Reconstructing a Dolphin Frieze and Argonauts from the Mycenaean Citadel of Gla
Συγγραφέας: Μπουλώτης Χρήστος
Έκδοση: Μέρος του συλλογικού έργου Mycenaean wall painting in context: new discoveries, old finds reconsidered, Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών-Ινστιτούτο Ιστορικών Ερευνών, Αθήνα Δεκέμβριος 2015
Σειρά: Μελετήματα αρ.72
Επιμέλεια έκδοσης: Μπρεκουλάκη Χαρίκλεια, Davis L.Jack, Stocker R.Sharon
Γλώσσα: Αγγλική
Αριθμός σελίδων: 33 (σελίδες 371-403)
ISBN: 9789609538343
Περιγραφή: During the recent decades many new Mycenaean wall paintings have been brought to light and older finds have been restored and reconstructed afresh in light of newly found joining fragments. These paintings derive both from palatial and non-palatial contexts, from major centers on the mainland (including Mycenae, Tiryns, Argos, Pylos, Thebes, Orchomenos, and Gla) and from recently excavated sites, such as Iklaina in Messenia. However, in contrast to the corpora of Minoan and Cycladic wall paintings, Mycenaean paintings have survived in poor physical condition. For the most part, they are highly fragmentary and lack iconographic and contextual coherence.
The present book, lavishly illustrated, including many full-page details, offers an up to date insight into new discoveries of Mycenaean wall painting and new iconographic interpretations of old material, excavated long ago but never properly published. It is therefore likely to fill a large gap in our knowledge of Mycenaean wall painting and Aegean wall painting in general, and help us to gain a better understanding of the visual language of Mycenaean painting and of how it was employed in the murals that adorned Mycenaean buildings.
Παρουσίαση από την εκδοτική ομάδα: It was 2010. The editors of this volume had been working together for more than a decade in the Museum of Chora in Messenia, where finds from Blegen and Rawson’s excavations are on display. A collaboration among archaeologists, art historians, and archaeological scientists had gradually evolved in the later 1990s in the aftermath of the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project. The initial goals of its organizer, Sharon Stocker, were modest: to improve storage conditions of material that was not on display and was stored in two crowded basement storerooms, which had been equipped in the 1960s with the intention that they would also provide workspace for the Palace of Nestor and Archaeological Society at Athens excavation teams.
In the course of transferring artifacts to new containers and renewing old labels, it soon became obvious how much of the material in the storerooms was either unpublished or incompletely published. And in no case was this truer than for fragments of wall paintings -thousands of which had never been cleaned, studied, or catalogued.
By 2010 we had, of course, documented all unpublished fragments and had decided to focus our research on wall paintings from Hall 64 -an elaborately decorated propylon in front of the megaron of the Southwestern Building. This megaron, some believe, was the seat of the “lawagetas”, perhaps the war-chief of the Pylian kingdom. Mabel Lang had already extensively discussed the decoration of Hall 64, but our discovery of many unpublished fragments, notably parts of a procession of ships (at the time the first representation of ships recognized in Mycenaean wall painting), impressed on us the need to study the walls of this important room again from the ground up, literally and figuratively.
Since we had completed a preliminary restoration of the procession of ships, it occurred to us that it would be profitable to begin to discuss our ideas about Mycenaean wall paintings with a larger audience-particularly with regard to the function of wall paintings in architectural units; thus the workshop entitled “Mycenaean Wall Painting in Context” came into being in February 2011. This gathering, in a very real sense, was a personal indulgence, an opportunity for us to learn from others who were wrestling with problems similar to our own.
Video από την παρουσίαση του βιβλίου στη Διημερίδα με τίτλο “Telltale Depictions: A Contextual View of Mycenaean Wall-Paintings” που έλαβε χώρα στο Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών στην Αθήνα 11-13 Φεβρουαρίου 2011:
https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/news/newsDetails/mycenaean-wall-paintings-in-context-new-discoveries-and-old-finds-reconside/
Βιβλιοκριτική
Blakolmer Fritz περιοδικό American Journal of Archaeology τεύχος 121 Νο.1 (Ιανουάριος 2017)
Online δημοσίευση στο link: https://www.ajaonline.org/book-review/3370
