earth are associated with the day, and the spirit world and the ancestors are associated with the night. As the jaguar is quite at home in the nighttime, the jaguar is believed to be part of the underworld. Thus, Maya gods with jaguar attributes or garments are thought to have represented underworld gods. One such god is Xbalanque, one of the Maya Hero Twins who descended to the underworld, and whose entire body is covered with patches of jaguar skin. Another is God L, who is the primary lord of the underworld and often is shown with a jaguar ear or jaguar attire, and atop a jaguar throne.

This reverence for the jaguar carried forward to the much later Aztec civilization where their military elite were inducted into a unit dressed in jaguar regalia. To become a jaguar warrior, a member of the Aztec army had to capture a total of four enemies from battles. This was said to honor their gods in a way far greater than killing enemy soldiers on the battlefield. They also used spears and atlatls and fought with a wooden club studded with obsidian volcanic glass blades, called a macuahuitl. 

Jaguars, of course, were not known in the ancient Mediterranean world but the First Dynasty Egyptian deity Mafdet was often depicted wearing the skin of a cheetah.  She was associated with the protection of the king's chambers and other sacred places, and with protection against venomous animals, which were seen as transgressors against Maat.  She also represented the personification of legal justice.  It was said that Mafdet ripped out the hearts of wrong-doers, delivering them to the pharaoh's feet like cats that present humans with rodents or birds they have killed or maimed. During the New Kingdom, Mafdet was seen as ruling over the judgment hall in Duat where the enemies of the pharaoh were decapitated with Mafdet's claw.

During the reign of Tutankhamun, leopards were highly prized as symbols of royalty and divinity.  A leopard skin mantle or a cloth imitation of one was worn by the high priest during the opening of the mouth ceremony at royal burials.

Although a panther is often referred to as an attribute of the god Dionysus, the god was also depicted wearing leopard skin and using leopards as a means of transportation. In one myth, the god was captured by pirates but two leopards appear and rescue him.  

I find it interesting that cultures so far removed from each other wove their reverence for their respective spotted cats into their myths and religious practices. I can't help but wonder if the leopard-shrouded Greek figure of the 6th century BCE may have presided over one of the mystery religions as a similar priest in ancient America did.

 

Faience aryballos (oil flask) in the form of a head wearing an animal skin, 6th century B.C.E., East Greek, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

An Aztec jaguar warrior created by GodotDraws on DeviantArt

Aztec jaguar warriors based on codex illustrations created by American miniaturist George S. Stuart. Photograph by Peter D'Aprix.

Aztec jaguar warriors based on codex illustrations created by American miniaturist George S. Stuart. Photograph by Peter D'Aprix.

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The Mycenaean Dendra Panoply

In May 1960 Swedish archaeologists discovered the earliest example of a beaten bronze cuirass at Dendra, dated to the end of the fifteenth century BCE (Late Helladic IIIA - about 1400 BCE). It forms part of the Late Helladic Dendra Panoply, which consists of fifteen separate pieces of bronze sheet, held together with leather thongs, that encased the wearer from neck to knees. 

The panoply was found in tomb 12 of the Dendra necropolis and had been partially plundered at some point.  But in addition to the squashed armor, archaeologists were able to recover pottery fragments, a silver toggle pin (probably used to fasten an item of clothing), a bronze oinochoe (jug), as well as various other objects of bronze, including at least one knife and a dagger, a bronze mirror, a gold-plated ring, fragments of a silver cup, fragments of boar's tusk and a pair of swords inlaid with gold and ivory.

The panoply, when restored, was found to include a back and breast plate and six bronze plates, three in front and three behind along the bottom edge of the cuirass. A throat guard protected the wearer's neck and two triangular pieces were attached to the front of the breast plate to further protect the chest. The panoply also included two shoulder guards, two pieces of bronze to protect the the upper arms, a single greave and forearm guard.  Other bronze fragments were also found that may have been the remains of a second greave and forearm guard although classicist Diane Fortenberry argued that single greaves were used to indicate rank in Mycenaean Greece.

My first impression on seeing the panoply was that it resembled remnants of a robot from "Lost in Space." I couldn't visualize a Mycenaean warrior staggering around the battlefield in that armor! Although it is dated to about 100 years before the Trojan War, can you imagine Achilles fighting in it?

Apparently, my reaction has been shared by other scholars as well.  Some scholars tried to rationalize its use as armor worn by a chariot-mounted warrior.  Joost Crouwel observes,

"While it is certainly difficult to visualize a warrior thus equipped marching to and from a battlefield in the Greek summer, it is equally difficult to see him as fighting in a chariot. If we look at contemporary oriental armour, we see that the corselets worn by Asiatic and Egyptian chariot crews are long, flexible, short-sleeved tunics, covered with many scales of bronze or leather. This type of armour […] is much less cumbersome than the Dendra panoply."

Crouwell points out that the warrior wearing the Dendra panoply would not have fought with a bow as stretching a bow would have been extremely difficult, but used  a sword, dagger or thrusting spear, close range weapons which are rendered practically useless from a moving chariot.  Instead, Crouwel suggests the Dendra warrior may have been driven to the battlefield by a charioteer where he dismounted and fought as a swordsman, as evidenced by the two swords included in the grave goods. Piotr Taracha agrees and even points out that the warrior may have fought with two swords, even though there were skeletal remains of another male buried in the tomb as well.

Although we have only this one complete panoply to date, armor of similar type appears as an ideogram on Linear B tablets from Knossos, Pylos, and Tiryns and fragmentary armor of a similar type  was recovered in Thebes in 1964. No examples of such metal armor predate the Late Helladic II period and it disappears from the archaeological record at the end of Late Helladic IIA or beginning of Late Helladic IIB (about 1300 BCE) before reappearing briefly during the Dark Ages following the fall of Mycenaean palaces about 1200 BCE.

Read more about it:

https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/encased-bronze-panoply-mycenaean-tomb-dendra/

The Mycenaean Dendra Panoply found in tomb 12 of the Dendra necropolis dating to the end of 15th century BCE now in the Archaeological Museum of Nafplion (sometimes called Nafplio or Nauplion) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Schuppi.

Mycenaean warrior wearing Dendra-type armor, 1400-1200 BCE, by artist Christian Jégou.

Mycenaean warrior wearing Dendra-type armor, 1400-1200 BCE, by artist Christos Giannopoulos.

Ajax, wearing Dendra-type armor, heaves a large boulder at Hector's shield. by artist Peter Connolly

Mycenaean warrior wearing Dendra-type armor, 1400-1200 BCE, by artist Giuseppe Rava

Mycenaean warrior wearing Dendra-type armor, 1400-1200 BCE, by artist Giuseppe Rava

Mycenaean warrior wearing Dendra-type armor, 1400-1200 BCE, courtesy of Lāwāgetās, @ArcGreek on Twitter.

Mycenaean warrior wearing Dendra-type armor as envisioned by artist Bizfuzz on DeviantArt.

Historical reenactor wearing Dendra-type armor courtesy of Pinterest.

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Egypt and Cyprus in the Late Archaic Period

Cyprus, the third largest island in the Mediterranean, located north of Egypt and west of the Levant, was considered a strategic site  in the ancient world and subsequently occupied by the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans.  During the Cypriot Archaic Era (c. 750 BCE to 475 BCE), the island was ruled by Sargon II of Assyria, starting in 709 BCE when the Assyrians extorted taxes from Cyprus in exchange for their independence.  But, by 699 BCE the Assyrians withdrew because of conflicts elsewhere and the Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis II (also known as Ahmose II) claimed the island around 560 BCE.

According to Herodotus, Amasis was of common origins and originally an officer in the Egyptian army. He campaigned in Nubia under the Pharaoh Psamtik II in 592 BCE and rose to the rank of general. 

Psamtik II was succeeded by his son, Apries (also known as Waphres of Manetho). Apries led an expedition in an attempt to protect Libya from incursions by Dorian Greek invaders but his forces were badly mauled.  When the defeated army returned home, a civil war broke out in the Egyptian army between the indigenous troops and Greek mercenaries Apries had secured. The Egyptians threw their support to General Amasis who quickly declared himself pharaoh in 570 BCE. Apries fled Egypt and sought refuge in Babylon. When Apries marched back to Egypt in 567 BC with the aid of a Babylonian army to reclaim the throne of Egypt, he was likely killed in battle with Amasis' forces. Herodotus, however, claims Apries survived the battle and was captured and treated well by the victorious Amasis, until the Egyptian people demanded justice against Apries, whereby he was placed into their hands and strangled to death. Amasis, however, reportedly treated Apries' mortal remains with respect and observed the proper funerary rituals by having Apries' body carried to Sais and buried there with "full military honors." Amasis then  married Apries' daughter, Chedebnitjerbone II, to legitimise his accession to power.

Herodotus reports Amasis cultivated a close relationship with Greece and under his prudent administration, Egypt reached a new level of wealth. Amasis even married a Greek princess named Ladice daughter of King Battus III and made alliances with Polycrates of Samos and Croesus of Lydia.  In the fourth year of his reign, Amasis defeated an invasion of Egypt by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II but when Cyrus the Great ascended the Persian throne in 559 BCE, Amasis had no major Near Eastern allies to counter the Persian threat.  The final assault by the Persians did not come until shortly after Amasis had died in 526 BCE. His son, Psamtik III, though, ended up reigning for only six months before his defeat in 525 BCE.

Amasis II was buried in the royal necropolis of Sais, like other pharaohs of the 26th dynasty, but he was not left undisturbed to rest in peace. According to Herodotus, Cambyses gave orders that Amasis' body was to be taken and beaten with whips, stuck with goads, and have its hair plucked.  When the embalmed body would not fall to pieces, Cambyses finally ordered it burned.

Image: Limestone male figure in Egyptian dress, mid-6th century BCE, Cypriot, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The figure wears the double crown of Egypt, a three-row pectoral, a baldric perhaps for a quiver, bracelets, and a kilt that is embellished with winged uraei, a head of the Egyptian god Bes or of the Gorgon Medusa, and an eye. Whether this individual represents Amasis II or Psamtik III, though, is unknown.

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The contentious relationship between ancient Cyprus and Persia

 The early documented history of Cyprus begins with an inscribed stele commemorating a victory by Sargon II (722–705 BCE) of Assyria there in 709 BCE.  Assyrian domination of Cyprus appears to have begun earlier than this, though, during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE), and ended with the fall of the Neo Assyrian Empire in 609 BCE, whereupon the city-kingdoms of Cyprus gained independence once more. Following a brief period of Egyptian domination in the sixth century BCE, Cyprus fell under Persian rule. Royal palaces excavated on Cyprus resemble the architecture of Achaemenid examples like Persepolis, with audience chambers, open courtyards, bathhouses, and stores.  Town fortifications and houses were built of mudbrick walls on stone foundations.

Early Greek influence is reflected in Cypriot sculpture, however.  Archaic Greek art with its attractive smile on the face of the statue is found on many ritual pieces dating between 525–475 BCE although portrait sculptures began to exhibit more realism.  Ionian influence on sculptures intensified and copies of Greek korai appear, as well as statues of men in Greek dress. Naked kouroi, however, although common in Greece, are extremely rare in Cyprus, while women are always presented dressed with rich folds in their garments. The pottery in Cyprus retained its local influences, although some Greek pottery was imported at this time.

Cyprus supplied armies and ships for Persia's foreign campaigns including Xerses' invasion of Greece in 480 BCE where Cyprus contributed 150 ships to the expedition. Despite this, Cyprus took part in the Ionian Revolt in 499 BCE led by the brother of the king of Salamis.  But the Persians crushed the Cypriot armies after a five-month siege. 

However, when Evagoras I of Salamis dominated Cypriot politics for forty years,  he favored Athens during the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, elicited Persian support for the Athenians against Sparta and urged Greeks from the Aegean to settle in Cyprus. At the beginning of the 4th century BCE, he took control of the whole island of Cyprus and within a few years was attempting to gain independence from Persia with Athenian help. 

Following resistance from the kings of Kition, Amathus and Soli, who fled to the great king of Persia in 390 BC to request support, Evagoras received less help from the Athenians than he had hoped for and in about 380 BCE, a Persian force besieged Salamis and Evagoras was forced to surrender. In the end, though, he remained king of Salamis until he was murdered in 374 BCE, but only by accepting his role as a vassal of Persia. Together with Egypt and Phoenicia, Cyprus rebelled against Persian rule again in 350 BCE, but the uprising was crushed by Artaxerxes III in 344 BCE. 

Cyprus finally gained political independence  when, hearing of Alexander's great victory over the Persians at Issus, the Cypriots rose up against their Persian overlords yet again and made available to Alexander the fleet of ships formerly in the service of Persia.  These ships and Cypriot engineers were instrumental in Alexander's successful siege of Tyre in 332 BCE.

When I saw these portraits of Cypriot men at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I thought their faces reflected this independent nature.  

Terracotta head of a man wearing a wreath Cypriot Late Classical 4th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Male Head Cypriot Hellenistic period 3rd-2nd centuries BCE Limestone photographed at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California.

Closeup of a limestone grave marker depicting men reclining at a banquet Cypriot Classical Period 4th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Limestone figure of a young beardless man of high rank probably in service to a deity Cypriot Archaic early 6th c. BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Closeup of limestone male figure in Egyptian dress Cypriot Archaic 3rd quarter of the 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Limestone head of a bearded man wearing a conical cap indicating high rank Cypriot Archaic early 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colossal votive terracotta head of a man with full beard and helmet with upturned cheekpieces 600-500 BCE from the sanctuary of Salamis-Toumpa excavated in 1890 Cyprus photographed at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.

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Agrigento Youth Fruit of International Collaboration

The Agrigento Youth, a wonderful example of international collaboration between a major museum and a national ministry of culture, went on display yesterday at the Getty Villa.  The Museo Archeologico Regionale Di Agrigento in Sicily has loaned the rare statue of a kouros, or idealized nude young man, to the Getty  in exchange for assistance with the construction of a custom seismic isolation base and pedestal for the sculpture.

The Agrigento Youth is the second major loan to arise from a 2010 agreement between the Getty and the Sicilian Ministry of Culture and Sicilian Identity. The Gela Krater, a monumental red-figure volute-krater (wine mixing vessel) attributed to the Niobid Painter, was on view at the Villa since June before it was returned this month, also with a new, custom-designed seismic isolator base and pedestal.

“We are pleased to have these objects on view at the Getty Villa where they can serve as fine examples of Sicily’s cultural offerings, helping to create broader awareness for our collections and heritage,” explains Dr. Giuseppe Castellana, the director of the Parco Archeologico e Paesaggistico della Valle dei Templi. “It is also wonderful that both objects will return to us with new bases that make them more secure.”

Sicily is home to Mt. Aetna, Europe's largest active volcano, so protecting artifacts from seismic activity there is an ongoing problem for its museum curators.   Virgil gave a poetic description of an eruption of Mt. Aetna in his epic The Aeneid:

A spreading bay is there, impregnable
To all invading storms; and Aetna's throat
With roar of frightful ruin thunders nigh.
Now to the realm of light it lifts a cloud
Of pitch-black, whirling smoke, and fiery dust,
Shooting out globes of flame, with monster tongues
That lick the stars; now huge crags of itself,
Out of the bowels of the mountain torn,
Its maw disgorges, while the molten rock
Rolls screaming skyward; from the nether deep
The fathomless abyss makes ebb and flow.
- The Aeneid, lines 569 – 579 of the Theodore C. Williams translation of 1908.

 Statues of the kouros type were used by ancient Greeks as dedications to the gods or to commemorate a particularly heroic individual as part of his funerary ritual.  So many have been found in temples of Apollo that at one time they were thought to be representations of the god himself.

Some scholars, such as Eleanor Guralnick, have suggested that kouroi are the result of Greek imitation of Egyptian sculptors.  She applied stereophotogrammetric measurement and cluster analysis to a number of Greek and Egyptian statues and found the correlation between the Second Canon of the 26th Dynasty and Greek kouroi to be widely distributed though not universal.

Scholar Gisela Richter has categorized the wide array of kouroi types into six groups with distinctive artistic differences.  The earliest kouroi dating to the late seventh century are highly stylized with an emphasis on geometric proportion rather than realism.  The art form evolves over time incorporating an increasing amount of human anatomical realism until by the early 5th century, examples like the Agrigento Youth are far more proportionate. 

"The Agrigento Youth was carved by an unknown artist around 480 B.C., just at the artistic turning point between the archaic and classical periods. The style has been termed by scholars the Severe Style due to the solemn facial features and erect stance favored at this time. Under life size at 1.02 meters (40 inches) in height, The Agrigento Youth is comparable to the highest quality contemporary Athenian kouroi, with whom it shares many traits, such as the sensitively rendered modeling of the anatomy, the erect stance with one leg forward, and the serene and straightforward gaze. Unlike the majority of those statues, this figure’s right arm is raised as if holding out an object. The stone from which it was carved is a white marble imported from Greece, which indicates that The Agrigento Youth was an expensive and noteworthy dedication.
The sculpture is also distinguished by certain features which call attention to its Sicilian origins. The structure of the head is long and the face is oval, with prominent cheekbones, heavy-lidded eyes and a prominent lower lip. Sharply patterned hair is a feature common to all kouroi, but in Sicily the treatment is even more pronounced, with delineated strands of finely carved locks forming into a cap and rolled into a thick coil of hair banded by a simple diadem. Residues of the red pigment indicating the hair’s original color are clearly visible." - Getty Press Release

Related articles

• Agrigento Youth at the Getty (rogueclassicism.com)
• Theater review: 'Elektra' at the Getty Villa (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Kouroi: Archaic Greek Youths. A Study of the Development of the Kouros Type in Greek Sculpture

     

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Large necropolis discovered at Himera may hold victims of the Carthaginians

[Image - Surprise at Himera]

It will be interesting when analysis is complete on the skeletal remains uncovered in the huge necropolis found in Himera to see if they are the victims of one or both of the major battles fought there with the Carthaginians in the fifth century BCE.

Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the largest Greek necropolis in the city of Himera on the island of Sicily, where the ancient version of babies beakers has been found.

According to the new agency ANSA, although experts have long known about the burial ground, they have only recently understood its importance because of building work to extend a local railway track.

Hundreds of graves have already been uncovered, but archaeologists believe there are thousands more waiting to be found in the burial ground of the city, which rose to prominence more than 2,500 years ago.

The necropolis is of an extraordinary beauty and notable dimensions, said Sicily's regional councillor for culture, Antonello Antinoro.

”Preliminary estimates indicate the presence of around 10,000 tombs, which gives the site a good claim to being one of the most important discoveries of recent years, he added.

Among the most exciting finds are skeletons of newborn babies placed inside funerary amphorae along with the ancient version of babies beakers, namely small terracotta vases equipped with spouts to function as feeding bottles.

Most of the graves in the necropolis date from between the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and archaeologists believe that many of the tombs contain the remains of thousands of soldiers, civilians and prisoners who died during two bloody battles that took place in the city.

According to Stefano Vassallo, who heads the dig, archaeologists were excited to have found a common grave containing a dozen bodies, all of whom he said were young, male and showed unequivocal signs of a violent death in battle.

Some of the skeletons bear the signs of being hit by heavy objects, while others still have arrows attached to them, Vassallo said.

He added that skeletons found in the necropolis would undergo analysis by forensic anthropologists to determine information about the populations lifestyle and eating habits.

In addition to the huge numbers of human remains, the necropolis is gradually offering up a significant haul of funerary goods buried alongside the bodies such as oil-lamps, bowls, and ceramics. - Thaindian.com

The first battle in 480 BCE alone would have contributed thousands to the body count:

At sunrise the cavalrymen rode up to the naval camp of the Carthaginians, and when the guards admitted them, thinking them to be allies, they at once galloped to where Hamilcar was busied with the sacrifice, slew him, and then set fire to the ships; thereupon the scouts raised the signal and Gelon advanced with his entire army in battle order against the Carthaginian camp. The commanders of the Phoenicians in the camp at the outset led out their troops to meet the Siceliotes and as the lines closed they put up a vigorous fight; at the same time in both camps they sounded with the trumpets the signal for battle and a shout arose from the two armies one after the other, each eagerly striving to outdo their adversaries in the volume of their cheering.

The slaughter was great, and the battle was swaying back and forth, when suddenly the flames from the ships began to rise on high and sundry persons reported that the general had been slain; then the Greeks were emboldened and with spirits elated at the rumours and by the hope of victory they pressed with greater boldness upon the barbarians, while the Carthaginians, dismayed and despairing of victory, turned in flight.

Since Gelon had given orders to take no prisoners, there followed a great slaughter of the enemy in their flight, and in the end no less than one hundred and fifty thousand of them were slain. All who escaped the battle and fled to a strong position at first warded off the attackers, but the position they had seized had no water, and thirst compelled them to surrender to the victors. - Livius.org

Then the Carthaginian commander's grandson, Hannibal Mago, returned in 409 and wreaked a terrible vengence:

Hannibal marched to Himera and set up his main camp on the west of the city, while about a third of the army encamped to the south of Himera.^[6] Instead of building a circumventing wall and fully investing the city, The Carthaginians assaulted the walls with the help of siege towers and battering rams after setting up their camps. However, the city walls withstood the attack and no breaches could be made for the Puinc infantry to exploit. Hannibal then sent sappers, who dug tunnels under the walls and collapsed sections of it by setting fire to the wooden support beams.^[7] Carthaginian infantry then attacked through the gap, but The Himerans repulsed the Punic assault on the city, and then threw up make shift walls to close the breaches.^[8]

Sometime after this event, Syracusan general Diocles arrived with 3,000 Syracusan hoplites, 1,000 soldiers from Akragas and another 1,000 mercenaries and entered the city. Joining the Himeran force of about 10,000 troops^[9] (majority hoplites with some cavalry and peltasts), the Greeks launched a surprise attack on the Punic lines, probably on the forces posted on the south of the city. The Greeks achieved total surprise and in the confusion, Carthaginian troops fought each other as well as Greeks. As the Carthaginians ultimately broke and fled after losing about 6,000 soldiers, Greek soldiers went after the scattered remnants of their enemy. At this point, Hannibal launched a counter attack with the force he had held in reserve at the other camp (to the wast of Himera), routed the Greeks and chased them back into the city, with 3,000 Greeks losing their lives in the debacle.^[10]

The main Syracusan fleet was away from Sicily, but 25 triremes had arrived at Himera after the battle from Syracuse. As the Carthaginian fleet was at Motya, their arrival gave the Greeks command of the sea around Himera.^[11] Hannibal spread a false report that the Punic army was going to attack Syracuse after sailing there from Motya, as the main army of Syracuse was approaching Himera, thus leaving their city unguarded. This convinced the Syracusans to leave Himera for their mother city. The city of Himera had little chance of withstanding the Carthaginians on their own, so they decided to evacuate the city.^[12]

Diocles marched out of the city with half the men and all his troops at night, the Syracusan ships evacuated as many of the women and children as possible. The Carthaginians resumed their assaults the next day. The city managed to hold out for 1 day. Just as the Syracusan fleet was returning and was within sight of the city the following day, the Carthaginians broke through. Iberian troops of the Punic army had managed to secure a gap on the wall, and also the sections of the wall flanking the gap. The held off the Greeks until the Carthaginian army stormed the city through the gap, and the reduced garrison of Himera was overcome by weigh of numbers.

Hannibal sacrificed 3,000 Greek prisoners at the place where Hamilcar, his grandfather and leader of the 480 BC expedition, had fallen. The city of Himera was utterly destroyed, even all the temples were flattened to the ground, and the women and children were enslaved. - Wikipedia

The article I read did not provide information about the ethnic origins of the grave goods but with the reference to infant burials I guess we can assume they are all Greek/Sicilian and not Punic. However, since the Carthaginians were the ultimate victors, some graves could have contained their fallen as well. The article emphasized the discovery of "baby beakers" - spouted drinking vessels - but these types of vessels have been found in documented Punic burials on Malta as well.

Archaeologist Claudia Sagona in her work, Punic Antiquities of Malta and Other Ancient Artefacts Held in Ecclesiastic and Private Collections, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Supplement 10, identified amphorae, urns, jars, jugs, juglets, flasks, spouted flasks, askoi, bottles, unguentaria, beakers, bowls, cups, skyphoi, kylikes, open pots, tripod bowls, situlae, plates, lids, incense cups, braziers, cooking pots and lamps among the grave goods in Punic burials on Malta. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Ancient Apulian treasures to be returned to Italy

Switzerland will return 4,400 Roman artifacts to Italy which were seized from a Basel art dealer and were probably stolen from illegal digs, the SDA news agency reported on Thursday.

[Vases, like this example of an Apulian loutrophoros (ritual war jar) depicting Perseus battling a sea monster, are among the treasures seized in a raid on Basel art dealer]

The objects include vases, statues, mosaics and bronze items from pre-Christian times which were found in the Basel warehouse of an Italian art dealer as part of an investigation launched in 2001 on Italy's request.

"We felt like we had been transported back to ancient Rome," the SDA agency quoted investigator Mario Plachesi as saying.

After 80 officers worked for months to catalogue the items - most of which are likely from Apulia in southern Italy - the Swiss authorities are now handing them back. A further 1,400 artifacts, probably from Greece, were also found in the warehouse but will stay in Basel.

Technorati Tags: Apulia, ancient art, vase, red-figure, Greek, Roman, treasure, loot,

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Channel 4 produces short about Odysseus Unbound project

British Channel 4 has produced a video short about progress on the Odysseus Unbound project. Report shows mysterious Ithaca, home of Odysseus the hero of Homer's Odyssey, is a step closer to being found.

View clip

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2,500-Year-Old Greek Ship Raised off Sicilian Coast

"An ancient Greek ship recently raised off the coast of southern Sicily, Italy, is the biggest and best maintained vessel of its kind ever found, archaeologists say. At a length of nearly 70 feet (21 meters) and a width of 21 feet (6.5 meters), the 2,500-year-old craft is the largest recovered ship built in a manner first depicted in Homer's Iliad, which is believed to date back several centuries earlier.

The ship's outer shell was built first, and the inner framework was added later. The wooden planks of the hull were sewn together with ropes, with pitch and resin used as sealant to keep out water.

A floating crane lifted the main segment, a 36-foot (11-meter) chunk, and dragged it to land. The remains were then plunged into a tank of fresh water to remove the salt from the wood.

"The vessel was a mercantile sailer, probably used to sail short stretches along the coast, docking frequently to load and unload," said Rosalba Panvini, head of the Cultural Heritage Department of Sicily, who directed the raising operations.

Recovered artifacts—including cups, two-handled jars called amphoras, oil lamps, pottery, and fragments of straw baskets—reveal details of the ship's journey before it sank, Panvini said.

"The vessel stopped in Athens, then in the Peloponnese Peninsula," Panvini said. "It sailed up the western coast of Greece, crossed the Otranto Channel, coasted along Italy, and pointed to Sicily."

The ship was headed for Gela, then a Greek colony. About a half mile (800 meters) off the coast, a storm probably tilted the ship. The ballast broke the hull, and the vessel went down, where it lay on the muddy seabed for 25 centuries." - More

"The earliest example of a sewn boat comes from North Ferriby, where one sample (called F2) carbon dates to 1930-1750 BC. Later finds include some early Greek ships. The oldest Nordic find is the Hjortspring boat in Denmark (c 300 BC). In Finland, Russia, Karelia and Estonia small sewn boats have been constructed more recently, until the 1920s in poor areas of Russia.

While European sewn boats are the best known, sewn boats existed in many areas, often as the next step from a dugout canoe[1]. An example of a non-European sewn boat is the Micronesian proa. Sewn boats are important in the study of Viking Age longships, which use the basic architecture of sewn boats, although they make use of metal fasteners." - Wikipedia

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Kimon and the Sea Raids of the Delian League

I am continuing to listen to the Teaching Comapany's lecture series "The Greek and Persian Wars" by Professor John Hale and today Professor Hale spent an entire lecture discussing the campaigns of the Delian League. For some reason, after listening to a number of other lectures about ancient Greek history, I had gotten the impression that, although the Delian League was formed to protect the Ionian Greek world from any new attacks by the Persians following the Persian defeats at Platea and Mycale, no such attacks subsequently occurred. So, Athens, as hegemon of the league, used the "protection" money to grow rich and become the Athenian empire.

However, this was apparently a misconception on my part. The Delian League lead by Kimon was quite active and went on the offensive against Persia after the formal battles of the Persian Wars had been won. Although these raids had the appearance of piracy, they were targeted specifically at Persian-controlled cities and actually garnered a large amount of booty that was split between the participating Ionian city-states and Athens with a further portion deposited in the League treasury on Delos.

Furthermore, Persia did begin to assemble another invasion fleet at the mouth of the Eurymedon River near the city of Cnidus on the southwest shore of Asia Minor. Kimon heard of these preparations and took the Delian fleet there and not only captured the Persian fleet and defeated the fleeing Persians on land but turned around and, using the captured Persian vessels, duped an oncoming Phoenician fleet into thinking the approaching ships were just welcoming them to the invasion force, and captured them as well.

I wonder why we seem to hear so much about the victories at Salamis and Platea but this astounding double victory by the Delian League seems to be virtually ignored by so many Greek scholars? I had also not heard of (or don't remember - I get older every day!) the battle at Mount Mycale either, for that matter, until I listened to this lecture series. It just seems that most authors focus on the "big four" - Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Platea when writing about the Persian Wars. Likewise, we often hear about Miltiades, Leonidas, Themistocles, and Pausanias but seldom (if ever) about the equally impressive exploits of Leotychides, Xanthippos, Aristides the Just, and Kimon.

Another thing I found interesting was that the "protection" money paid by members of the Delian League was essentially money that was diverted from previous Persian tribute. Aristides the Just, chosen to organize the Delian League, ruled that cities could contribute either money or men and/or ships so cash-strapped cities would not have to further impoverish their citizens. I realize Athens later took advantage of these arrangements but the League did initially serve its members well and enriched them with spoils. It was not (at least in the beginning) engineered to simply exploit its non-Athenian members. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Researchers at Rockefeller University support Schoch eclipse date referenced in the Odyssey

"Plutarch and Heraclitus believed a certain passage in the 20th book
of the Odyssey (‘‘Theoclymenus’s prophecy’’) to be a poetic description
of a total solar eclipse. In the late 1920s, Schoch and
Neugebauer computed that the solar eclipse of 16 April 1178 B.C.E.
was total over the Ionian Islands and was the only suitable eclipse
in more than a century to agree with classical estimates of the
decade-earlier sack of Troy around 1192–1184 B.C.E. However,
much skepticism remains about whether the verses refer to this, or
any, eclipse. To contribute to the issue independently of the
disputed eclipse reference, we analyze other astronomical references
in the Epic, without assuming the existence of an eclipse, and
search for dates matching the astronomical phenomena we believe
they describe. We use three overt astronomical references in the
epic: to Boo¨ tes and the Pleiades, Venus, and the New Moon; we
supplement them with a conjectural identification of Hermes’s trip
to Ogygia as relating to the motion of planet Mercury. Performing
an exhaustive search of all possible dates in the span 1250–1115
B.C., we looked to match these phenomena in the order and
manner that the text describes. In that period, a single date closely
matches our references: 16 April 1178 B.C.E. We speculate that
these references, plus the disputed eclipse reference, may refer to
that specific eclipse." - Constantino Baikouzis^, and Marcelo O. Magnasco, Laboratory of Mathematical Physics, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065; and Proyecto Observatorio, Secretaría de Extensión, Observatorio Astronómico de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque, B1900FWA La Plata, Argentina


The scientists combed the epic to find specific mention of astronomical phenomena. Doing this, they found 4 events:

1. The Day of the Slaughter is a new moon
2. "Six days before the slaughter, Venus is visible and high in the sky"
3. Two constellations were visible 29 days before the slaughter
4. 33 days before there is a possibility that Homer refers to the relative place of the planet Mercury. Homer actually refers to the god Hermes. The scientists say that the association of gods with planets is a Babylonian invention that can be dated to about 1000 B.C. Their twelfth century B.C. date precedes this, and is not Babylonian, but they believe it works.

The scientists then looked for a date that would correspond with these discrete events that was within a century of the date of the fall of Troy(?).

"Ultimately, whether they’re right or wrong, the researchers are interested in reopening the debate. 'Even though there are historical arguments that say this is a ridiculous thing to think about, if we can get a few people to read The Odyssey differently, to look at it and ponder whether there was an actual date inscribed in it, we will be happy,' Magnasco says."

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The History of Pankration

A good article on the ancient sport of pankration:

"Eventually, Pankration became the core focus of a Greek soldier’s hand-to-hand training regime. This evidence suggests that Pankration was created to supplement a warrior’s battle prowess (as weapons would often break and combatants would have to use their bare hands and feet).

Ancient literary sources state that wrestling was a very important component of a Greek hoplite’s repertoire (heavy infantrymen were called hoplites). Hoplites would use their wrestling skills to stay balanced and get back to their feet quicker than the enemy if they fell down. Getting back to your feet quicker was often the difference between life and death.

Over time, the accomplishments of the strongest and most successful Pankratiasts formed the basis of legendary stories and mythical embellishments. One famous tale focuses on the Olympic victor Polydamas, who was rumored to have killed three fully armed Immortals (elite Persian warriors) with only a stick, after the king Darius invited Polydamas to his court and had him ambushed to test his skills.

Some competitors were well-rounded enough to win both the boxing/Pankration and wrestling/Pankration events at the same tournament, with the latter feat occuring more often than the former. The available evidence suggests that grappling was more integral than striking and that most fights ended on the ground, so those better trained in wrestling and submissions had an advantage in Pankration fights.

Rules and Regulations

There were two kinds of Pankration: ano pankration (when the fight had to stay standing, similar to kickboxing) and kato pankration(in which the fight could go to the ground). Only two rules prevailed: no biting and no eye gouging (similar to the early UFC events). In Sparta, even these techniques were allowed during their bouts.

Pankratiasts would compete naked in a wrestling-pit, and the referee would use a rod to enforce the rules. There were no rounds or time limits, and the fight only ended once somebody gave up or was rendered unconscious (or dead). Fighters would signal defeat by raising their arm or tapping out.

Fatalities were common, especially by strangulation, as many fighters refused to give up after being caught in a choke. Submissions were prominent, and there is ample evidence to suggest that the ancient Greeks knew all or almost all the submissions that current fighters use today, including knee bars, heel hooks, and a variety of chokes and arm locks.

Kicking was not neglected either, and one source sarcastically states that the prize in Pankration was awarded to a donkey due to his kicking ability. Broken fingers were often sustained while trying to sink in a submission, and even broken necks. An age group for younger competitors was introduced around 200 BC.

Pankration was regarded as dangerous, bloody, and brutal even by the ancient Greeks, who were certainly no strangers to the art of war and violence. Pankratiasts fought for honor and pre-eminence amongst their peers, and were very proud warriors. They would often rather die than submit to an opponent." - More

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Greek Chic

Finally, it looks like Greek fashion that lends elegance and femininity to the human form is making a come-back! I have been so tired of the trampy look favored by students on so many college campuses I was considering coming to work dressed for a "toga party" to demonstrate how flattering fashions from the ancient world could be!

"It has travelled all the way from the shores of the Aegean sea... and the portals of time. The flowing, graceful robes worn by the Ancient Greeks and their Goddesses are inspiring the current fashion scene.

It's a look that is all about elegance and femininity.

All the top designers have gone overboard for the look that adorned the curves of Aphrodite, the love goddess who rose from the waves.

Stunning Greek-inspired gowns by Versace, Alberta Ferretti and the label everyone who is anyone is currently going crazy over, Marchesa, have graced the A-listers on many a red carpet in recent months." If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

A brief history of sheep domestication

A concise and interesting article about the history of domesticated sheep:

"The animal [sheep] originated in central Asia 10,000 years ago, valued for their wool and meat. The earliest sheep growers used their fleece as a kind of tunic, but it wasn't until 3,500 B.C. man learned how to spin wool.

Sheep and wool spread to Europe between 3,000 B.C. and 1,000 B.C., traveling mainly through ancient Greece. Over the next 1,000 years, Greeks, Romans and Persians contributed to improvements in sheep breeds. The Romans were also responsible for the spread of sheep to North Africa and Europe.

As far as sheep in England go, the Romans established a woolen manufacturer in Winchester as early as A.D. 50. This commodity is closely interwoven with the history of England. Legend has it the first sheep were brought to the island by the Phoenicians some time between 800 and 500 B.C. From these sheep came the meat-producing or "mutton" types, as contrasted with breeds raised primarily for wool.

In 1337, King Edward III-known as the "royal wool merchant"-forbade the continued exportation of wool from England because he wanted to give the industry a jolt. This it did, because by 1660, wool textile exports were two-thirds of England's foreign commerce.

Sheep were introduced to America when Columbus made his famous voyage in 1493, including sheep among his livestock he took to Cuba and Santo Domingo. In 1519, when Cortez began the expedition which could open Mexico and the western United States, he took with him the offspring of Columbus' sheep as a walking food supply.

After the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they bought 40 sheep from the Dutch on Manhattan Island. By 1664, the sheep population had grown to 100,000.

As settlers moved west during the 1800s, they took with them flocks of sheep from the eastern seaboard. Most of these sheep were of English breeding, more suited to producing lamb than wool." If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Ancient Ecoscience of the Mediterranean Basin

A good summary article about the ecological damage incurred in the Mediterranean Basin in ancient times:

"...The ancient Greeks took an essentially scientific view of their environment, and some Grecian writers saw that their land was deteriorating under human stewardship. Four centuries before Christ, Plato described Attica (the region around Athens), saying: "What now remains compared with what then existed is like the skeleton of a sick man, all the fat and soft earth having wasted away, and only the bare framework of the land being left." The description is even more apt today.

The Romans, in contrast, took a strictly utilitarian view of their environment: The land was there to be exploited by Homo Sapiens . The trend toward deforestation started in Greece and spread—during the Roman Empire—from the hills of Galilee in Palestine and the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the east, to the mountains of Spain in the west. Various features of the Roman agricultural economy greatly encouraged this process . . . and their society had no counterbalancing conservation ethic.

Both the Egyptians and Greeks were determined hunters. They forced many larger animals (such as the lions in upper Egypt and in Greece) to extinction. But the Roman Empire had a far greater destructive impact on the fauna of the ancient world than did its predecessors. Not only were animals hunted for skins, feathers, and ivory . . . but multitudes were captured for use in "games".

Huge numbers of beasts were pitted against each other (and against human beings) in lethal combats. Titus, for example, had some 9,000 wild animals slaughtered during the three months' dedication of the Colosseum, and Trajan's conquest of Dacia (modern Romania) was celebrated by games in which 11,000 beasts were killed. When one considers that tens or even hundreds of lions, leopards, rhinos, buffalos, and so on must have died—or been killed—in transport or captivity for every one that lived to entertain the citizens, the probable scale of the Roman impact on wildlife staggers the imagination.

The Romans hit hard at their environment . . . but it struck back! Deforestation, the depletion of soils, and the exhaustion of mines were all factors in the fall of Rome's Empire. The Romans didn't finish the job, however. The last great plundering of Mediterranean forest resources occurred in the late Middle Ages, when the demand for timber for fuel and shipbuilding was very great. As a result, there's very little first-growth sclerophyllous forest left in the Mediterranean basin today . . . the best examples being in the Camargue of southern France and on the peninsula of Mt. Athos in Greece (protected by the famous monastery there)..." If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Pre-Zeus Altar discovered on Mount Lykaion

"Before Zeus hurled his first thunderbolt from Olympus, the pre-Greek people occupying the land presumably paid homage and offered sacrifices to their own gods and goddesses, whose nature and identities are unknown to scholars today.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

MYSTERY RELIGION From left, Dan Diffendale, Dr. Arthur Rhon and Arvey Basa at Mount Lykaion’s altar of Zeus.

But archaeologists say they have now found the ashes, bones and other evidence of animal sacrifices to some pre-Zeus deity on the summit of Mount Lykaion, in the region of Greece known as Arcadia. The remains were uncovered last summer at an altar later devoted to Zeus.

Fragments of a coarse, undecorated pottery in the debris indicated that the sacrifices might have been made as early as 3000 B.C., the archaeologists concluded. That was about 900 years before Greek-speaking people arrived, probably from the north in the Balkans, and brought their religion with them..."

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All the world's an ancient Greek or Roman stage for Whitman Professor Thomas Hines

A scholar after my own heart - Professor Hines is photographing as many Greek and Roman theaters as possible and making an archive of his information available through a website at Whitman. I see he finances his activities with grants from such organizations as the National Institute for the Humanities. I guess I need to learn how to do that as my archive on Flickr is funded by my own vacation leave, equipment, and funds for airline tickets and meals and lodging.


Last year, Associate Professor of Theatre Thomas Hines of Whitman College received a gratifying and fairly astonishing e-mail from an excited Argentine businessman who’d decided to restore an old mas, a traditional house in Provence. He wanted Hines to know that the Whitman College professor’s online archive of ancient theaters had inspired him to build a Roman theater in the backyard of the property.

The man had found Hines’ trove of information on Whitman’s Web site. Since 2001, Hines has visited 43 Greek and Roman theaters in three countries, taken tens of thousands of photographs and compiled The Ancient Theatre Archive: A Virtual Reality Tour of Ancient Greek and Roman Theatre Architecture.

Hines’ Web site receives more than a thousand hits a day from visitors across the globe. "There are people visiting the site to write papers or to travel," he said. "People pick from it what they want, and everyone is taking something different and doing something new."

One recent shopper was an official from the Direcção Geral das Artes, the ministry of arts in Portugal. He wanted to use several of Hines’ photographs, particularly the Hellenistic theater in Epidaurus, in a national campaign to promote the arts. Hines was happy to oblige. "I was struck by the idea that this could inspire some grade school kid in Portugal to do something with theater," he said.

Thomas Hines (right)

Hines’ ongoing Web project grew out of his desire to provide his own students with a more complete picture of ancient theaters. The success of his initial study - the Roman theater in Ostia Antica, Italy - inspired him to pursue others. As the projects accrued, Hines’ international audience grew.

“When I conceived of the project, I used a model in my mind of an exhibit in a museum," he said. "An intuitive, self-guided tour. I used my skills as a teacher as well as my knowledge of theater."

Hines’ site features thorough surveys, including basic fact sheets, detailed studies, travel guides, directions, a glossary of Greek and Roman theater terminology, and Hines’ own hand-drawn maps and panoramic images. Viewers can take virtual tours of the theaters, zooming in to study them in as much detail as they wish.

Hines, whose set designs have complemented several Harper Joy Theatre productions at Whitman, has even included his own travel accounts in the virtual tour mix. "Today I followed in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, but unlike him, I managed to conquer the city of Termessos," reads one entry from June 2003. "I was luckier than Alex - I had a Fiat, a paved road, and the cranky Termessians were all dead."

The Web site, Hines allows, is no substitute for the real thing. "What’s lacking is the travel experience: meeting people, seeing the setting, the food, the way people treat you, the views, the smells. All of that is beyond anything a book or camera could capture."

Nonetheless, Hines’ site links viewers with some immediacy to a distant past. “Theater is an ephemeral art form," he said. "We have no way of attending an ancient Greek or Roman play, but we still have this one, very large, tangible artifact. This will let people know these places are out there, and that it’s OK to go."

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The Trauma of Macedonian Resettlement in Turkey in 1924

I came across this article about a documentary film that sounded quite compelling. As the article says, the story finds echoes in all the displaced communities of the world today:

"Last weekend a documentary film had its premiere in Mustafapaşa. Emine Yıldırım’s “Yastığım Taş, Yorgunum Taş” (My Pillow was a Stone, My Quilt was a Stone) tells the story of the arrival of the Macedonians in what was once the small Cappadocian town of Sinasos. It was 1924, the year of the population exchange, when all the “Greeks” in Turkey and the “Turks” in Greece were forced to change places. However, some of the so-called Greeks were really Macedonians, caught up in a politics that saw them as no more than pawns in a settling of ancient scores.

The film was shown in a 19th century medrese which had recently become a vocational high school. The conference room was filled to capacity and there was a buzz of anticipation as people took their seats, clutching their cups of tea and plates of dry biscuits. Then the lights were dimmed and suddenly the locals were coming face-to-face with themselves on the big screen.

It was a magical experience to watch and listen to their reactions. “Our mahalle (neighborhood),” I heard people whisper, and “Look, that’s so-and-so.” One particular woman, who played a big part in the film, was sitting immediately in front of me. In her şalvar and yemeni, she was the sort of country woman who would not normally expect people to pay her much attention and yet here she was, with the camera caressing her every gesture, her every word. Her face, as she watched herself, was a picture.

Of course the story unfolding on the screen was equally gripping. It was the tale of a group of people forced to sail all the way down the Aegean and around the Mediterranean to Mersin, knowing only that they were going to Anatolia but not what that was going to mean. On arrival they found themselves abandoned in a rocky landscape where, as one woman so poignantly put it, the stones even served as their bedding. An audible gasp ran round the room when one man explained how, with winter coming and no money or means to make any, the newcomers were forced to rip down the magnificent wooden ceilings of the old Greek houses and burn them as firewood.

We saw a list of the names of the incomers, we saw their children starting school without a word of Turkish and, later, we saw one man laboriously compiling a Turkish-Macedonian dictionary while his neighbors explained how the third generation of Macedonian Mustafapaşalıs no longer understood what their parents were saying if they reverted to the old language.

It was the thought-provoking story of one community’s struggle to make a new life in a strange country, but at the same time it was a story which finds echoes in all the displaced communities of the world today."

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Film adds "technicolor" to Parthenon Marbles

The Elgin Marbles in the British Museum are marvellous - but they're a bit, well, colourless, aren't they?

That isn't how it was for the ancient Greeks. The sculptures were painted in vivid colour. High up on the sides of the Parthenon temple in Athens, they had to be.

Now a new film on permanent show in the room next to the Marbles adds the colour - and the fear and the violence.

"When we started to apply the colour it brought a lot of the emotion to life," says Dyfri Williams, Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum.

The film reconstructs one of the metopes - the 92 carved fight scenes that ran around the outside wall - using computer technology.

The restored metope is part of this process. The project began with three-dimensional laser scanning of the metope in the BM, and of casts of the two Copenhagen heads, by the National Museums Conservation centre in Liverpool and fitting the images together.

More can be added from a drawing done by the Frenchman Jacques Carrey in 1674. But still a lot of details are entirely lost.

Dyfri Williams's department developed a story board for the film, which Mark Timson of the British Museum's New Media Unit translated into a series of computer-generated models.

Drawings of the missing pieces were developed based on other metopes in the museum.

Fixing-holes in the sculptures show that metal pieces were once included - for this metope, a headband and sword for the boy were added.

The 3-D scanning enabled some things about the carving to be understood which had been a mystery before, says Mri Williams.

Centaur's head in Copenhagen and (right) after reconstruction

Since the scanning, some ridges of the youth's thigh are now thought to mark the folds of his cloak. The museum now thinks the cloak was finished off in plaster, probably after some accident in the carving of the marble.

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