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"The Horse and Jockey from Artemision: A Bronze Equestrian Monument from the Hellenistic Period" by Sean Hemingway.
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DESCRIPTION: Hardcover with dustjacket. Publisher: University of California (2004). Pages: 222. Size: 10 x 7¼ x ¾ inch; 1¾ pounds. Summary: Anyone who visits the National Archaeological Museum in Athens will vividly recall its centerpiece, the Horse and Jockey bronzes that were recovered in pieces from the sea off Artemision in 1928 and 1936. Bronze sculptures were popular throughout the Hellenistic world, the most famous being the Colossus of Rhodes, but very few survive today and the majority of those that do come from shipwrecks.
The Horse and Jockey is one of the best to survive and forms the focus of this well-illustrated and informative study. Combining `a technical, stylistic, and iconographic examination of the bronzes with a careful assessment of the archaeological, epigraphic, literary, and iconographic evidence for horse racing', the volume discusses the rescue of the bronzes off northern Euboia, their initial condition and restoration before describing and analyzing each part of the horse and its young jockey in turn.
Hemingway considers the construction of the sculpture in detail, making comparison with similar examples, and assesses attempts by scholars during the last seventy years to date the bronzes and identify their purpose. Art historians have suggested that the bronzes depict a hunting or battle scene but Hemingway sides with those who interpret it as a representation of horse racing, "the most prestigious and splendid of all Greek sports". The book concludes with Helen Andreopolou-Mangou's chemical analysis and metallographic examination of the bronzes.
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PLEASE SEE DESCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES BELOW FOR DETAILED REVIEWS AND FOR PAGES OF PICTURES FROM INSIDE OF BOOK.
PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
PUBLISHER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: In 1928, and again in 1937, parts of a large-scale bronze horse and nearly complete jockey were recovered from the sea off Cape Artemision in Greece, where they had gone down in a shipwreck. These original Hellenistic sculptures, known together as the 'Horse and Jockey Group from Artemision', are among the very few surviving bronze sculptures from antiquity.
Sean Hemingway has been allowed by the National Museum in Athens to investigate the horse and jockey statuary group as no one ever has before, and in this book, combining archaeological and art historical methods of investigation, he provides the first in-depth study of this rare and beautiful monument. New technical analyses of the statues by Helen Andreopoulou-Mangou form an appendix to the volume.
Hemingway begins with an introduction to Hellenistic bronze statuary and what we know about this extraordinary class of ancient sculpture. He then recounts with riveting detail the discovery and painstaking restoration of the statue group, describing the technique of its creation and carefully reviewing scholarly knowledge and speculation about it.
He also provides a valuable compendium of what is known about ancient Greek horse racing, the most prestigious and splendid of all Greek sports. After a full consideration of all the available evidence, he speculates further about the work's original meaning and function. His study provides a glimpse of the excellence achieved by Hellenistic bronze sculptors, and it will become the definitive resource on this unique sculpture from ancient Greece.
REVIEW: In 1928, and again in 1937, parts of a large-scale bronze horse and nearly complete jockey were recovered from the sea off Cape Artemision in Greece, where they had gone down in a shipwreck. This work begins with an introduction to Hellenistic bronze statuary and what we know about this extraordinary class of ancient sculpture.
REVIEW: In 1928 and again in 1936, parts of a large-scale bronze horse and nearly complete jockey were recovered from the sea off cape Artemision in Greece, where they had gone down in a shipwreck. These original Hellenistic sculptures, known together as the 'Horse and Jockey Group from Artemision,' are among the very few surviving bronze sculptures from antiquity. This book provides the first in-depth study of this rare and beautiful monument.
REVIEW: This will be the definitive study of the history, cultural context, and artistic composition of one of the very few surviving Hellenistic bronze sculptures, that of a horse and jockey from Artemision.
REVIEW: Seán Hemingway is Associate Curator in the Department of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
REVIEW: Seán Hemingway is Curator in the Department of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A seasoned archaeologist, Dr. Hemingway has excavated prehistoric, classical and Roman sites in Greece and Spain and he is currently the metals specialist for the Palaikastro excavations in eastern Crete. Hemingway has assisted with the re-installation of large parts of the permanent collection at the Met, including the Archaic and Classical Greek Galleries, the Cypriot Galleries, and the Hellenistic and Roman Galleries. He has also curated special exhibitions including "Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age" (2011), "Sleeping Eros" (2013), and "The Boxer: An Ancient Masterpiece" (2013). He is the author of numerous scholarly publications including a book on Hellenistic bronze sculpture, "The Horse and Jockey from Artemision: A Bronze Equestrian Monument of the Hellenistic Period", and a novel, The Tomb of Alexander. [Getty Museum].
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
List of Illustrations.
Preface.
1. Hellenistic Bronze Statuary: An Introduction.
2. An Early Underwater Rescue Excavation.
3. Technical Analysis.
4. Questions of Style and Identification.
5. Ancient Greek Horse Racing.
6. Conclusions.
Appendix: Chemical Analysis of the Horse and Jockey Group from Artemision in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, by Helen Andreopoulou-Mangou.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index
PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS:
REVIEW: This is the first thorough treatment of the well-known Horse and Jockey from Artemision. Never before has the full story of the underwater rescue been told; nor has the history of the group's conservation been published. The fascinating early restoration drawings and early photographs are all published here, many for the first time. Hemingway's up-to-date technical analysis, combined with his analysis of style and iconography and his discussion of ancient horse racing, make his book fundamental for all who wish to study this statue group. Indeed, with its attention to discovery, conservation, technique, historiography, and style, the book will serve as a model for future scholarship on ancient sculpture. [Carol Mattusch, author of "Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary"].
REVIEW: One of the most appealing and popular sculptures in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens is the bronze Horse and Jockey Group, which was recovered from the sea off Cape Artemision at the north end of the Greek island of Euboia. Parts were first found in 1928 with the remainder in 1936. Seán Hemingway began studying the group in a Bryn Mawr College seminar in 1992, eventually including it in his 1997 doctoral dissertation on all the Artemision bronzes. It is now, deservedly, the focus of this monograph. This book is the latest addition to forty-four others in the distinguished series on Hellenistic culture and society published by the University of California Press.
Hemingway's book consists of five chapters with a conclusion and an appendix containing the results of chemical analyses and metallographic examination of the sculpture performed by Helen Andreopoulou-Mangou of the Chemistry Laboratory of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. The Horse and Jockey is special in being one of the few original large-scale bronzes securely dated to the Hellenistic period. It is approximately life-size in scale and consists of a horse in mid-gallop, on which is seated a youthful jockey, who looks back over his shoulder.
Remarkably, the unknown sculptor of this masterpiece has captured the excitement and vitality of a horserace in mid-action. Hemingway's scholarly and sober study combines a technical, stylistic, and iconographic examination of the group with archaeological, epigraphic, literary, and iconographic information on ancient horse racing to give a better understanding of the monument and the purpose of its commission. Hemingway helpfully begins his investigation of the sculpture in Chapter 1 by an explanation of hollow lost-wax casting methods and a brief survey of known Hellenistic bronzes.
Contained within this corpus are such works as the sleeping Eros, the portrait of a philosopher from the Antikythera shipwreck, and the cache of bronze statues found in Piraeus in 1959, including the statue of Apollo, which many scholars think is genuinely Archaic rather than an example of Hellenistic archaistic style. Hellenistic bronze statuary served fundamentally public functions, and, to judge from the surviving examples, they consisted of statues of deities and heroes, portraits of rulers, philosophers, and prominent individuals, statues of athletes, and animal sculptures. The Horse and Jockey group is unusual in combining an athletic sculpture with an animal.
Chapter 2, "An Early Underwater Rescue Excavation," providing basic documentation and description of the two statues, reads like an adventure tale involving thieves, stormy weather, perilous seas, and dramatic discoveries. An account of the find-spot and original recovery is given, as well as subsequent investigations of the Artemision wreck site. The conservation history of the statues is recounted with a report of the cleaning and restoration methods used. A thorough description of the preserved fragments, including drawings made by the author, is given.
Chapter 3 discusses the manufacturing technique of the pieces. Careful visual examination in the National Archaeological Museum revealed much information about the method of casting and later cold working of the surfaces of the figures. Both interior and exterior inspections were done. A review of knowledge gained about manufacturing techniques from other large-scale bronze equestrian statues, especially in the Hellenistic period, provides parallels for the techniques used to the make the Horse and Jockey. There are no exact parallels for the Artemision Horse and Jockey Group, however, since comparative equestrian statues are mostly of a marching "cavalry" type.
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Chapter 4 discusses the style, chronology, and iconography of both statues in the group and takes into consideration previous scholarship, which offers a range in interpretations and dates for the pieces. An examination of the style and iconography of comparable works provides a more knowledgeable background against which to judge the Horse and Jockey Group. Since the Horse and Jockey Group is one of the very few monumental representations of a horse race from Greek antiquity, Chapter 5 is devoted to the history of the single-horse race.
The origins of the single-horse race in the Orientalizing period (seventh century B.C.) are traced and then its development through the Archaic and Classical period to the end of the Hellenistic period. The single-horse race was a feature of the games at panhellenic sanctuaries and elsewhere and appears to have been a more limited activity than other types of horsemanship, judging from evidence which begins as early as the Geometric period. In addition to archaeological evidence, including sculpture, vase painting, and architecture in the form of hippodromes, there is epigraphic evidence, especially dedications and victor lists, and literary evidence.
Chapter 6 gives a synthesis of the study and an interpretation of the statue group. Although the two parts of the Horse were found separately and at a distance from each other, Hemingway has convincingly demonstrated in his study that they belong to the same statue and that the Jockey goes with the Horse. A restoration of the group carried out in 1972 contains some problems: the Horse's right foreleg could not be repositioned without damage and should be higher, and the style of the tail is too rigid. The Jockey leans too much to the left and his right leg should match the left in turning in to goad the Horse with his spurs.
Greater thickness of the bronze in the hind legs of the Horse indicates that they would have been the primary supports of the group. Marks of wear on the Horse's head and a pin beneath the chin support the reconstruction of an elaborate bridle, now lost. Both of the statues were cast in sections by the indirect lost-wax process and pieced together by flow welding. The Horse's hoofs and the Jockey's skin were originally patinated black. Original inlays were the eyes of both figures and the brand of a Nike figure on the Horse's right hind thigh. Part of the inlaid right eye of the Jockey remains in place, although badly corroded.
Scholars have previously dated the group from the late fourth century B.C. to the first century B.C. Hemingway concludes that the most likely date for the group is the second half of the second century B.C., based on a combination of classicizing features and realism in both statues, and the depiction of recognizable ethnicity and the twisting pose of the Jockey. The statues have been attributed previously to various sculptors, including Kalamis, Lysippos and the Pergamene school, but Hemingway does not think that any of these attributions can be supported given the lack of enough original bronze works that can be securely dated to the Hellenistic period.
The Jockey's physiognomy and original black skin are those of an Ethiopian, but his hairstyle is Greek, which implies that he is of mixed heritage. He is most likely a professional or trained jockey. After considering three likely contexts for the original function of the Horse and Jockey (funerary, decorative, or dedicatory), Hemingway argues that the best interpretation is that the group was set up in a sanctuary to honor one or more victories in horse races. The large size of the monument and the high quality of the sculpture suggest commission by a royal or wealthy Greek aristocratic.
Consideration of several late Hellenistic shipwrecks carrying cargoes of sculpture (the Antikythera, the Mahdia, and the Artemision) leads Hemingway to conclude that the Horse and Jockey group was plunder of some kind. He goes on further to build a strong circumstantial case for its having been plundered from Corinth in 146 B.C. by Mummius, who then gave it to his first general, Attalos, who was shipping it to Pergamon when the ship was wrecked in the Trikiri channel north of Euboia. With a terminus ante quem of 146 B.C. and a stylistic analysis placing the statue in the second half of the second century B.C., the group is given a date of about 150-146 B.C.
Hemingway is to be commended for producing a highly readable account of one of the most compelling statues to have survived from antiquity, and for his approach, which alternately presents a focus narrowed upon the Horse and the Jockey, then widened to include its context of other Hellenistic bronzes and its subject relating to Greek horseracing as one of the athletic events in the cult activity of religious sanctuaries. The monograph is an invaluable resource on not only this particular statue group but on these other topics as well.
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In addition, the study is a model in its presentation of visual evidence: photographs are plentiful, readable, and relevant; drawings are included that show in great detail the metallurgical joins, cast patches, hammered patches, modern restorations and added elements such as screws, holes and loses, and even enigmatic features. These drawings were made by the author himself of each of the four main views of both the Horse and the Jockey. It is a painstaking study that I recommend highly. [Bryn Mawr Classical Review].
READER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: The horse is running at full gallop, while the young rider, wearing a short tunic, clings to power to stay astride. Probably took the reins in his left hand and a whip in his right. The work is a fascinating example of human passion that the artists of the Hellenistic period achieved instill in his most inspired. Was found in pieces in the area of a shipwreck off Cape Artemision, in northern Euboea, like Zeus or Poseidon. Dating from around 140 B.C. A remarkable book comprising a compelling and fascinating examination of a remarkable ancient artifact.
REVIEW: Five stars! Exceptionally well presented and compelling history!
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
REVIEW: The Jockey of Artemision is a large Hellenistic bronze statue of a young boy riding a horse, dated to around 150–140 B.C. It is a rare surviving original bronze statue from Ancient Greece and a rare example in Greek sculpture of a racehorse. Most ancient bronzes were melted down for their raw materials some time after creation, but this one was saved from destruction when it was lost in a shipwreck in antiquity, before being discovered in the twentieth century.
It may have been dedicated to the gods by a wealthy person to honor victories in horse races, probably in the single-horse race. The artist is unknown. The statue was found in a shipwreck off Cape Artemision, in north Euboea, which was discovered in 1926. Also found in the wreck were parts of the Artemision Bronze. The first parts of the equestrian statue were recovered in 1928, with more pieces found in 1936 and/or 1937.
The statue was reassembled, after restoration of the horse's tail and body, and it went on display at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens in 1972. The original artist and the circumstances under which the work was created are unknown, however, Seán Hemingway has suggested that it may have been plundered from Corinth in 146 B.C. by the Roman general Mummius in the Achaean War and given to Attalus but lost while in transit to Pergamon.
The equestrian statue is approximately life-size, with a length of 2.9 meters (9.5 feet) and 2.1 meters (6.9 feet) high. It was cast in pieces using an indirect lost wax process and then assembled with flow welding. Some parts are missing, such as the rider's whip and reins, and the horse's bridle. The horse and its rider are rendered realistically, as if captured as the horse springs away in mid-gallop, with its rear feet on the ground and its front legs raised.
The bronze of the rear legs is thicker, indicating that they were the statue's primary means of support. The image of the goddess Nike is engraved on the horse's right thigh, holding a wreath in raised hands; a brand for racehorses in Ancient Greece. The horse dwarfs its jockey, a boy only 84 centimeters (2.76 feet) tall and perhaps 10 years old, possibly from Africa based on his physiognomy and original black patinated surface coloring.
His hairstyle, however, is Greek, suggesting a mixed heritage. He rides bareback without a saddle. He wears sandals and a short chiton, and looks back over his left shoulder. [Wikipedia]
REVIEW: In the fall of 1928, the fragmentary bronze statues of a horse, a boy, and a god were retrieved from a sunken ship near Cape Artemision. After much study and restoration, the horse and boy were paired together as a single sculptural group. The features of the horse and rider, and all of the study and debate that surrounds them, make a wonderful study of Hellenistic bronze and where it is similar to and different from Classical Greek statuary. The pair is captured in a moment of high drama. The horse has two legs lifted far off the ground, giving the impression that he gallops at full speed.
His wide eyes, flattened ears, and exaggerated veins vividly show his strain. His wide nostrils, parted mouth, and lolling tongue almost enable the viewer to see him panting and frothing as he pushes through to the end of the race. The boy sits astride his horse, his body leaning close to the animal’s neck to counterbalance the horse’s bounding gait. In one hand he grips a fragment of the preexisting reins while the other hand is poised to hold a whip or crop.
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The drapery of his simple clothing and the locks of his hair flutter freely in the wind. His mouth hangs slack and open, showing his exhaustion to match that of the horse. Here, the bronze acts as a very expressive medium. The metallic sheen of his skin and the hide of the horse give off the appearance of glistening sweat. The boy’s full lips and broad nose are taken by many scholars to be an indication of Ethiopian descent.
The dating of the Horse and Jockey is a subject of lively debate among art historians and archaeologists. While most scholars now agree that the galloping racehorse and the small boy belong together, many still argue over whether they were created in the same era. In his book, The Horse and Jockey from Artemision, Sean Hemingway devotes a great deal of time to the survey of these different theories. Many agree that the face of the horse, as well as the balance and symmetry of its pose, reflect Classical sensibilities, specifically as seen in relief sculptures of horses (i.e. the frieze at the Parthenon).
Others, however, quickly point out the strained veins and folds of skin on the horse as well as the small tufts of fur on its ankles show a Hellenistic tendency to dramatic expression and decorative detail.The boy is more consistently seen as a Hellenistic contribution. This is due to the attention given to the boy’s racial identity as well as the expressive drapery peeling back in the wind and the exertion and exhaustion shown in his face. Those who believe the group is partially a pastiche further complicate the discussion. A pastiche is a work that consciously mimics another era.
Regardless of whose theories are correct, this horse and his boy showcase a paradigm often seen in Hellenistic sculpture—the combination of Greek Classical ideals with added expression, drama, and energy. [Furman University].
REVIEW: In the Greco-Roman world, racehorses were potent symbols used by both individuals and the state to express power, encourage civic pride, and celebrate special events. For the Greeks, chariot racing likely began sometime around 1500 B.C. and became a central element of their most sacred festivals. A memory of these early contests appears in Homer’s description of the funeral games honoring the fallen warrior Patroclus, during which Greek kings and heroes race once around a tree stump for the prize of a female slave.
Perhaps a century after the founding of the Olympics in 776 B.C., chariot and jockeyed races were included in the games. This provided an opportunity for families to display their “hippic”—or horse—wealth as social and political capital, explains historian Donald Kyle of the University of Texas at Arlington. Yet for the Romans, hippic contests were just as often part of extravagant state-sponsored displays intended to entertain the masses.
The historian Livy says that the first and largest Roman hippodrome, the Circus Maximus, was built by Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the legendary fifth king of Rome (reigned 616–579 B.C.), in a valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills. Though originally a simple open oval space similar to a Greek hippodrome, the Romans gradually created a massive stadium-style building that, by the first century A.D., could accommodate perhaps as many as 250,000 spectators.
While there were certainly other crowd-pleasing events such as gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome, “chariot racing is the earliest and longest-enduring major spectacle in Roman history,” says Kyle. [Archaeological Institute of America].
REVIEW: The deep sea floor holds fabulous art from the ancient past. Deep submergence technology allows access to our distant cultural foundations. A beautiful bronze statute of Zeus (or possibly Poseidon) was recovered from a shipwreck at Cape Artemision, Greece. It is a fine example of the Severe style of the early Classical period, 5th century B.C. This life-sized bronze statue in Athens' National Archaeological Museum is known as "The Antikythera Youth". It was recovered in 1903 from the wreck at Antikythera. The figure may represent Paris holding the Apple of Strife, referring to a mythical event that ultimately led to the Trojan War.
The Horse and Jockey Boy composite bronze statue was trawled up in pieces in 1928 and 1936 at the northern tip of the island of Euboea, near Cape Artemision. The statue dates to the Hellenistic period The go-to academic reference for this work of art is Sean Hemingway, "The Horse and Jockey from Artemision" (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2004). The head of another bronze statue was recovered from the Antikythera shipwreck, known as the Philosopher. Greek divers collected other components of the statue during the salvage of the wreck in 1903. This, too, is on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Many fabulous works of art from the ancient world were recovered from sites underwater. Bronze statues, particularly, are more likely to survive underwater than on land. This is because bronze is a valuable material useful for many applications. Ancient bronze might originally have been cast into a statue, but later melted down and re-formed into swords or shields if an enemy threatened. Later still, that bronze could have been recycled to make church bells or cannons. Some of the finest ancient works of art in bronze come from shipwrecks or other underwater sites.
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Several excellent examples are found in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece. The Antikythera shipwreck collection of bronze and marble art works is a spectacular display at that museum. Some of the large marble statues from the Antikythera wreck are displayed in the museum's courtyard. Alongside the works of art is a placard with the following text: "The Antikythera Shipwreck. An important group of sculptures in marble and bronze was discovered by chance by sponge-fishers from Symi at Easter 1900. It lay on the bottom of the sea off the east coast of Antikythera at a depth of about 50 meters."
"During the underwater explorations, which lasted for ten months and was carried out under very adverse conditions, the same sponge-fishers retrieved 108 objects made of bronze and marble, the majority of which were statues and statuettes. They also recovered some pottery, most of it coarse-ware. The marble pieces were badly corroded by the action of the sea water. However, figures of gods have been identified among them (Apollon, Zeus, Hermes and Aphrodite) and heroes (Herakles, Odysseus, Achilles or Diomedes), as well as torsos of athletes or dancers, and there are some impressive statues of horses."
"The statues are copies or reworkings of originals dating from the Classical period, from the 4th century BC., and from the Hellenistic period, and some were probably part of groups or large-scale compositions. Most of the sculptures from the wreck date to the 1st century B.C. Two bronzes from the shipwreck are on display in the National Museum: the statue of a nude boy, known as the ‘Antikythera Youth’ attributed to the sculptor Euphranor or his school and the head and parts of the body of a statue of a philosopher.
One of the most important finds from the shipwreck is the complicated bronze mechanism known as the ‘Antikythera Mechanism’ which is probably an instrument to measure time and the seasons, based on the positions of the planets. This rare find is on display in the Bronze Collection. The port of departure of the ship that sank with its precious cargo off Antikythera in the 1st century B.C. remains unknown. It was probably Delos or, according to a different view, a port on the Asia Minor coast. Its destination, however, must have been Rome.
During the troubled periods of history associated with the Roman conquest of the Hellenistic world, works of art, especially sculptures, were assembled in this city from all over the Greek world, either as spoils of war or as collector’s items. What else lies on the deep sea floor, awaiting discovery? [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution].
REVIEW: The ancient Greeks were great innovators in the use of bronze for sculpture. Seán Hemingway examines Greek bronze sculpture from its beginnings in the Geometric period (circa about 8th–7th century B.C.) through and with special emphasis on the Hellenistic period (323–31 B.C.). He elucidates the achievements of Greek master sculptors by looking closely at a number of outstanding examples of Greek bronze sculpture. The Archaic Greek male figure par excellence was the kouros or nude male youth standing at rest but the medium of bronze offered opportunities for dynamic sculptural compositions that began to be explored in the Late Archaic and Early Classical periods – gods, hunters, athletes and warriors provided a wide variety of new types. [Getty Museum].
REVIEW: Some of the oldest myths in the Indo-European tradition concern the existence of supernatural or divine horses. The earliest text in Sanskrit, or indeed any Indo-European language—the family that includes most of the main languages of Europe, South Asia, and parts of western and central Asia—is the Rig Veda, a collection of sacred hymns written sometime in the late second millennium B.C., during the Bronze Age. Among its more than 1,000 hymns are prayers and poems appealing to and honoring the gods.
At the time the Rig Veda was set down, the myths it references were already centuries, if not millennia, old, but it was during the Bronze Age that Indo-European-speaking peoples began to travel and trade across great distances, carrying with them beliefs that were then communicated across a vast territory, stretching from Asia to Scandinavia. Archaeological evidence collected in Europe provides the strongest parallels for early Indo-European myths first set down on the Indian subcontinent, says Kristian Kristiansen of the University of Gothenberg.
One of the most important of these shared Bronze Age myths is that of the sun cult, wherein the sun’s daily journey is symbolized by a horse drawing a chariot across the heavens. This is also widely interpreted as the journey from death to the afterlife. In both ancient Greek and Norse mythology, too, there are supernatural horses. The winged stallion Pegasus is the offspring of the god Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa, from whose neck he was born when she was beheaded by Perseus. After taming Pegasus, the Corinthian hero Bellerophon attempts to ride the horse to the gods’ home on Mount Olympus.
But Zeus compels the horse to buck, sending Bellerophon back to Earth as punishment for his pride. Pegasus continues his journey heavenward to live in Zeus’ stables and carry his thunderbolts. Zeus also set Pegasus in the sky as a constellation marking the arrival of spring. Odin, the powerful Norse god of war, poetry, knowledge, and wisdom, also has a divine horse in his service. Renowned for his speed, the eight-legged horse Sleipnir carries Odin on his journeys through the Nine Worlds that are the homelands of the elements found in the Norse worldview—humanity, tribes of gods and goddesses, giants, fire, ice, dwarves, elves, and death. [Archaeological Institute of America].
REVIEW: Once horses were domesticated, they began to play an important role in funeral rituals. Archaeologists have found horse bones mingled with cow and sheep remains in human burials on the Eurasian steppe dating to as early as 5000 B.C. All the animals were probably sacrificed and eaten during funeral rituals. Later, the increasingly singular role horses played in human lives was reflected in more elaborate burial rites that were practiced by unrelated cultures from China to England.
Perhaps the first to accord horses an honored role in burials were the Sintashta people, a sedentary culture that built large fortified settlements south of the Ural Mountains around 2000 B.C. Important members of this society were buried with their chariots and the horses that pulled them. Unlike other livestock that may have been sacrificed and eaten during funeral rites, these horses went with their owners to the afterlife intact.
Many steppe cultures that came after the Sintashta also practiced horse burials. In Siberia, the fifth-century B.C. Iron Age Pazyrk people buried their noble dead in huge mounds, accompanied by horses outfitted with cloth saddles and dramatic headdresses. But it was in China that horse burials achieved their most elaborate expression. Excavation of the sixth-century B.C. tomb of Chinese ruler Duke Jing of Qi has revealed the remains of 200 horses, which would have represented a vast fortune.
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The tomb has not been fully excavated, and some archaeologists estimate it might have held up to 600 horses. This number is only rivaled by representations of horses accompanying the terracotta army discovered in pits near the famed mausoleum of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi (r. 220–210 B.C.). Archaeologists estimate that 130 chariots were buried there, along with bronze and terracotta depictions of more than 650 horses. [Archaeological Institute of America].
REVIEW: By the mid-second millennium B.C., the use of horses in warfare had become common throughout the Near East and Egypt. This development was made possible by advances both in the design of chariots, in particular the invention of the spoked wheel, which replaced the solid wooden wheel and reduced a chariot’s weight, and the introduction of all-metal bits, which gave chariot drivers more control over their horses. Though chariot warfare was expensive, and its effectiveness was determined by the durability of the chariots and suitability of the terrain, the vehicles became essential battlefield equipment.
According to archaeologist Brian Fagan of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Bronze Age chariots acted largely as mobile archery platforms, with the bulkier four-wheeled ones also being used to carry kings into battle or to allow generals to observe the fighting. Lighter two-wheeled versions, such as those found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, were better suited to carrying a single archer and a driver. One of the most informative sources for the use of chariot horses in the ancient Near East is a tablet discovered in 1906–1907 in the royal archive at the Hittite site of Hattusa in Anatolia.
The “Kikkuli Text,” written in cuneiform script and dating to around 1400 B.C., is named after its author. Kikkuli introduces himself in the first line as a “horse trainer from the land of the Mitanni,” a state in what is now northern Syria and southeastern Turkey. He then describes an approximately 184-day training cycle that begins in the fall, in which he includes instructions for the horses’ feeding, watering, and care, recommending stable rest, massages, and blankets. For nearly a millennium, warhorses were used almost exclusively to pull chariots, but after about 850 B.C. chariotry began to decline.
Horses, however, never lost their usefulness in battle.
Within about 150 years, cavalry, which is suitable to almost any terrain, virtually replaced chariotry in the Near East, and, eventually, horse-drawn chariots were employed primarily for racing, in ceremonial parades, and as prestige vehicles. In time this happened not only in this region, but across most of Europe as well. The rise of true cavalry was the determining force behind many of the major events that influenced European history, including Charles Martel’s defeat of the Saracens at the Battle of Poitiers in A.D. 732, the creation of the Holy Roman Empire, and the victory of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in A.D. 1066. “I think that the most important development in history with respect to animals was the adoption of the horse as a weapon of war,” says Fagan. [Archaeological Institute of America].
REVIEW: The earliest evidence for encounters between humans and horses is found at Paleolithic sites in Eurasia. Butchered horse bones indicate that early peoples used horses as an important source of food. But these swift and spirited animals also clearly fired the human imagination in ways other animals did not. Depictions of them abound in Paleolithic cave art, where horses appear more frequently than any other animal. In the New World, where it originated, the horse became extinct after the last Ice Age, some 9,000 years ago.
A changing climate, and possibly overhunting—by that time humans shared the environment—may have been factors. In much of the Old World, too, horse species disappeared as forest replaced steppe, shrinking their habitat. But on the steppe of what is today Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan, Equus caballus, the species to which modern horses belong, continued to thrive in large numbers. Sometime after 5000 B.C., people in the region who were already familiar with domesticated cattle and sheep may have taken the first step toward taming the horse.
Despite being powerful and aggressive, horses had an important advantage over other animals that had already been domesticated: “Horses are easier to feed through harsh winters than sheep or cattle,” says Hartwick College archaeologist David Anthony. “They are well adapted to winter on the steppe, and can break through ice and snow with their hooves to reach winter grass to feed themselves.” There is indirect evidence, such as bone carvings depicting horses together with cattle, that people on the steppe took advantage of this trait and began to maintain herds of horses for winter meat.
There is also evidence that riding horses soon followed domestication. Anthony and his colleague Dorcas Brown have analyzed horse teeth dating to around 3500 B.C. from Kazakhstan and have found wear patterns consistent with the use of rope or leather bits. “I think the first person to climb on a horse was an adolescent or child,” says Anthony. “Some kid probably jumped on the back of a mare as a prank and everyone looked on in astonishment.” But the advantages of horseback riding must have become immediately apparent.
It not only made it much easier to manage livestock, but would also have allowed for maintaining larger herds. Riding horses enabled the spread of goods and ideas, not the least of which was horseback riding itself, as never before. The domesticated horse transformed people’s material lives, but it also caused a more subtle, yet radical, change in human culture. “The world opened up to people who could travel on horseback,” says Anthony. “Their sense of distances and what was possible in life would have changed dramatically.” [Archaeological Institute of America].
REVIEW: The last people to have their lives transformed by the horse were the indigenous cultures of the New World, whose ancestors had last seen the horse 9,000 years earlier. The reintroduction of the animal began in 1519, when Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico with 500 men and 15 horses. In the campaigns against the Aztecs and other Mexican nations that ensued, Cortés’ small cavalry made a critical difference. A mounted charge into the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan ended 80 days of pitched warfare there, and Cortés was never seriously challenged again.
Once horses returned to the grasslands where they had originated, they helped Plains Indians reshape their culture almost overnight. Horses replaced dogs as pack animals, which enabled people to transport a great deal more goods. Enterprising riders could now chase down buffalo on horseback, and become much more efficient hunters. And some tribes, such as the Lakota, even abandoned agriculture to become full-time equestrian hunters.
Increased mobility and horse raiding also led to a rise in warfare, which became endemic on the Plains. For a time, their mastery of the horse helped the Plains Indians hold off American settlers’ westward expansion, but even the best riders the world has ever seen could not challenge the massive population influx made possible by the steam locomotive, which, soon after its invention, came to be known as the “iron horse.” [Archaeological Institute of America].
REVIEW: Greek sculpture from 800 to 300 B.C. took early inspiration from Egyptian and Near Eastern monumental art, and over centuries evolved into a uniquely Greek vision of the art form. Greek artists would reach a peak of artistic excellence which captured the human form in a way never before seen and which was much copied. Greek sculptors were particularly concerned with proportion, poise, and the idealized perfection of the human body, and their figures in stone and bronze have become some of the most recognizable pieces of art ever produced by any civilization.
From the 8th century B.C., Archaic Greece saw a rise in the production of small solid figures in clay, ivory, and bronze. No doubt, wood too was a commonly used medium but its susceptibility to erosion has meant few examples have survived. Bronze figures, human heads and, in particular, griffins were used as attachments to bronze vessels such as cauldrons. In style, the human figures resemble those in contemporary Geometric pottery designs, having elongated limbs and a triangular torso. Animal figures were also produced in large numbers, especially the horse, and many have been found across Greece at sanctuary sites such as Olympia and Delphi, indicating their common function as votive offerings.
The oldest Greek stone sculptures (of limestone) date from the mid-7th century B.C. and were found at Thera. In this period, bronze free-standing figures with their own base became more common, and more ambitious subjects were attempted such as warriors, charioteers, and musicians. Marble sculpture appears from the early 6th century B.C. and the first monumental, life-size statues began to be produced. These had a commemorative function, either offered at sanctuaries in symbolic service to the gods or used as grave markers.
The earliest large stone figures (kouroi - nude male youths and kore - clothed female figures) were rigid as in Egyptian monumental statues with the arms held straight at the sides, the feet are almost together and the eyes stare blankly ahead without any particular facial expression. These rather static figures slowly evolved though and with ever greater details added to hair and muscles, the figures began to come to life. Slowly, arms become slightly bent giving them muscular tension and one leg (usually the right) is placed slightly more forward, giving a sense of dynamic movement to the statue.
Excellent examples of this style of figure are the kouroi of Argos, dedicated at Delphi (circa 580 B.C.). Around 480 B.C., the last kouroi become ever more life-like, the weight is carried on the left leg, the right hip is lower, the buttocks and shoulders more relaxed, the head is not quite so rigid, and there is a hint of a smile. Female kore followed a similar evolution, particularly in the sculpting of their clothes which were rendered in an ever-more realistic and complex way. A more natural proportion of the figure was also established where the head became 1:7 with the body, irrespective of the actual size of the statue.
By 500 B.C. Greek sculptors were finally breaking away from the rigid rules of Archaic conceptual art and beginning to re-produce what they actually observed in real life. In the Classical period, Greek sculptors would break off the shackles of convention and achieve what no-one else had ever before attempted. They created life-size and life-like sculpture which glorified the human and especially nude male form. Even more was achieved than this though. Marble turned out to be a wonderful medium for rendering what all sculptors strive for: that is to make the piece seem carved from the inside rather than chiseled from the outside.
Figures become sensuous and appear frozen in action; it seems that only a second ago they were actually alive. Faces are given more expression and whole figures strike a particular mood. Clothes too become more subtle in their rendering and cling to the contours of the body in what has been described as ‘wind-blown’ or the ‘wet-look’. Quite simply, the sculptures no longer seemed to be sculptures but were figures instilled with life and verve. To see how such realism was achieved we must return again to the beginning and examine more closely the materials and tools at the disposal of the artist and the techniques employed to transform raw materials into art.
Early Greek sculpture was most often in bronze and porous limestone, but whilst bronze seems never to have gone out of fashion, the stone of choice would become marble. The best was from Naxos - close-grained and sparkling, Parian (from Paros) - with a rougher grain and more translucent, and Pentelic (near Athens) - more opaque and which turned a soft honey color with age (due to its iron content). However, stone was chosen for its workability rather than its decoration as the majority of Greek sculpture was not polished but painted, often rather garishly for modern tastes.
Marble was quarried using bow drills and wooden wedges soaked in water to break away workable blocks. Generally, larger figures were not produced from a single piece of marble, but important additions such as arms were sculpted separately and fixed to the main body with dowels. Using iron tools, the sculptor would work the block from all directions (perhaps with an eye on a small-scale model to guide proportions), first using a pointed tool to remove more substantial pieces of marble. Next, a combination of a five-claw chisel, flat chisels of various sizes, and small hand drills were used to sculpt the fine details.
The surface of the stone was then finished off with an abrasive powder (usually emery from Naxos) but rarely polished. The statue was then attached to a plinth using a lead fixture or sometimes placed on a single column (e.g. the Naxian sphinx at Delphi, circa 560 B.C.). The finishing touches to statues were added using paint. Skin, hair, eyebrows, lips, and patterns on clothing were added in bright colors. Eyes were often inlaid using bone, crystal, or glass. Finally, additions in bronze might be added such as spears, swords, helmets, jewelry, and diadems, and some statues even had a small bronze disc (meniskoi) suspended over the head to prevent birds from defacing the figure.
The other favored material in Greek sculpture was bronze. Unfortunately, this material was always in demand for re-use in later periods, whereas broken marble is not much use to anyone, and so marble sculpture has better survived for posterity. Consequently, the quantity of surviving examples of bronze sculpture (no more than twelve) is not perhaps indicative of the fact that more bronze sculpture may well have been produced than in marble and the quality of the few surviving bronzes demonstrates the excellence we have lost. Very often at archaeological sites we may see rows of bare stone plinths, silent witnesses to art’s loss.
The early solid bronze sculptures made way for larger pieces with a non-bronze core which was sometimes removed to leave a hollow figure. The most common production of bronze statues used the lost-wax technique. This involved making a core almost the size of the desired figure (or body part if not creating a whole figure) which was then coated in wax and the details sculpted. The whole was then covered in clay fixed to the core at certain points using rods. The wax was then melted out and molten bronze poured into the space once occupied by the wax. When set, the clay was removed and the surface finished off by scraping, fine engraving and polishing. Sometimes copper or silver additions were used for lips, nipples and teeth. Eyes were inlaid as in marble sculpture.
Many statues are signed so that we know the names of the most successful artists who became famous in their own lifetimes. Naming a few, we may start with the most famous of all, Phidias, the artist who created the gigantic chryselephantine statues of Athena (circa 438 B.C.) and Zeus (circa 456 B.C.) which resided, respectively, in the Parthenon of Athens and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The latter sculpture was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Polykleitos, who besides cre