Antiquities Exhibits

Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus of Sparta. She subsequently bears two children from Zeus, Helen (who later becomes Helen of Troy) and Polydeuces (Pollux, one of the Dioscuri) and two children from Tyndareus, Castor (the other Dioscuri) and Clytemnestra. Castor, being the son of a human male, was mortal while Pollux, being a son of Zeus, was immortal.  But Pollux asked to share his immortality with his half brother so each spent half their time in Hades while the other communed with gods on Olympus. Their unusual conception was just one of several Greek myths in which Zeus seduced or abducted favored mortals while in the form of an animal.  These other tales included Europa and the bull and Ganymede and the eagle.   Various classical writers recorded that bestiality was common in "other" cultures. Herodotu...

The Zeugma Mosaic Museum  in the town of Gaziantep, Turkey, the biggest mosaic museum in the world, containing 1700m2 of mosaics opened to the public on 9 September 2011,  Named for its pontoon bridge of boats that crossed the Euphrates River at that location, Zeugma was founded as Seleucia by Seleucus I Nicator, one of the general successors of Alexander the Great, in the early 3rd century BCE.  By 64 BCE, the Romans controlled the city and Zeugma became a military base and thriving commercial center with a population of about 70,000 people. In 253 CE, it was destroyed by the Sassanids, but was later rebuilt.  However, continuing raids by the Persians and Arabs led to its abandonment in the 7th century CE. The mosaics, remained relatively unknown until 2000 when plans for new dams on the Euphrates meant that much of Zeugma would be flooded. Many of the mosaics remain covered and teams of researchers continue to work on the project to rescue them. In addition to the ...

I've been doing more background research on depictions of the myth of Actaeon in Pompeii and elsewhere and stumbled across this pair of sculptures of Artemis and Actaeon produced by American artist Paul Manship.  Although I personally prefer the realism of Hellenistic art, I'm still pleased to see modern art inspired by ancient history and myth as it serves as a reminder of the foundations of our culture. These sculptures reflect this American artist's love of art history and classical themes in particular. The hunter Actaeon surprises the goddess Diana while she was bathing. To prevent him from telling anybody that he has seen her naked, the goddess fires an arrow that turns him into a stag. In the sculpture, Actaeon appears to have been just hit, with his metamorphosis into a stag just beginning, while the accompanying piece shows Diana with her bow raised. In this way, Manship created a link between the two sculptures through the flight of an unseen arrow. Paul Manship, ...