Antiquities Exhibits

  Hephaestus  was  the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes and associated with those crafts that required heat. His Roman counterpart was Vulcan.  He was the patron deity of jewelers, armorers and blacksmiths. As a smithing god, Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, and almost any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek myth is said to have been forged by Hephaestus. He designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office, Achilles' armor, Diomedes' cuirass, Heracles' bronze clappers, Helios' chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, and Eros's bow and arrows. In later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the Cyclopes in his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding.  In Greek myths and Homeric poems, Hephaestus had a special power t...

This Hellenistic sculpture is one of six Roman copies with a similar theme.  All versions depict a female sitting  on the floor with her legs drawn up, supporting herself with her left hand and just throwing two knuckles ( astragales ) with her right hand.   The subject is dressed in a thin chiton , which has slipped from the left shoulder to the elbow and exposes the left breast. This nudity is thought to have been incorporated by the sculptor to elevate the subject to an ideal, divine level. A version of the sculpture in The Louvre depicts the subject as an adult.  But 17th century restorers substituted a shell for the astragaloi and dubbed the sculpture "Venus with the Shell."  This piece was originally in the collections of the Duke Camillo Borghese and held in the Villa Borghese but when the Duke married Pauline Bonaparte, his new brother-in-law, Napoleon, forced the Duke to sell the work to him.  The more elegant and endearing sculpture of t...

Tanagra Figurines: From Elegant to Whimsical. Tanagra figurines are mold-cast Greek terracotta figurines produced from the later fourth century BCE up to the 1st century BCE, primarily in the Boeotian town of Tanagra, which has given its name to the whole class but also in Alexandria, Tarentum in Magna Graecia, Centuripe in Sicily and Myrina in Mysia. The vast majority of the figures depict women in everyday apparel with accees sories like hats, wreaths, or fans. But men and boys, Eros, Aphrodite, and grotesques were also subjects. Some character pieces may have represented stock figures from the New Comedy of Menander and other writers. Others continued an earlier tradition of molded terracotta figures used as cult images or votive objects. Researchers think some Tanagra figurines were religious in purpose, but most seem to have been entirely decorative. However, those placed in tombs as grave goods are not thought to have served the deceased in the afterlife in any way unlike fig...

Ancient Worlds. Greeks, Etruscans and Romans Ongoing at the Altes Museum in Berlin, Germany. The Greek hero Meleager Roman copy of Greek original in the Altes Museum in Berlin, Germany.  Image by Richard Mortel courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The new exhibition on the main floor of the Altes Museum starts with the 'Age of Heroes', from 1000 to 700 BCE. Statues of warriors and helmets stand alongside images of griffins and lions that are distinctly Eastern in character. Right from the outset, the visitor's gaze is drawn towards the next rooms containing archaic temples and tomb monuments dating from the 6th century BCE. The section 'Life and Death in Athens', meanwhile, sheds light on all facets of everyday life in the capital of classical antiquity. Related link: https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/altes-museum/about-the-collections/collections.html