The Amazons were said to have founded the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, III.233), where many later were wounded or slain in battle with Dionysus (Plutarch, Greek Questions, LVI; Pausanias, VII.2.7). At the inauguration of the Artemision in 440-430 BC, the statues of four Amazons were dedicated by Polycleitus, Phidias, Cresilas, and Phradmon. This has prompted speculation as to which later Roman marble copies can be attributed to these bronze antecedents. Three archetypes tend to be recognized: the Mattei type (attributed to Phidias), the Berlin type (Polycleitus), and the Capitoline type (Cresilas). Each has the same scale and attitude, and shows the Amazon wearing a loose chiton that is gathered at the waist and falls from one shoulder or the other, exposing the breast.
The ocean started to foam and out of the foam rose Aphrodite who was carried by the ocean to Cyprus or Cythera. She is also referred to as Kypris and Cytherea due to the location that she was sent to after her creation. Now Homer who is a Greek poet says that Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. So when she was created, Zeus was worried that all the other gods would fight over her hand in marriage so he married her off to Hephaestus, who was one of the steadies Gods. Zeus made her a lot of jewels using his power including a girdle that has been wrought of gold and has magic woven into the filigree work.
Queen Nefertiti Queen Nefertiti was born around 1390 B.C. in Thebes, Egypt. Her name roughly translates to “the beautiful one has come.” She also shares her name with a type of stretched out gold bead that she was often portrayed with, known as “nefer” beads. In ancient Egypt she was known for her beauty and she was very proud of her long swan like neck. She was famous by her bust, now in Berlin’s Egyptian Museum.
Jeffrey Hurwit, historian of ancient art at the University of Oregon, points out that while Greek war heroes are often depicted as nude, “in combat nakedness was suicidal” (Binns). However, while scholarship on the nude in art history has historically focused on Greece, Ellen Graves, associated lecturer in the arts at the Open University in Scotland, argues that this history goes back much further, to 25,000 BC and a “tiny statuette” known as the Willendorf Venus, which depicts a naked, “corpulent female” (Graves). This statuette was undoubtedly a fertility symbol, as fertility symbols of this nature are prevalent in Indian temple art that dates from the first century BC (Graves). Also, in early depictions of the nude males, such as those appearing in cave paintings, and early Egyptian and Mesopotamian art also has fertility connotations (“The Nude…History”). However, in Greek art, the nude takes on a different function, as Greek art memorialized “real people,” as well as gods and “godlike mythical heroes” (Graves).
(Cunningham) Pericles was ruler of Athens at that time and undertook the building project of the Acropolis as we know it today. Pericles ruled Athens in the 5th century BC and was so well known it became commonly referred to as the Age of Pericles. The first building erected was the Parthenon which was built between 447 and 432 BC. This temple was built in the Doric order with some Ionic features as well and its main purpose was to shelter the giant statue of Athena built out of gold and ivory by Phidias. This statue was lost after being taken to Constantinople in 426 AD.
Danae, the royal virgin princess was the mother of Perseus after Zeus had visited the virgin by disguising as a shower of gold. Another hero would be Heracles, he was birthed in similar circumstances to Perseus, and was taken away to a foster family far away. This was another element to a hero narrative. There is little explanation about Heracles, however he fights the beasts and claims a kingdom, another important factor to a narrative. Orestes and Brasidas, were birth in different circumstances compared to Perseus and Heracles.
- The Kouros has Egyptian influence. It also has space between feet, which are close to the marble stands. This statue was found in Delos, and it has a height of 63 inches. The Kritios Boy is a three-dimensional nude sculpture of a young boy that stands only 46" tall. The marble sculpture is made by chiseling to shape the body forms.
In Atala the Native Americans worshiped more than one god, and they are very closely related to the Greek gods. They believed that these gods could take on any form and any gender. The Greeks did this to test their hospitality. They both have myths that explain how everything came to be like the gods, and how humans came, and fire, and all things imaginable. For years these myths were passed down orally until somebody decided to write them.
At Olympia, his statue stand at the entrance of stadium and his statue was in every gymnasium through Greece. His name is probably derived from herma (herm), the Greek word for a heap of stones, such as was used in the country to indicate boundaries or as a landmark. There he was especially worshipped as the god of fertility, and his images were ithyphallic. Hermes was in archaic art, apart from the stylized herms, depicted as a full-grown man with beard. From the latter part of the 5th century BC he was
Zeus is the Greek version of the Indo-European chief sky god. He is the patriarch of the Greek pantheon, a pantheon that gives cosmic significance to a patriarchal social system. He is considered the head god. Epimetheus and Prometheus were brothers and Zeus' Titan warriors (Adams, 1990). Hephaestus is the son of Zeus and god of fire and a blacksmith.