Syllabus
* Syllabus
1. Definitions of the field. An overview of the research history. Small scale bronzes and toreutics as evidence for lost art in other media. Large excavations’ corpora and museum collections. Sanctuaries and graves.
2. Metallurgy, sources of the row materials, and basic techniques of creation and surface treatment. Workflow and workshop organization. Transmission patterns. Inscriptions and weights. The famous “celatores” of Pliny.
3. Social status of the artists and artisans, and their social and space mobility. Trade, market and context. Social status of the wealth. Dedicatory, sympotic and funerary patterns. Heirloom and the life-cycle of the metallic artifacts.
4. Tradition and innovation in the Mediterranean and the Aegean world from LBA to the EIA. Geometric small bronzes and the early sanctuaries. The so-called Macedonian bronzes and their presence in sanctuaries and graves.
5. Archaic small bronzes: regional schools and local workshops. Styles in transition. Sources of inspiration and influence. A gradual transition of predominance from the zoomorphic to the anthropomorphic figurines.
6. Classical and Hellenistic small bronzes: regional schools and local workshops. The formation and the evolution of a “koine”. From the Sever style to the Praxitelean and Lysippean models.
7. Geometric and Archaic metal vases: shapes and workshops. Distribution and findspots. Oriental influences and the Greek banquet. The literary and archaeological evidence.
8. Classical metal vases: shapes and workshops. Distribution and trade routes. Luxury and changes in the funerary customs. The “metal ware - pottery controversy”. The role of the luxury-loving neighbors in the preservation of Greek toreutics.
9. Hellenistic metal vases: shapes and workshops. A second “orientalism”. Inscriptions and literary evidence. Towards the Roman melting pot. Recasting the ancient metalwork into the early Christian mold.
10. The formation of various toreutic schools under Greek influence: Greco-Thracian, Greco-Scythian, Greco-Parthian. Local specificities: Bactrian, Sassanian, Ptolemaic, Italic and Celtic.
11. Cosmetic artifacts: hand-held, standing and box mirrors. High-end decorated arms and weapons. Exceptionally decorated horse trapping. Writing, medicine, and sport instruments. Furniture-related and architectural toreutics.
12. Ancient Greek metalwork and modernity. Conserving and restoring. The fabric of forgeries: an early lucrative trend. The plague of metal detectors, the auction houses and the “big players” in the field. The use of ancient metal artifacts in the (re)formative process of modern identities and national pride.
Annotation
Abstract
The course deals with the domain of small metal artifacts in ancient Greece during the first millennium before the common era. It encompasses some of the earliest personal and animal ornaments (horse harness adornments), the appearance and development of the bronze figurines (small scale sculpture), the bronze, silver and exceptionally gold vases, the cosmetic artifacts such as mirrors, and some arms and weapons with elaborate decoration. It examines the sources of material, the techniques of production, the workshops and styles, as well as the uses, the cultural context, the significance and the social impact of such artifacts, especially in connection with the place of luxury and its role for the social status in the relevant societies. It also deals with the legacy of these arts and crafts in other cultural domains, relatively distant in space and time. All these issues are approached from various aspects, including besides the archaeological finds themselves, the iconographical documentation and the literary and epigraphic testimony. Last but not least, the course will address the current museum and art-collecting trends in the acquisition of toreutic artifacts, as well as the various state policies in their promotion and exhibition.
Scope
The scope of the course is to familiarize the students with an important field of Classical Archaeology, namely the small bronze figures, the metal vases and other related metal artifacts. The domain of toreutics, which represent a broad field ranging from the dedicatory items and the sympotic apparatus to the athletic instruments and some furniture and architectural elements, has not thus far been treated in its conceptual and creative unity, although all these artistic works and artifacts were conceived by the same toreuts, bronzesmiths and silversmiths and they were issued from the same workshops. The toreutics have been relatively neglected through much of the history of the archaeological discipline, for both practical and ideological reasons, which will be further addressed in the frame of the technological achievements and the socio-political ideals of their creation context and their reception time.
The students will have as well the opportunity to approach issues related to the techniques in use, the stylistic specificities of various workshops and schools, the transmission of motifs, iconographic repertories and trends, their relations to large scale sculpture and to other arts and crafts in general, their place within the ritual, convivial, and funerary practices, as well as to follow a chronological evolution of the field from the Geometric to the
Hellenistic period. Comparative material will be presented from earlier and later cultural domains (Mycenaean,
Roman, Late Antiquity), from neighboring interrelated cultures (Phoenician, Phrygian, Lydian, Etruscan,
Achaemenid, Thracian, Scythian, Celtic), or some belated echoes from distant places and cultures (Central Asia,
India, China, Africa), and from related fields, such as jewelry design, pottery shapes, sculptural types, casting and embossing tradition and innovation. The issues of trade networks, social customs and fashions will be also addressed, as well as the position of such artifacts within the treasuring practice and the exchange patterns of the ancient Greek economy.
New approaches, based on the relation of the monetary and weight standards to the production of luxury toreutics, will be presented, as well as a discussion of the achievements and limitations of the archaeometric analyses applied during the last decades (XRF, chemical analysis, isotopes, metallographic analysis, statistics, etc.).
Finally, the students will be familiarized with the current issues stemming from the unprecedented looting practices of metallic artifacts and the recently developing returnism movement, as well as with the state-promoted
“treasure-sensationalism” and its use in the archaeopolitcs.