The principles of ancient Greek architecture have persevered through millennia, their impact ebbi... more The principles of ancient Greek architecture have persevered through millennia, their impact ebbing and flowing perhaps, but still considered a fundamental layer on which Western architectural traditions have been built. Keeping in mind the pragmatic, aesthetic, and ideological influence Greek architecture has continued to have, my dissertation turns to contemporaneous sources to gauge the Greeks’ reception of their own sacred architecture. Scholars of Greek religion tend to agree that the temple was not a necessary component of ritual – boundary stones delineating sacred space and an altar on which communication with the divine was sought through sacrifice and non-sanguinary offerings were enough for religious rites. Why, then, were considerable effort and funds put towards the construction of temples, often monumental and virtually ubiquitous across the Greek landscape? Paradoxically, why is Greek literature, an art form that valued ekphrastic accounts of artworks (Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles [Iliad 18.478-608] is an oft-cited example) mostly silent on sacred architecture save for few laconic and formulaic appellations and rather dry descriptions (Greek traveler Pausanias, for instance, focused on sanctuary histories and votive offerings but was rather disinterested in architecture)? There appears to be a disparity between etic and emic perceptions of Greek sacred architecture, but, in fact, ancient evidence proves otherwise and demonstrates that artists were mindful of the potency of sacred structures. My dissertation pieces together their visual testimonies, particularly in vase painting which is arguably the most prolific and far-reaching medium of Greek art. Through an exhaustive perusal of museum collections, archives, and pottery-focused publications, the present study assembles a collection of nearly three-hundred vase paintings with depictions of sacred architecture and covering a time period of around three centuries from the Archaic period (seventh-century BCE) to the end of the Late Classical period (late fourth century BCE). The majority of the objects originate in Athens and its environs (Attika) and Magna Graecia. Based on this chronological and geographical scope, the study examines the images in four chapters: Attic black-figure vase paintings, Attic red-figure vase paintings with non-mythological subjects, Attic red-figure vase paintings with depictions of myth, and South Italian vase paintings. Within these chapters, the typology of architectural elements (e.g., freestanding columns, temple facades) and subject matter (e.g., myths, quotidian activities) constitute the primary criteria with which the images have been categorized. This extensive collection of vase paintings provides manifold insights into not only the reception of sacred architecture but also architectural elements as effective pictorial motifs. A great number of the depictions can be connected to “real” prototypes and, in some cases, distinct religious practices. While previous studies have taken a similar approach only to fixate on the discrepancies between prototypes and what architectural depictions can tell us about ancient building practices, the present study argues that vase painters rarely, if at all, intended to reproduce existing structures. Thus, the evidence should be used to study the ways in which artists reflected and refracted how buildings shaped and were shaped by the needs of their users. Creating an autonomous visual language built on abbreviation, elision, and synthesis, artists, in fact, rendered structures fit for the pictorial world. Their aim was not exactitude but rather verisimilitude – temples, shrines, portals, sanctuaries that were guided by but never unequivocally subservient to reality. The semiotic analysis of architecture, meanwhile, considers the aesthetics of vase painting and the objecthood of the vase. Beyond their face value (i.e., signifying sacred structures), elements like columns and simplified temples configure the surface of the vase into distinct zones, thus denoting spatio-temporal transitions, and hierarchize figures within the depicted events. Moreover, there are numerous instances where the pictorial frame is transformed into a built environment itself with the use of architecture – a practice that urges the viewer to contemplate the tension between the flatness of the ‘canvas’ and the habitable spaces defined by the juxtaposition of figures and structures.
This study focuses on a group of archaic architectural stone pieces, which were found in the anci... more This study focuses on a group of archaic architectural stone pieces, which were found in the ancient settlement of Larisa (Buruncuk) during the excavations carried out in the first half of the 20th century and the field surveys operated in three consecutive seasons between the years of 2010 and 2012.
The first part of this thesis study presents the subject of the Aeolic, Ionic and Dorian migrations. This mass movement of peoples from Mainland Greece to the Aegean islands and the western coast of Anatolia had initially been dated to the period between the 12th and 9th centuries due to the information provided by ancient sources such as Herodotus, Hesiod and Thucydides.
Within the second part of the study, nineteen stone architectural pieces are presented and described in their current conditions with the help of visual documentation prepared during a lengthy research period that was carried out both in the storage facilities of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and on field at Larisa. The collection of archaic stone pieces can be evaluated in two main categories. The first group consists of pieces belonging to the upper structure of archaic buildings and include two slightly damaged Aeolic capitals with vertical volutes, two volute fragments from similar Aeolic capitals, one leaf drum that is thought to be a column capital, one large fragment of an anta capital, one rather short fragment of a sima displaying a single palmette of an anthemion, and five individual fragments of a wall profile decorated with a Lesbian kymation. The second group consists of pieces that are thought to belong to the lower parts of various structures’ walls and consists of one fragment of a wall or statue base decorated with a colossal bead-and-reel molding, three individual pieces of a wall base with a kyma reversa profile, and one wall base with a horizontally fluted convex profile.
Ancient Greek art is primarily concerned with the anthropomorphic. Idealized bodies of the human ... more Ancient Greek art is primarily concerned with the anthropomorphic. Idealized bodies of the human and the divine are central to every image, and it is through corporal interactions that narratives are told and responses evoked. Yet the primacy of the figural should not imply that the non-figural is unnecessary or expendable. Greek artists were fully aware of the potency of non-figural symbols for the enrichment of the pictorial worlds they created, and such symbols that could oscillate between the purely decorative to the narratively vital shape content and context more than most previous scholarship has recognized. My research engages with a large group of such symbols – architectural elements that feature in scenes of worship, daily life, and mytho-history – to parse their visual and semiotic functions within the framework of the highly coded yet simultaneously innovative medium of vase painting. Through images that reflect both traditional and singular instances of sacred structures as conceived by Greek artists, my talk will aim to demonstrate the multivalent roles architecture assumes in images and what this may reveal to us about the processes behind the creation of visual language.
In an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ it can seem like no form of media should be enti... more In an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ it can seem like no form of media should be entirely trusted. While these issues are a modern problem, exacerbated by the unprecedented rise of social media, evidence from the ancient world produces a similar ‘truthiness’: an upside-down world or alternate reality that is latent, barely below the surface of the present and just beyond the borders of civilization and norms. Unlike utopias, which are placeless or displaced, many of these imagined dystopic or feigned worlds are presented as dangerously close to their contemporaries. We invite papers from graduate students working across disciplines related to the ancient world––and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged––for a conference that will explore the relationships between fact and fiction, order and chaos. From representations of alternate realities in ancient drama, painting, and sculpture, to disparate histories and archaeological evidence, we hope to discuss the motivations behind, and effects of, the absurd, inverted, and alternative.
We will consider papers in any field pertaining to the ancient Mediterranean and its surrounding regions, including Egypt, the Near East, Anatolia, and the expanses of the Roman Empire, falling within the period spanning from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity.
The principles of ancient Greek architecture have persevered through millennia, their impact ebbi... more The principles of ancient Greek architecture have persevered through millennia, their impact ebbing and flowing perhaps, but still considered a fundamental layer on which Western architectural traditions have been built. Keeping in mind the pragmatic, aesthetic, and ideological influence Greek architecture has continued to have, my dissertation turns to contemporaneous sources to gauge the Greeks’ reception of their own sacred architecture. Scholars of Greek religion tend to agree that the temple was not a necessary component of ritual – boundary stones delineating sacred space and an altar on which communication with the divine was sought through sacrifice and non-sanguinary offerings were enough for religious rites. Why, then, were considerable effort and funds put towards the construction of temples, often monumental and virtually ubiquitous across the Greek landscape? Paradoxically, why is Greek literature, an art form that valued ekphrastic accounts of artworks (Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles [Iliad 18.478-608] is an oft-cited example) mostly silent on sacred architecture save for few laconic and formulaic appellations and rather dry descriptions (Greek traveler Pausanias, for instance, focused on sanctuary histories and votive offerings but was rather disinterested in architecture)? There appears to be a disparity between etic and emic perceptions of Greek sacred architecture, but, in fact, ancient evidence proves otherwise and demonstrates that artists were mindful of the potency of sacred structures. My dissertation pieces together their visual testimonies, particularly in vase painting which is arguably the most prolific and far-reaching medium of Greek art. Through an exhaustive perusal of museum collections, archives, and pottery-focused publications, the present study assembles a collection of nearly three-hundred vase paintings with depictions of sacred architecture and covering a time period of around three centuries from the Archaic period (seventh-century BCE) to the end of the Late Classical period (late fourth century BCE). The majority of the objects originate in Athens and its environs (Attika) and Magna Graecia. Based on this chronological and geographical scope, the study examines the images in four chapters: Attic black-figure vase paintings, Attic red-figure vase paintings with non-mythological subjects, Attic red-figure vase paintings with depictions of myth, and South Italian vase paintings. Within these chapters, the typology of architectural elements (e.g., freestanding columns, temple facades) and subject matter (e.g., myths, quotidian activities) constitute the primary criteria with which the images have been categorized. This extensive collection of vase paintings provides manifold insights into not only the reception of sacred architecture but also architectural elements as effective pictorial motifs. A great number of the depictions can be connected to “real” prototypes and, in some cases, distinct religious practices. While previous studies have taken a similar approach only to fixate on the discrepancies between prototypes and what architectural depictions can tell us about ancient building practices, the present study argues that vase painters rarely, if at all, intended to reproduce existing structures. Thus, the evidence should be used to study the ways in which artists reflected and refracted how buildings shaped and were shaped by the needs of their users. Creating an autonomous visual language built on abbreviation, elision, and synthesis, artists, in fact, rendered structures fit for the pictorial world. Their aim was not exactitude but rather verisimilitude – temples, shrines, portals, sanctuaries that were guided by but never unequivocally subservient to reality. The semiotic analysis of architecture, meanwhile, considers the aesthetics of vase painting and the objecthood of the vase. Beyond their face value (i.e., signifying sacred structures), elements like columns and simplified temples configure the surface of the vase into distinct zones, thus denoting spatio-temporal transitions, and hierarchize figures within the depicted events. Moreover, there are numerous instances where the pictorial frame is transformed into a built environment itself with the use of architecture – a practice that urges the viewer to contemplate the tension between the flatness of the ‘canvas’ and the habitable spaces defined by the juxtaposition of figures and structures.
This study focuses on a group of archaic architectural stone pieces, which were found in the anci... more This study focuses on a group of archaic architectural stone pieces, which were found in the ancient settlement of Larisa (Buruncuk) during the excavations carried out in the first half of the 20th century and the field surveys operated in three consecutive seasons between the years of 2010 and 2012.
The first part of this thesis study presents the subject of the Aeolic, Ionic and Dorian migrations. This mass movement of peoples from Mainland Greece to the Aegean islands and the western coast of Anatolia had initially been dated to the period between the 12th and 9th centuries due to the information provided by ancient sources such as Herodotus, Hesiod and Thucydides.
Within the second part of the study, nineteen stone architectural pieces are presented and described in their current conditions with the help of visual documentation prepared during a lengthy research period that was carried out both in the storage facilities of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and on field at Larisa. The collection of archaic stone pieces can be evaluated in two main categories. The first group consists of pieces belonging to the upper structure of archaic buildings and include two slightly damaged Aeolic capitals with vertical volutes, two volute fragments from similar Aeolic capitals, one leaf drum that is thought to be a column capital, one large fragment of an anta capital, one rather short fragment of a sima displaying a single palmette of an anthemion, and five individual fragments of a wall profile decorated with a Lesbian kymation. The second group consists of pieces that are thought to belong to the lower parts of various structures’ walls and consists of one fragment of a wall or statue base decorated with a colossal bead-and-reel molding, three individual pieces of a wall base with a kyma reversa profile, and one wall base with a horizontally fluted convex profile.
Ancient Greek art is primarily concerned with the anthropomorphic. Idealized bodies of the human ... more Ancient Greek art is primarily concerned with the anthropomorphic. Idealized bodies of the human and the divine are central to every image, and it is through corporal interactions that narratives are told and responses evoked. Yet the primacy of the figural should not imply that the non-figural is unnecessary or expendable. Greek artists were fully aware of the potency of non-figural symbols for the enrichment of the pictorial worlds they created, and such symbols that could oscillate between the purely decorative to the narratively vital shape content and context more than most previous scholarship has recognized. My research engages with a large group of such symbols – architectural elements that feature in scenes of worship, daily life, and mytho-history – to parse their visual and semiotic functions within the framework of the highly coded yet simultaneously innovative medium of vase painting. Through images that reflect both traditional and singular instances of sacred structures as conceived by Greek artists, my talk will aim to demonstrate the multivalent roles architecture assumes in images and what this may reveal to us about the processes behind the creation of visual language.
In an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ it can seem like no form of media should be enti... more In an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ it can seem like no form of media should be entirely trusted. While these issues are a modern problem, exacerbated by the unprecedented rise of social media, evidence from the ancient world produces a similar ‘truthiness’: an upside-down world or alternate reality that is latent, barely below the surface of the present and just beyond the borders of civilization and norms. Unlike utopias, which are placeless or displaced, many of these imagined dystopic or feigned worlds are presented as dangerously close to their contemporaries. We invite papers from graduate students working across disciplines related to the ancient world––and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged––for a conference that will explore the relationships between fact and fiction, order and chaos. From representations of alternate realities in ancient drama, painting, and sculpture, to disparate histories and archaeological evidence, we hope to discuss the motivations behind, and effects of, the absurd, inverted, and alternative.
We will consider papers in any field pertaining to the ancient Mediterranean and its surrounding regions, including Egypt, the Near East, Anatolia, and the expanses of the Roman Empire, falling within the period spanning from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity.
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Papers by Müge Arseven
Dissertation by Müge Arseven
Through an exhaustive perusal of museum collections, archives, and pottery-focused publications, the present study assembles a collection of nearly three-hundred vase paintings with depictions of sacred architecture and covering a time period of around three centuries from the Archaic period (seventh-century BCE) to the end of the Late Classical period (late fourth century BCE). The majority of the objects originate in Athens and its environs (Attika) and Magna Graecia. Based on this chronological and geographical scope, the study examines the images in four chapters: Attic black-figure vase paintings, Attic red-figure vase paintings with non-mythological subjects, Attic red-figure vase paintings with depictions of myth, and South Italian vase paintings. Within these chapters, the typology of architectural elements (e.g., freestanding columns, temple facades) and subject matter (e.g., myths, quotidian activities) constitute the primary criteria with which the images have been categorized.
This extensive collection of vase paintings provides manifold insights into not only the reception of sacred architecture but also architectural elements as effective pictorial motifs. A great number of the depictions can be connected to “real” prototypes and, in some cases, distinct religious practices. While previous studies have taken a similar approach only to fixate on the discrepancies between prototypes and what architectural depictions can tell us about ancient building practices, the present study argues that vase painters rarely, if at all, intended to reproduce existing structures. Thus, the evidence should be used to study the ways in which artists reflected and refracted how buildings shaped and were shaped by the needs of their users. Creating an autonomous visual language built on abbreviation, elision, and synthesis, artists, in fact, rendered structures fit for the pictorial world. Their aim was not exactitude but rather verisimilitude – temples, shrines, portals, sanctuaries that were guided by but never unequivocally subservient to reality.
The semiotic analysis of architecture, meanwhile, considers the aesthetics of vase painting and the objecthood of the vase. Beyond their face value (i.e., signifying sacred structures), elements like columns and simplified temples configure the surface of the vase into distinct zones, thus denoting spatio-temporal transitions, and hierarchize figures within the depicted events. Moreover, there are numerous instances where the pictorial frame is transformed into a built environment itself with the use of architecture – a practice that urges the viewer to contemplate the tension between the flatness of the ‘canvas’ and the habitable spaces defined by the juxtaposition of figures and structures.
The first part of this thesis study presents the subject of the Aeolic, Ionic and Dorian migrations. This mass movement of peoples from Mainland Greece to the Aegean islands and the western coast of Anatolia had initially been dated to the period between the 12th and 9th centuries due to the information provided by ancient sources such as Herodotus, Hesiod and Thucydides.
Within the second part of the study, nineteen stone architectural pieces are presented and described in their current conditions with the help of visual documentation prepared during a lengthy research period that was carried out both in the storage facilities of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and on field at Larisa. The collection of archaic stone pieces can be evaluated in two main categories. The first group consists of pieces belonging to the upper structure of archaic buildings and include two slightly damaged Aeolic capitals with vertical volutes, two volute fragments from similar Aeolic capitals, one leaf drum that is thought to be a column capital, one large fragment of an anta capital, one rather short fragment of a sima displaying a single palmette of an anthemion, and five individual fragments of a wall profile decorated with a Lesbian kymation. The second group consists of pieces that are thought to belong to the lower parts of various structures’ walls and consists of one fragment of a wall or statue base decorated with a colossal bead-and-reel molding, three individual pieces of a wall base with a kyma reversa profile, and one wall base with a horizontally fluted convex profile.
Talks by Müge Arseven
My research engages with a large group of such symbols – architectural elements that feature in scenes of worship, daily life, and mytho-history – to parse their visual and semiotic functions within the framework of the highly coded yet simultaneously innovative medium of vase painting. Through images that reflect both traditional and singular instances of sacred structures as conceived by Greek artists, my talk will aim to demonstrate the multivalent roles architecture assumes in images and what this may reveal to us about the processes behind the creation of visual language.
Events by Müge Arseven
We invite papers from graduate students working across disciplines related to the ancient world––and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged––for a conference that will explore the relationships between fact and fiction, order and chaos. From representations of alternate realities in ancient drama, painting, and sculpture, to disparate histories and archaeological evidence, we hope to discuss the motivations behind, and effects of, the absurd, inverted, and alternative.
We will consider papers in any field pertaining to the ancient Mediterranean and its surrounding regions, including Egypt, the Near East, Anatolia, and the expanses of the Roman Empire, falling within the period spanning from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity.
Through an exhaustive perusal of museum collections, archives, and pottery-focused publications, the present study assembles a collection of nearly three-hundred vase paintings with depictions of sacred architecture and covering a time period of around three centuries from the Archaic period (seventh-century BCE) to the end of the Late Classical period (late fourth century BCE). The majority of the objects originate in Athens and its environs (Attika) and Magna Graecia. Based on this chronological and geographical scope, the study examines the images in four chapters: Attic black-figure vase paintings, Attic red-figure vase paintings with non-mythological subjects, Attic red-figure vase paintings with depictions of myth, and South Italian vase paintings. Within these chapters, the typology of architectural elements (e.g., freestanding columns, temple facades) and subject matter (e.g., myths, quotidian activities) constitute the primary criteria with which the images have been categorized.
This extensive collection of vase paintings provides manifold insights into not only the reception of sacred architecture but also architectural elements as effective pictorial motifs. A great number of the depictions can be connected to “real” prototypes and, in some cases, distinct religious practices. While previous studies have taken a similar approach only to fixate on the discrepancies between prototypes and what architectural depictions can tell us about ancient building practices, the present study argues that vase painters rarely, if at all, intended to reproduce existing structures. Thus, the evidence should be used to study the ways in which artists reflected and refracted how buildings shaped and were shaped by the needs of their users. Creating an autonomous visual language built on abbreviation, elision, and synthesis, artists, in fact, rendered structures fit for the pictorial world. Their aim was not exactitude but rather verisimilitude – temples, shrines, portals, sanctuaries that were guided by but never unequivocally subservient to reality.
The semiotic analysis of architecture, meanwhile, considers the aesthetics of vase painting and the objecthood of the vase. Beyond their face value (i.e., signifying sacred structures), elements like columns and simplified temples configure the surface of the vase into distinct zones, thus denoting spatio-temporal transitions, and hierarchize figures within the depicted events. Moreover, there are numerous instances where the pictorial frame is transformed into a built environment itself with the use of architecture – a practice that urges the viewer to contemplate the tension between the flatness of the ‘canvas’ and the habitable spaces defined by the juxtaposition of figures and structures.
The first part of this thesis study presents the subject of the Aeolic, Ionic and Dorian migrations. This mass movement of peoples from Mainland Greece to the Aegean islands and the western coast of Anatolia had initially been dated to the period between the 12th and 9th centuries due to the information provided by ancient sources such as Herodotus, Hesiod and Thucydides.
Within the second part of the study, nineteen stone architectural pieces are presented and described in their current conditions with the help of visual documentation prepared during a lengthy research period that was carried out both in the storage facilities of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and on field at Larisa. The collection of archaic stone pieces can be evaluated in two main categories. The first group consists of pieces belonging to the upper structure of archaic buildings and include two slightly damaged Aeolic capitals with vertical volutes, two volute fragments from similar Aeolic capitals, one leaf drum that is thought to be a column capital, one large fragment of an anta capital, one rather short fragment of a sima displaying a single palmette of an anthemion, and five individual fragments of a wall profile decorated with a Lesbian kymation. The second group consists of pieces that are thought to belong to the lower parts of various structures’ walls and consists of one fragment of a wall or statue base decorated with a colossal bead-and-reel molding, three individual pieces of a wall base with a kyma reversa profile, and one wall base with a horizontally fluted convex profile.
My research engages with a large group of such symbols – architectural elements that feature in scenes of worship, daily life, and mytho-history – to parse their visual and semiotic functions within the framework of the highly coded yet simultaneously innovative medium of vase painting. Through images that reflect both traditional and singular instances of sacred structures as conceived by Greek artists, my talk will aim to demonstrate the multivalent roles architecture assumes in images and what this may reveal to us about the processes behind the creation of visual language.
We invite papers from graduate students working across disciplines related to the ancient world––and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged––for a conference that will explore the relationships between fact and fiction, order and chaos. From representations of alternate realities in ancient drama, painting, and sculpture, to disparate histories and archaeological evidence, we hope to discuss the motivations behind, and effects of, the absurd, inverted, and alternative.
We will consider papers in any field pertaining to the ancient Mediterranean and its surrounding regions, including Egypt, the Near East, Anatolia, and the expanses of the Roman Empire, falling within the period spanning from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity.