For You Lot Data - Beyond The Image: Hidden Inscriptions On Athenian Vases

Just because scholars guide maintain analyzed ancient Greek pottery for centuries doesn’t hateful they’ve uncovered all their secrets.

This kylix, or cup, of the Painter of Oedipus began the hunt for messages hidden below
the surface of some ancient Greek pottery [Credit: Vatican Museums]

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 researcher announced Th the uncovering of hidden messages inward some artifacts that casts novel lite on the creative procedure behind some of the most of import fine art inward history.

Mario Iozzo, the manager of the National Archaeological Museum inward Florence, revealed details of a report that has led him to re-examine hundreds of items. He spoke to an audience of scholars Th at a peculiarly arranged lecture inward the Vatican Museums.

The path to Thursday’s proclamation began close ii years agone equally doctor Iozzo was inspecting a kylix, an ancient Greek loving cup amongst handles for drinking wine. It is business office of the collection of the Gregorian Etruscan Museum inward the Vatican. Painted inward a mode known equally Red-figure together with dating from roughly 470 B.C., the primary blueprint on the loving cup is of Oedipus listening to the riddle of the Sphinx of Thebes. On the underside of the kylix is some other mythological scene depicting satyrs.

“It was an afternoon inward the autumn of 2016,” the curator of the museum, Maurizio Sannibale, recalls. The Sun was already depression inward the sky. “At a sure as shooting point, a beam of sunlight came through the window together with barbarous straight on the kylix. In that special light, yous could run across that something was there.”

The ii men were studying the underside of the cup. They could only brand out an inscription beneath the paint. The words had to guide maintain been inscribed inward the clay spell it was yet moist, together with hence covered amongst the dark pigment that is used inward the creation of Red-figure ceramics for the background.

Maurizio Sannibale, manager of the Gregorian Etruscan Museum, business office of the Vatican Museums
[Credit: Vatican Museums]

There had been hints before of the beingness of hidden writing on classical Greek vases, urns together with cups. In 2012, a scholarly newspaper was published revealing that a verse of verse had been found beneath the painted surface of some other instance of the ancient potters’ art. But the newspaper was to a greater extent than focused on the attribution of the verse than its purpose.

Twenty years earlier, a Canadian scholar, J. Robert Guy, had made out a unmarried give-and-take carved into the surface of the kylix inward the Vatican, which is why doctor Iozzo took such a closed involvement inward it. That’s also why he together with doctor Sannibale became excited when they saw inward that autumnal lite non only ane word, but many.

With the assistance of advanced photographic equipment at the Vatican Museum, doctor Iozzo established that the inscription on the Oedipus kylix was a message to the painter, telling him what to stand upwardly for and, to some extent, how. The writing isn’t inward the same hand, or fifty-fifty the same dialect, equally that used past times the painter, hence he concluded that it could entirely guide maintain come upwardly from the potter.

doctor Iozzo has since examined several hundred pieces of Red-figure ceramic together with found similar inscriptions on seven.

“What nosotros instantly realize is that the potter had considerable influence over the selection of plain of report matter,” he says.

Dr. Mario Iozzo, manager of the National Archaeological Museum inward Florence, shown checking
 an Etruscan bronze statue [Credit: DPA/ZUMAPRESS]

The messages follow a convention: They starting fourth dimension close the rima oris of the figure inward question, similar cartoon bubbles, together with extend inward the administration to which the figure is turning inward the finished painting, suggesting the potters frequently decided inward exceptional the organisation of the scene to live depicted together with the pose of the characters inward it.

Why their messages were cutting into the surface of entirely some items isn’t known. doctor Iozzo’s theory is that they were reserved for the most valuable, luxury products.

He believes his findings, to live published side past times side calendar month inward the American Journal of Archaeology, could opened upwardly up novel areas of study. “What nosotros postulate to produce instantly is to accept the ancient Greek ceramics inward all the museums of the the world together with run across what is underneath the paint,” he says.

For doctor Sannibale, it has some other significance. He notes that much of the high civilization of the ancient Greeks together with Romans survived. “Many of their plays, for example, guide maintain come upwardly downwards to us,” he says. Yet archaeologists together with other specialists are yet piecing together the mundane details of everyday life inward classical Hellenic Republic together with Italy.

“What this does is to opened upwardly a gash through which nosotros tin dismiss peer into a workshop producing ceramics ii together with one-half chiliad years agone together with run across how it operated,” he says. “For me, that is to a greater extent than fascinating than the uncovering of a [new text by] Cicero."

Author: John Hooper | Source: Wall Street Journal [June 15, 2018]


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