Women of various ages also took part in specific religious festivals, some of which even included men—the Panathenaia in honor of the goddess Athena, the Eleusinian Mysteries that honored Demeter and Persephone, and the Anthesteria sacred to Dionysos (17.190.73). Other festivals were restricted to women, such as the Thesmophorian, the Haloa, and the Skira, all of which emphasized the correlation of a woman’s generative capabilities with the renewal of vegetation and, thus, the survival of society. Religious rituals reserved for young girls probably had the most significant impact on young unmarried women. For example, young girls between the ages of five and puberty were selected to serve the goddess Artemis in her sanctuary at Brauron. As “little bears,” they acted out the role of untamed animals that eventually would be domesticated through marriage. Thus, the self-perception of a young girl in Classical Greece was manipulated through behavioral instruction in the home, through the myths that reiterated social values, and through their participation in rituals that educated them in the values and mores of their community.

The culmination of a young woman’s socialization was her marriage (56.11.1), which usually took place at the age of fourteen or fifteen. Marriage did not require a young bride’s consent, as she was simply passed from the protection of her father to that of her husband. A young woman in Classical Athens lacked any rights of citizenship, and could only be described as the wife of an Athenian citizen. However, a bride brought to her marriage a dowry that was not available for the husband to spend. In fact, on the rare occasion that the marriage failed, the dowry was returned to the wife’s father. The consummation of marriage signaled the end of a young woman’s status as a kore, or young maiden, as she was then classified as a nymphe, or bride, until the birth of her first child, when she became a gyne, or woman. The life expectancy of the average woman was about forty years old.

Despite the extreme social restraint on women in classical antiquity, it is interesting that they had a number of powerful female goddesses of the type that were never available to Christian women. Demeter was able to retrieve her daughter Persephone, Artemis could send a fatal arrow, and Athena had the ability to resist marriage and motherhood, and to provide advice to respected Greek heroes. Aphrodite, Hera, Hestia, and Hekate were also powerful goddesses, intensely honored and greatly admired by women and men alike.

Colette Hemingway
Independent Scholar

A limestone rock rising 512 feet (156 meters) above sea level (and 230 feet [70 meters] above the Attic plain), the Acropolis was the focus of Athenian life at least as early as the fourth millennium bce, when Neolithic villagers, taking advantage of the natural springs flowing from the many caves at its base, clustered their huts on its summit and slopes. This little we know primarily from potsherds left behind by the Neolithic dwellers. But the monumental history of the site does not begin until the Late Bronze Age, when Athens was ruled by a Mycenaean king whose palace (hypothetical but necessary) occupied terraces on the northern portion of the summit, protected by a massive wall of “Cyclopean masonry” thrown around the brow of the rock around 1250 bce and by an impressive entrance system comparable to the famous Lion Gate of Mycenae itself.

According to Athenian legend, the Acropolis survived the violent end of the Mycenaean age (c.1100 ), but its character in the following Dark Age (c. 1100 – 760 ) is unclear. The palace undoubtedly fell into disrepair, and a small village spread over most of the summit. The site seems to have become primarily (if not solely) a sanctuary by the end of the eighth century, and a small Geometric temple to Athena Polias (Athena, Guardian of the City), with a sacrosanct and indeterminately old olive-wood statue of the goddess, probably stood in the vicinity of the old palace.

A larger temple may have been built on the same spot in the course of the seventh century. But the earliest well-documented temples on the citadel, known from architectural parts and sculptural adornment, were built in the sixth century: one temple around 560 (its pediments were filled with limestone lions savaging bulls and, in the angles, mythological groups such as the enigmatic triple-bodied “Bluebeard”), another around 520 – 500 (one pediment was filled with a marble tableau of Athena and the gods defeating the giants in a battle for the cosmos). This “Old Temple of Athena Polias” (its foundations survive near the center of the summit) and an even later Archaic temple, the so-called Older Parthenon (begun on the south side of the Acropolis after the Battle of Marathon in 490 but never finished), were the principal victims of the Persian destruction of the Acropolis in 480 .

Though a monumental bronze statue of Athena, by Phidias, was installed near the entrance of the citadel in the 450s, the Acropolis seems to have lacked a monumental temple worthy of the goddess throughout the Early Classical period ( 480 – 450 ). That changed in 449 , when Pericles, the leading figure of an increasingly democratic but imperial Athens, was able to persuade its citizens to fund a massive building program intended to make Athens and its Acropolis the cultural center and envy of Greece. The centerpieces of the program were the sculpturally embellished Parthenon, built by Callicrates and Iktinos (largely on deep foundations originally laid for the Older Parthenon) between 447 and 432 , and the complex but sculptureless Propylaia (“Gateways”), built by Mnesicles between 437 and 432 . The original Periclean conception for the remaking of the Acropolis also included the asymmetrical and multipurpose Erechtheum (essentially the last Temple of Athena Polias), probably begun by Mnesicles in the 430s, and the little Temple of Athena Nike (Victorious), set atop a bastion (Mycenaean at its core) jutting out from the west slope of the Acropolis circa 425/4. There were other precincts and sanctuaries on the crowded Classical summit, including a sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia and another of Zeus Polieus, and a major Theater of Dionysus and a healing sanctuary of Asclepius on the south slope.

There were also a few major additions to the summit and especially the slopes in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (including the huge Stoa of Eumenes on the south slope, a small circular Temple to Roma and Augustus east of the Parthenon, and the Odeion or Concert Hall of Herodes Atticus on the southwest slope). But the basic form of the Acropolis throughout antiquity was essentially that given it by Pericles and his architects and sculptors (above all, Phidias, the creator of the gold and ivory Athena Parthenos for the interior of the Parthenon) in the third quarter of the fifth century.

The Acropolis came under severe pressures late in antiquity (the Parthenon, for example, was severely damaged in 267 ce by Herulian invaders, then repaired). And by the early fifth century ce the Acropolis had begun its decline as the focus of pagan cult. The Erechtheum soon ceased functioning as the center of the cult of Athena Polias. In the late fifth century ce Phidias’ colossal bronze Athena was probably removed to Constantinople, and the final incarnation of his Athena Parthenos was destroyed by Christians .

By the early seventh century the Parthenon became consecrated to the Blessed Virgin, and the Erechtheum to Mary, Mother of God. And churches they remained until 1458 , when the Turks captured the citadel and converted the Parthenon into a mosque and the Erechtheum into a harem.

In September 1687 , the Parthenon suffered its worst day, when a Venetian gunner lobbed a shell into it and ignited a massive store of Turkish gunpowder that blew out the center of the building. But the Acropolis remained Muslim until 1833 , when, in the last act of the Greek War for Independence, Turkish defenders finally straggled off the citadel. The next year Greece’s new king declared the Acropolis an archaeological site, and the restoration of its Classical monuments began. Restoration continues as this is written and will no doubt never end.

“Elgin Marbles” refers to the classical architectural elements, and especially the sculpture, removed from the Athenian Acropolis by agents of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin (Scotland), during the years 1801 – 1804 . Bought by the British Museum in 1816 , this collection is currently on display in the Duveen Gallery of the museum in London. The Elgin Marbles represent the best-known case in the ongoing dispute over cultural property between the self-designated “universal museums” whose mission is to collect the art of the world and the archaeologically rich countries who believe that they have been robbed of their patrimony.

Interest in Britain and western Europe in the classical antiquities of ancient Greece was piqued by antiquarians’ visits to the eastern Mediterranean in the mid-eighteenth century and by publications of drawings such as the series entitled The Antiquities of Athens by James Stuart and Nicolas Revett (4 vols., 1762 – 1816 ). When Thomas Bruce was appointed ambassador to the Sublime Porte (Constantinople) in 1798 , the neoclassical style in architecture and interior decoration, based on the monuments of Greece rather than of Rome, was fashionable. Bruce himself had few resources, but his marriage to the wealthy Mary Nesbitt enabled him to accept the post and to equip his expedition. When he hired painters, notably the Italian Giovanni Lusieri, and plaster-cast makers on his voyage to Turkey, Elgin’s initial aim was to make drawings and take casts of the sculptures in Athens. However, because of the favorable political climate enjoyed by the British after their defeat of Napoleon in Egypt, Elgin was able to obtain from the Ottoman sultan, Selim III, permission to collect various marble sculptures and inscriptions from the Acropolis and to ship them to England.

In 1800 when Elgin’s agents arrived in Athens, the Acropolis was the site of the Ottoman garrison, and the Parthenon was a roofless ruin following the explosion of 1687 . Elgin’s agents may have exceeded the dictates of the sultan’s firman (permission), the Italian copy of which has recently been acquired by the British Museum: it stipulates that the British were allowed to make molds and “take away some pieces of stone with old inscriptions and figures.” Instead, Elgin’s agents, aided by three hundred workmen, erected scaffolding and stripped the Parthenon of most of its remaining well-preserved Pentelic marble sculpture. To dislodge the best-preserved metopes from their positions behind the triglyphs on the south side of the temple, they had to remove the cornice blocks above, thus further damaging the building. In total, fourteen of the Parthenon’s ninety-two metopes, approximately one-half of the 524-foot (160-meter) frieze, and nearly all of the extant pedimental figures (with the exception of two that were left in situ because they were mistakenly believed to be Roman) constitute the Elgin Marbles. In addition to the sculptures from the Parthenon, Elgin’s men also removed a caryatid (female figure serving as a column), an Ionic column, and an architrave block from the porches of the Erechtheum; four frieze slabs of the Ionic temple of Athena Nike; a Doric capital, an Ionic column drum, and a molded wall block from the Propylaia; the statue of Dionysus from the Thrasyllos Monument on the south slope of the Acropolis; and numerous inscribed blocks. In order to reduce the weight for transport, the backs of the frieze blocks were sawn off.

Elgin himself visited Athens in the spring of 1802 when many of the marbles were already on their way to England. En route back to England he was arrested in France, where he was a prisoner of war between 1803 and 1806 . By the time he reached England, his marriage and his diplomatic career were over, and he was impoverished. The marbles were displayed in temporary structures, where they were much admired by famous artists like Antonio Canova , while at the same time Elgin’s actions were reviled by scholars like Richard Payne Knight and the poet Lord Byron . In 1816 , Elgin petitioned the House of Commons to value his collection and purchase it for the benefit of the public. The subsequent parliamentary inquiry determined that Elgin had legal title to the marbles, but in spite of testimony as to the aesthetic value of the sculptures, it was decided that they were worth only thirty-five thousand pounds. The collection was put on display in the British Museum in 1817 , was taken off in 1939 because of the impending war, and was not seen again until the Duveen Gallery opened in 1962 .

At a UNESCO conference in 1982 , a recommendation was adopted stating that the marbles should be retuned to Greece. In 1983 the Greek minister of culture Melina Mercouri officially requested the return of the Parthenon Marbles (as many prefer to call them) on the basis of their association with the Acropolis, which is a national symbol of Greece. This and subsequent requests have been turned down. Fuel was added to the Greek cause in 1990s when an earlier, unauthorized, and controversial cleaning of the marbles in 1938 – 1939 came to light. Apparently the art dealer Joseph Duveen , who funded the new gallery designed in 1930 , bribed maintenance workers at the British Museum to use abrasives to remove some of the marbles’ unattractive, dark accretions. These misdeeds have called into question the museum’s stewardship of the marbles. Since then a new Acropolis museum has been constructed south of the Acropolis, with a special Parthenon gallery that has emplacements for all the temple’s original sculpture in the hope that they will someday be returned.

Debt-ridden and pursued by creditors, Elgin moved abroad with his second wife and died in Paris in 1841 . His name lives on either as a famous savior or as an infamous looter, depending on one’s perspective. The French coined the term elginisme to describe an act of cultural vandalism.

Function.

The primary use of the agora was political; the frequent translation as “market” is therefore inadequate. The agora in most cities was, in fact, a place for public speaking: there met the ekklēsia or citizen assembly, the boulē or council, and law courts. As cities grew larger and the need arose for magistracies and record keeping, the agora also became a natural location for buildings containing civic offices, including that of the agoranomoi charged with supervision of the agora itself. Associated with political institutions were altars of various deities. Zeus, god of justice and oath swearing, was widely invoked, often as Zeus Agoraeus (Metapontum, Athens, Selinus, Erythrae, Thasos, Morgantina). The agora was also the setting for altars of other locally important gods and heroes, and major temples and sanctuaries often arose nearby, as at Corinth (Apollo), Athens (Hephaestus, Demeter), Priene (Zeus), and Magnesia (Artemis).

The agora provided a convenient setting for the conduct of public and private business and for economic activity, including open-air markets for agricultural produce and commercial shops. The potters’ quarter in Athens undoubtedly benefited from its location adjacent to the city’s agora. In the Classical period bankers made their appearance, and over their tables or trapezai were conducted the new practices of lending, deposits, and exchange. In the Hellenistic era, cities and kingdoms created their own banking institutions; a building at Morgantina has been identified as such a public bank and may be typical. Among the practical functions of the agora was the provision of water, for both drinking and cleaning; a well was found in the earliest-known agora at Megara Hyblaea, and fountain houses fed by underground aqueducts are common later.

The open space and centrality of the early agora rendered it ideal for public performances. A space for choral dancing (orchēstra) existed in the Athenian agora, where early dramatic performances were also given in a temporary theater with wooden seats or bleachers. As in Homer’s Scheria, athletic competition is indicated by running tracks at Corinth and Athens. Dramatic performances eventually moved into the new architectural form of the theater, which was often located on sloping ground outside the agora; athletic contests migrated to outlying gymnasia, where nudity was more appropriate. Some forms of spectacle remained: at Athens the Panathenaic apobatēs event, in which armed men leapt in and out of moving chariots, probably continued to take place in the public center.

At least from the late Archaic period the agora became a place of civic commemoration. Pausanias saw an Archaic statue of the athlete Arrichion at Phigalia, an early public sculpture. Better known were the bronze statues at Athens of the political heroes Harmodius and Aristogiton, installed in the agora after 507 bce , then replaced thirty years later after the original group was carried off by the Persians. These are the progenitors of the many sculptures of notable individuals that now began to collect in the city center, joined by images of local heroes and, in Athens, even historical paintings protected in a roofed portico. The emergence of the agora as a civic cultural center made it an appropriate spot for intellectual discourse, public lectures, and even classrooms.

The necessity of an agora is demonstrated by its regular inclusion in newly founded cities. The earliest-known example belongs to the polis of Megara Hyblaea in eastern Sicily, founded in 728 bce and so roughly contemporary with Homer. Occupying about 41,440 square feet (3,850 square meters), the small polygonal agora is located at the juncture of the two different grid systems of the unusual city plan. The recently discovered agora of Megara’s daughter-city Selinus, founded in western Sicily a century later, is far larger—about 323,450 square feet, or 30,050 square meters—and more functional, yet still located at the intersection of two grid systems.

From circa 600 bce new cities were generally laid out with a single grid plan that allowed a number of undeveloped city blocks to be designated an agora. At Metapontum in southern Italy (c.600 bce ), the large agora consists of such a reserved space within the street grid, facing inland toward the city’s farmland. Here the agora must have served in part as a market square for agricultural produce. At Camarina in Sicily, founded 598 bce , the agora is similarly laid out, but it faces the sea as in Homer’s Scheria.

The planning solution adopted at Metapontum and Camarina became the norm. At Morgantina (c.450 bce ) the huge agora occupies six city blocks. With an area of about 323,000 square feet (30,000 square meters), the space may have been designed for a larger population than the city ever achieved (it reached a maximum of about six to seven thousand); public granaries indicate the agora’s use as a center for food storage and distribution. Later carefully planned urban spaces are found at Cassope in northwest Greece and at Priene on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor (both c.350 bce ). Whereas the public space of Cassope is placed at the city’s periphery between the residential blocks and the city wall, at Priene the small rectangular agora (about 56,000 square feet, or 5,200 square meters) is located at the very center of the city, occupying the space of two residential blocks. Though a central agora like that at Priene is not typical, it does reflect the functional and symbolic centrality of the agora in the Greek polis, also making it convenient to a greater number of citizens. Priene is often cited as a formal model for the Classical Greek city.

In the Hellenistic period, larger agoras are found in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, with grandiose examples at such places as Miletus, Ephesus, and Magnesia. Here we can see the influence of the unexcavated centers of the great capitals of Alexandria and Antioch. Characteristic are one- and two-story porticoes with shops, defining the sides of the huge rectilinear spaces, and also smaller adjacent areas given over to civic cults, specialized commercial activities (fish and meat markets), and purely political functions.

The public centers of the major cities of the Greek mainland were not shaped by regular city plans, and consequently their boundaries have not always been identified. In some cities the agoras may have been located at intersections of major roads (Corinth), or near important central sanctuaries (Corinth, Athens).

The extensively excavated agora at Athens was in use for a millennium and has provided the greatest quantity of evidence for the history and use of a public center. Most of the building types associated with the Greek agora are represented here. Over time the Athenian agora was transformed from an irregular space into a more formal one bordered by stoas, under the influence of cities elsewhere with regular plans; the process required several centuries. The west side was occupied from early times by buildings of political nature (prytaneion, bouleutērion); the precise form of these has been controversial. Of particular interest in Athens are the Stoa of Zeus, an elegant building with wings at the extremities, at the northwest corner of the space (fifth century bce); on the north side the Painted Stoa, or Stoa Poikile, containing major historical paintings on wooden panels (also fifth century bce); and on the east side, the large Stoa of Attalus, a two-story portico of Pergamene type rebuilt in the 1950s (second century bce).

Also noteworthy are the public centers of older cities in Asia Minor where in the Hellenistic period landscape features were taken into account in the irregular placement of buildings; the agora of Assos is a striking example. Older rectilinear spaces could be redesigned in the new style, as at Morgantina.

Buildings in the agora were almost always located along its edges, leaving unobstructed the free space at the center. The most characteristic building type was the stoa, a freestanding portico often of great length with a colonnade facing the central space. Entered from any point along its facade, a stoa provided a refuge from sun, wind, or rain, a place where business could be conducted, conversations continued, meetings held. When rented as shops, the rooms in a stoa produced civic income presumably amortizing the cost of construction—unless the building was a donation to the city, like the large stoa given to Athens by Attalus II of Pergamum.

As the necessity arose for more specialized building types, these, too, were placed along the periphery, sometimes masked by porticoes that provided them with a uniform facade. Among the most important were large roofed halls (bouleutēria) for the council, sometimes constructed, because of their late adoption, on private land adjacent to the agora; meeting places for magistrates (prytaneia); and courtyard buildings for offices or banks. Open meeting places for the civic assembly in built form are known at Metapontum and Acragas (round) and at Morgantina (rectilinear); theaters often served the same purpose. Other buildings appearing within agoras include theaters and granaries.

Representations of the pharaohs in Egyptian statuary, known from the Early Dynastic to the Roman period had many functions: propagandistic, religious, didactic, commemorative, magical, and decorative. Found in temples, tombs, palaces and—exceptionally—private homes, they are made of various materials: most frequently stone, and less frequently wood, metals, or faience. The surfaces of the statues were usually painted, or sometimes overlaid with gold foil, but only a few statues now have parts of this coating. Like other cult objects, royal statues were believed to be endowed with life, which was granted through the Opening the Mouth ceremony.

In other domains of Egyptian art, three-dimensional representations of the pharaohs were subject to a canon of iconographic and stylistic patterns, which, however, display a diachronic development. Even the most conservative archetypes change through the centuries, and each epoch introduces new types, which sometimes remain for a long time in the sculptor’s repertory.

Anthropomorphic representations of the ruler are most common, although his affinity with certain animals, particularly those that are zoomorphic incarnations of the most important gods, is frequently emphasized in various ways. The most popular type of statue showing the king as a syncretic, half-human and half-animal being is the sphinx, combining the body of a reclining lion with the head of a pharaoh. The oldest known statue of this type is a fragmentarily preserved sphinx of Djedefre (now in the Louvre), and its most monumental version is the Great Sphinx in Giza, from living rock, probably in the time of Khafre. Long rows of uniform sphinx statues bordered the streets leading to the main entrances of many Egyptian temples. A long sequence of sphinxes dating from the reign of Nektanebo I is still preserved in front of the Luxor temple. A particular type of royal sphinx the king’s human head with a lion’s mane. First recorded in the statuary of Middle Kingdom (a statue attributed to Amenemhet III in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo), it is also found in representations of Hatshepsut (in the Metropolitan Museum) and Taharqa (British Museum). Among the iconographic variations of the sphinx with royal head, there are also figures with two human arms replacing the animal’s forefeet and holding a cult object. This pattern is first found in the statuary of Amenhotpe III found in the temple of Monthu at Karnak. Another peculiar version of sphinx figurine, dating from the same reign and now in Cairo, shows the animal with two wings.

Anthropomorphic effigies portray the king either alone or accompanied by one (dyad), two (triad), or more figures. These are members of his family or his ancestors, various gods in their human, half-animal, or zoomorphic shape, or—rarely—other figures of the same king; exceptionally, a nonroyal figure occurs.

The king represented alone more frequently appears seated, standing, or kneeling, and less frequently striding or prostrate. Seated royal statues occur as early as the second dynasty; the first known life-size representation of a king in this attitude is the statue of Djoser (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) found in Saqqara. Monumental versions of this archetype later decorated entrances to Egyptian temples. A pair of colossal seated statues was usually placed in front of the temple, one on each side of the entrance. A classical example of such decoration is the Memnon Colossi in Thebes, which originally adorned the mortuary temple of Amenhotpe III. Being an important instrument of political and religious propaganda, statues showing a sitting king usually bear a decoration in relief that has symbolic value. The heraldic scene depicting the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt usually decorates the outer faces of the lateral panels in the royal throne, and figures of bound foreign captives appear on the base of the statue. Thus, the king is portrayed as the ruler of all Egypt, victorious over the rest of the world.

A representation of the king kneeling and offering two globular wine vessels is first found in the statuary of Khafre (now in the Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim). Besides this classical version of a kneeling king, there are also statues of pharaohs offering various other ritual objects, such as the statuette of a god, a small shrine (Merenptah, in Cairo), or an offering table (Sety II in Karnak, Ramesses III from Tanis). A standing king can also be shown as the bearer of an offering or a cult object. Three statues attributed to Amenemhet III (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; Museo Ludovisi alle Terme, Rome), as well as statues of Thutmose III (Cairo), Amenhotpe III (Cairo), and Osorkon (British Museum, London), represent the king offering fish. A similar statue of Horemheb (British Museum) shows him offering flowers. Several sculptures portray a standing king in the gesture of adoration. The oldest known examples of the latter are statues of Senwosret III (four in the British Museum and in Cairo). A small figurine in Cairo, showing Ramesses IV in the same attitude, is made of faience. Among the iconographic innovations of the long reign of Amenhotpe III, there is a type of statue depicting a standing king as bearer of a standard at his side (Karnak North and Egyptian Museum, Cairo). This pattern became particularly popular in the Rammesid period.

Several artistic innovations occur in the group of statuary showing a standing king. Unique of its kind is a wooden statue (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) representing the ka of king Hori (thirteenth dynasty); the nude “double” of the king, wearing the wig and beard of a god, bears two raised arms on his head. Another unique statue from the reign of Amenhotpe III, is a large representation of the king’s statue standing on a sledge; found in 1989 in the cache of the Luxor temple and now in the Luxor Museum, and unparalleled in many respects, it belongs among the masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture. Another unusual work is the only monumental representation of a Persian ruler of Egypt, the headless figure of Darius I found in Susa and now in the Iran-Bastam-Museum, Teheran. Its iconography combines Egyptian and Persian elements.

An important group of statues and statuettes shows the king as a mummiform Osiris with hands crossed on his chest. Monumental versions occur in Egyptian temples, on the frontal face of pillars in the façade. The pharaoh holds the usual attributes of Osiris. Small figurines showing a mummiform pharaoh with various tools in his hands are the shawabtis belonging to the equipment of royal burials. The largest group of such stone figurines ever found in a royal tomb came from the Taharqa’s pyramid at Nuri, Sudan; the largest groups are now in the Archaeological Museum, Khartoum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The oldest statue showing a striding pharaoh (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) dates from the reign of Senwosret I. The attitude of prostration first appears in the statuary of Amenhotpe III (Metropolitan Museum of Art). In the few later versions of this pattern, the pharaoh is represented offering a ritual object, such as socle with one or more heads of gods (Ramesses II, in Cairo), a socle with a scarab (Ramesses IX, collection of C. T. Trechmann, Great Britain), or a stela inscribed with a prayer (Osorkon II, Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and University Museum, Philadelphia), or a sacred barge (Osorkon III, Egyptian Museum, Cairo).

An important group of statues represents the pharaoh as a child. The oldest known example is a representation (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) of Pepy II as a seated nude boy; however, juvenile features do not necessarily represent a king in his youth. Recent studies of the art of Amenhotpe III have proved that Egyptian sculptors endowed his effigies with a boyish facial expression in the last phase of his long life, specifically after his sed-jubilee, in order to express the idea of his symbolic regeneration as king. A unique statue of Ramesses II, found in Tanis and now in Cairo, portrays the king as a squatting nude child with various attributes; it is a sophisticated anagram of his name, a cryptographic three-dimensional composition of hieroglyphic signs constituting the name Ra-mes-su. Some other royal statues may also be “read” as anagrams of a king’s name.

The oldest known group statues date from the fourth dynasty. The first dyads show Djedefre with his wife, and the first triads represent Menkaure with the goddess Hathor and the personification of one of the nomes of Egypt (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Later, particularly in the time of Ramesses II, monumental triads become a popular instrument of political theology, showing the king as a child of an important divine couple or emphasizing his affinity to particular gods shown in his company. In exceptional cases, this propaganda includes other members of royal family or royal ancestors. Thus, Senwosret I is represented with his three predecessors (in a statue at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo), while a statue of Merenptah found in Heliopolis shows him with his father, Ramesses II, and the god Osiris. Another statue of Merenptah (from Bubastis, now in Cairo) portrays him with his son Sety II, while a colossal statue of Amenhotpe III (also in Cairo) depicts him with his wife and their own propaganda; for example, the vizier Panehsy is shown standing behind Merenptah and his wife in a work from Deir el-Medina. A fine, large calcite dyad of Amenhotpe III, showing the king with the crocodile-headed god Sobek, was found in Dahamsha in Upper Egypt and is now in the Luxor Museum.

Dyads and triads represent a group of persons frontally, standing or seated side by side. A specific case of this artistic concept appears in groups composed of two or more figures of the same king; the only visible difference between the parallel figures is in their facial features. The earliest such dyad is a double standing representation (Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptischer Kunst, Munich) of Newoserre Any, which allegedly emphasizes the double—human and divine—nature of the pharaoh. One of the two faces is young, while the other reveals features of advanced age. Next in date are the double royal statues of the Middle Kingdom. One, attributed to Amenemhet III and now in Cairo, shows the ruler as the Nile god offering fish, fowl and lotus plants. A group statue of Ramesses II (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) shows two kings kneeling in front of the god Heh, raising an altar. Unique in Egyptian statuary are the four colossi representing the seated Ramesses II, hewn in the façade of his temple at Abu Simbel. Their differentiated facial features probably express the Egyptian idea of totality symbolized by the sacred number four, which would fit the political megalomania of this king.

Contrasting with the large number of groups of linear composition are the less numerous statues depicting an action between two or more persons. In many cases, their sophisticated, mostly asymmetrical composition appears as a three-dimensional version of scenes that occur repeatedly in Egyptian relief and painting. Although some conventions of this group were copied in subsequent periods, there are many innovative forms. One of the most popular patterns shows a small king seated on the knees of another person, usually a god or one of the king’s parents. The king does not always have the features of a child. The oldest known example is a small calcite statue (Brooklyn Museum, New York) showing Pepy II on the knees of his knees of her nurse, Satre (Egyptian Museum, Cairo). Her successor Thutmose III is represented in the same attitude with the goddess Renenutet (also in Cairo). An unfinished limestone statuette from Tell el-Amarna portrays Akhenaten kissing one of his daughters, who is seated on his knees. The theme of a child seated on his mother’s knees was more popular outside the royal context. Its purely religious version, showing Isis with her child Horus, is one of the most popular images among Egyptian bronze statuettes; this later became the prototype of a popular representation of the Virgin Mary.

Two types of group statues were particularly popular from the New Kingdom on: scenes of the coronation ceremony, and representations of an offering or adoring king kneeling in front of a seated divinity. In the first case, the god, seated behind the pharaoh, puts his hands on the king’s crown and shoulder. Large sculptures showing the coronation ceremony are particularly numerous in the statuary of Tutankhamun; most of them probably constituted an integral part of the decoration of the Luxor temple. An unusual statue, found in Medinet Habu and now in Cairo, shows Ramesses III crowned by two gods, Horus and (probably) Thoth. Associated with the coronation groups is a type of statue showing a divinity striding behind a king and putting hands on him a gesture reminiscent of coronation scenes. This patterns is found, for example, in a large anepigraphic statue from Tanis and now in Cairo, showing a Ramessid king followed by a goddess.

An iconographic invention of the Ramessid period is the three-dimensional version of the scene showing a pharaoh killing an enemy. First occurring in the statuary of Merenptah (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) this pattern was copied for Ramesses IV (Cairo) and Ramesses VI (Cairo, Turin), who appear accompanied by a lion.

Representations of a pharaoh protected by an animal, or a zoomorphic incarnation of a god, are popular from the eighteenth dynasty. They paraphrase the earlier concept of a king protected by a falcon, the animal embodying Horus, the divine original of the pharaohs. In the Old Kingdom, the falcon is shown either folding its wings around the head of the king (first in the statuary (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) of Khufu—a diorite statue of Khafre from Giza (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) is the type’s classical example) or standing transversely behind the king’s head. The first pattern was in use at least until the Ramessid period. A specific case is the royal child squatting in the shadow of a falcon, constituting an anagram of the name Ra-mes-su, described above.

Beginning in the reign of Amenhotpe II, who is shown standing before the Hathor cow and the Meretseger snake (both in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo), the type of statue representing a small king in the shadow of a large animal is a standard pattern in royal statuary. Representations of kings protected by sphinxes with the heads of various animals—for example, of rams or falcons—occur particularly often. Several statues showing a falcon as the protector of the king date from the reign of Nektanebo II, the last indigenous pharaoh (e.g., in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Some royal sculptures served a magical function. An example is a group statue representing Ramesses III with a goddess (perhaps Isis, the work, from Heliopolis, is lost). The magic formulae engraved on its surface bring to mind the “healing statues” of nonroyal figures popular in the Late period.

The individuality of each royal effigy was achieved not only by rendering specific facial features but also through the king’s garments and other attributes. These details emphasize the affinity of the pharaoh with particular gods, define his ritual functions, or commemorate historical events of political or religious significance. Most frequently the king is represented barefoot, wearing a short apron and a broad collar on his nude torso. Some statues, including the oldest known figurine of the Early Dynastic period (British Museum, London), show him wrapped in the temple long overcoat worn by the pharaohs on the occasion of their sed-jubilee. Other kinds of long gown characterize the king celebrating his coronation. A specific kind of dress (“Horus gown”), known since New Kingdom, identifies him with Horus; it looks like a large scalp of a falcon, the head of the animal forming a kind of hood over the king’s head. Some statues show a pharaoh wrapped in a panther skin, which brings to mind his function as head priest. In many other cases this function is indicated more symbolically by a panther’s head hanging from the king’s belt.

Headdress is one of the most diagnostic elements in royal attire. Pharaohs are represented wearing various kinds of kerchiefs, crowns, and wigs. The nemes-cloth is the most popular royal headgear in Egyptian statuary of all periods. The most popular crown is the Double Crown composed of two elements symbolizing Lower and Upper Egypt; their combination, expressing the unity of the country, associates the king with the Heliopolitan god Atum, with whom he also shared the epithet “Lord of the Two Lands.” Various kinds of feather crowns associated the king with different gods, particularly Osiris, whose most typical crown (the atef) often appears in royal iconography, especially in funerary contexts. From the New Kingdom on, many statues show a pharaoh wearing the Blue Crown ḫprs, which has the shape of a high vaulted tiara with sharp edges. The oldest known statues of a standing pharaoh wearing this crown (Brooklyn Museum; Egyptian Museum, Cairo; Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim) date from the reign of Amenhotpe III. Diagnostic primarily of a monarch’s military victory, this crown is also associated with the coronation ceremony, as in the fine seated statue of Ramesses II in the Museo Egizio, Turin.

Short wigs are often adorned with a circlet, sometimes with two ribbons hanging behind it. Some types of royal headgear co-occur with an artificial beard of rectangular shape attached to the headdress with lateral bands. A constant element of royal headdress is the uraeus set above the king’s forehead. Its shape, and specifically the arrangement of its coils, varies according to the type of headdress and the artistic trend of the period, so that it is one of the most useful dating criteria in royal sculpture. Two parallel snakes often appear at the forehead of Kushite kings (twenty-fifth dynasty), whose iconography constitutes a specific chapter in Egyptian art. Another characteristic feature of their effigies is the tightly fitting skullcap, in which one may discern an affinity with the Memphire god Ptah, one of the most venerated divinities of that dynasty. All pharaohs share another common feature with Ptah: the rectangular shape of their artificial beard, contrasting with the beards of all other gods, which are curved forward at the base.

Queens and other members of the royal family appear less frequently than kings in Egyptian statuary. Statues of various size, made of various materials, show the queen alone. She is usually portrayed in a long, close-fitting dress, with various types of headgear associating her with different goddesses. She often wears a wig, which sometimes supports a crown, frequently a feather crown. The scalp of a vulture seen on the heads of some queens emphasizes their affinity with goddess Nekhbet in their role as mothers.

Like the majority of statues showing nonroyal subjects, most royal effigies are carved in one monolithic block with a back pillar, a rectangular plate at the rear of the statue. The inscription on the pillar usually contains significant information about the subject.

For many reasons, these and other inscriptions found on royal statues may not be a satisfactory criterion in their dating. Many statues were usurped by later rulers, sometimes more than once and their inscriptions were then recarved. Some pharaohs, deified and venerated by their descendants, are known to have posthumous representations that bear their names but belong stylistically to a later epoch. Archaization, the copying of earlier works, as well as other sorts of imitation and artistic inspiration, occurs frequently in royal statuary, which results in controversial attributions and interpretations. Many statues are preserved only fragmentarily, and if a fragment is anepigraphic or bears only a part of its inscription, criteria of style and iconography remain the only tools for its chronological or topographical attribution.

Each period had its particular style. Representations of some rulers display easily identifiable diagnostic features, and a diachronic development within a reign may be observed only in exceptional cases. The latter is true of a few pharaohs whose rule was long and whose artistic production is known from many inscribed works (e.g., Amenhotpe III, Ramesses II). In some cases, geographic attribution may be proposed as well. Differences of style prove that various workshops or sculptors were simultaneously active in various parts of the country, and even in the same center or temple. In regard to the rendering of facial features, it seems that Lower Egyptian workshops were generally more open to innovative trends and perhaps more inventive than Upper Egyptian artists. Contrasting with a naturalistic approach to the physiognomy of a king, often found in the work of Lower Egyptian sculptors, is the attachment of Upper Egyptian artists to traditional, classical, conservative patterns, especially after the Amarna period. A late exemplification of such differences may be found in the representations of Nektanebo I.

In spite of the naturalistic trends, it remains an open question, to what extent, if at all, Egyptian sculptors created “portraits” in the modern sense of a direct likeness of the object to its model. On one hand, the existence of gypsum casts of human faces (e.g., from Tell el-Amarna) proves that the desire to preserve the original facial features of a person for posterity was present in Egyptian mind. On the other hand, the idealized, impersonal, rather timeless features characterizing the majority of royal sculptures demonstrate that it was much more important to express the king’s strength and self-satisfaction than his physical likeness or any particular emotion. However, there are many departures from this general tendency, particularly in the periods of great political and social change. Thus, an unprecedented naturalism may be observed in the representations of some twelfth dynasty kings, such as Senwosret III and Amenemhet III. Their “pessimistic portraits,” emphasizing the sadness of their tired faces, sometimes have the impact of psychological studies, bringing to mind the social problems known from this period’s literature.

Another period that reveals a naturalistic approach toward royal physiognomy is the “religious revolution” of Akhenaten, which seems to have been the culmination of a long evolution reflecting profound religious and political changes that started with the rule of Hatshepsut and reached their climax in the time of Amenhotpe III. Many representations of Akhenaten and his family endow their physiognomy with exaggerated, almost caricatural features which exceed the notion of “naturalism” to approach a mannerism that must have had a more ideological than artistic motive. Not only the overemphasized dolichocephaly of the king, but also his female characteristics—broad hips, thick thighs, narrow shoulders, thin arms, and the unnatural elongation of the face—characterize the unparalleled individuality of his effigies. The feminine aspects may be a visual expression of the bisexuality of the king in his identification with the primeval god. In spite of an official return to religious and artistic orthodoxy after the fall of Akhenaten, stylistic echoes of his sculpture are clear in many representations of later kings, in both statuary and relief.

Specific iconographic and stylistic features also distinguish the statuary of the Kushite twenty-fifth dynasty. In respect to the physiognomy and attire of these kings, two tendencies may be observed. Besides representations following traditional patterns of pharaonic sculpture, there are statues emphasizing the Negroid facial features and strong musculature of the Kushites. A new type of headdress with a double uraeus at the forehead, and a characteristic necklace with small ram’s heads, also individualize the representations of these pharaohs.

New trends in the style of royal statuary appear in the time of the last indigeneous thirtieth dynasty. They display rounded faces with protruding cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes with long thin cosmetic lines paralleled by a straight extension of the eyebrow, smiling mouths with slightly raised corners, and the slanting profile of the double chin. This prototype, possibly of Lower Egyptian origin, strongly influenced royal sculpture of the Ptolemaic period, even some effigies that were executed principally in the Greek style.

From the beginning of Egyptian art up to Roman times, royal statuary had an obvious impact on the representations of Egyptian noblemen and gods. Both their facial features and elements of their attire express a homogeneous trend which is also found in relief sculpture of the same period. This proves that royal sculpture and effigies of other subjects were made in the same workshops.

The ancient Egyptians required abstract qualities or physical correspondence, and often both, in their portraiture, which was limited almost exclusively to sculpture. A pensive or contemplative expression, for example, is a frequent component of a lifelike rendering. Still more than outward appearance, the virtue of the individual represented his or her reality. Foremost in the Egyptian value system was a principle known as maat (“harmony, cosmic equilibrium”), which all persons were expected to preserve. Idealizing statues must have been portraits because they created a necessary fiction; they revealed the admirable qualities, especially the adherence to maat, by which the deceased wished to be remembered. They are the three-dimensional equivalents of the paintings of the judgment of the dead found on cartonnages and sarcophagi. In both sculpture and painting, the deceased is always represented as a sinless, upstanding individual. Unlike later artists, the Egyptian sculptor had little opportunity for personal expression or deviation from convention. Many strictures, including the patron’s wishes, controlled the portrait’s content.

Tomb sculptures were private and directed primarily toward the deities. Public statues, particularly of royalty, were erected in and around temples and palaces to serve as the official images or self-presentations to both mankind and the theological pantheon. Although the context and purpose of public sculpture often explain the variation in facial types, especially in royal statues, the aspects or character traits were not necessarily different between private and public statues. Furthermore, the official image of a ruler was but one element of the ideological program of his sculptures, regardless of context. His dress, insignias, and crowns—even the dazzling paint or luster of the highly polished stone—were critical elements in the dramatic presentation of his stature.

A few scholars deny the existence of portraiture in Egyptian art, claiming that idealizing sculptures cannot possibly be realistic and that lifelike sculptures are formulaic or pastiches. Others insist that any lifelike attributes, particularly in the facial features, qualify a sculpture as portraiture. To be a portrait, the reasoning goes, an image must be recognizable and unable to be confused with the representations of other individuals. Advocates of this argument do not necessarily require complete verisimilitude. They admit stylistic conventions—a unique configuration of the eyebrow or the outlines of the eye—as markers of identity, along with more specific details such as facial musculature. The problem with this interpretation is that it implicitly requires a physical correspondence between the subject and the sculpture. It also precludes a common means of association by an individual with a group or, in the case of royal portraits, with an earlier ruler. The genealogy of portraiture and the association of an individual with an earlier period contain a very specific political, social, or theological message. Therefore, the continuation of a portrait type may indicate a desire to be associated with a previous person or era rather than being proof of physical similarity. Despite the denial of an individual’s “real” appearance, sculptures—as well as paintings and reliefs—of this type are portraits because they reveal the qualities by which the person wished to be known.

There are other factors that must be taken into account when considering a historical portrait in isolation. For example, a statue can be identified with a particular individual in several ways. In its original context or through an identifying inscription, the identity would have been clear, regardless of the stylization, idealization, or similarity to earlier representations. Then again, the great majority of Egyptians would not have seen the pharaoh; hence, the degree of realism of a royal statue would have been lost on them. Furthermore, most sculptures have by now been removed from their settings, and many either are uninscribed or have lost their original identifying text. Because the facial features of so many of these sculptures are non-individualized, they remain anonymous. Many sculptures were appropriated by later persons and transported to distant locations. Sometimes they were recut and reinscribed for the new owner, but occasionally they were simply reinscribed. Because the original face was left untouched, the recognition factor seems irrelevant. The new inscription gave the sculpture a new identity; hence, its inner qualities now applied to the new owner. Even when naturalistic details appear, the identity is often difficult to determine without an inscription. Although these works seem idealized, stylized, or formulaic to us, to the ancient Egyptians they were portraits because they conformed to the prevailing style that was appropriate for expressing the inner character of individuals or the role that they fulfilled.

Thus, three different types of portrait are found in ancient Egyptian art: idealized and realistic portraits of real individuals and depictions of fictitious or nonspecific individuals, such as a “foreigner.” The third category combines the first two types because it is a “study” of a more general nature, often with a seemingly realistic appearance. Realism does not consist of surface appearance; otherwise, any photograph would be a portrait. What makes a portrait is the artist’s elucidation of an emotional, psychological, or intellectual component, an inner life that transcends physical correspondence. Those components are not always recognizable; artists often transmit them in a personal code decipherable by no one else. In modern times, the artist’s perception becomes the defining element of the portrait. This luxury of personal interpretation, however, was a freedom that the ancient Egyptian artist did not enjoy.

That portraiture resists a single, all-purpose definition is not surprising, because it encompasses at least four sometimes opposing impulses: the public’s expectations, the subject’s wishes, the artist’s vision, and artistic conventions. Despite the difficulties of interpretation, in very simple terms a portrait is a character study. It probes beneath the surface and reveals not the full range of the individual’s psyche but one or a few aspects, which differ according to the needs that the portrait satisfies. Frequently a portrait is a labored or artificial study, especially when it serves an official or public purpose. Most often, a portrait captures a passing but revelatory mood and transfixes it for all time. Because the artist, subject, and viewer have different perceptions of the finished product, some scholars have rightly questioned the validity of the specific label “portraiture” and have suggested simply “representation” or “approximation” as alternatives. “Likeness” is another option, if it includes works that evoke the psychological or intellectual qualities of the individual and not merely the physiognomic details.

Consequently, portraiture is one of the most confusing, ill-defined, and controversial terms in the study of ancient Egyptian art. Part of the problem is the overemphasis on and misunderstanding of realism, which generally conforms to the modern expectation of anatomical verisimilitude. Realism, however, remains the greatest obstacle to the understanding of portraiture and is the focus here. Before the importance of realism to the Egyptological controversy can be assessed, some general observations on portraiture are necessary.

The style or type of portrait varies according to the intended audience. A portrait created for public display relies heavily on physiognomy. Because the portrait is an official image, however—most often of government, business, and academic persons—the artist acquiesces to formulaic exigencies and endows the representations with heroic qualities, such as the abilities to lead, make difficult decisions, and endure crises. Individual qualities are subordinated to expected roles, and it is sometimes questionable whether correspondence exists. Realism thus serves an ideal or an expectation, but it does not necessarily portray the individual. Realism is not an objective quality; it is subjective and mutable. The realism of a portrait depends on the viewers for whom it was created and the function that it served.

Correspondence is perhaps more evident in portraits intended for the subject’s personal enjoyment because something of the individual’s inner qualities appear. Nonetheless, uncertainty about the realism remains. The artist may defer to the patron’s vanity by subduing some features and emphasizing others. The subject may specify the qualities to be expressed or the manner of representation. The descendants of an illustrious ancestor sometimes commission a flattering portrait, as if to create an official image.

Because the majority of human representations in Egyptian art appear to contemporary sensibilities as idealizing, generalizing, or even formulaic—slim, youthful, physically appealing figures devoid of lifelike features—they are not often regarded as portraits. By contrast, the slightest personal flourish—a furrowed brow, a pensive look, a distinctive nose—supposedly makes the representation the genuine item. Quite apart from the unwarranted primacy accorded to realism, this reductive reasoning is unfortunate on at least two counts. It omits the many nuances of realism, and it completely overlooks an intriguing related issue. Why are lifelike human representations generally confined to sculptures of men? Although numerous exceptions exist, Egyptian paintings and reliefs of both men and women are usually not individualizing, or fall within the category discussed above. Not until the Ptolemaic period do individualizing sculptures of women appear with any regularity, and even then the artist depends heavily on iconographic attributes to portray the identity of an individual queen. Before then, that women are generally depicted in all three media as beautiful, svelte, young, and flawless may seem an enlightened aesthetic, but an equally valid interpretation is darker and pessimistic: the individuality of women was unimportant. The lack of evidence for individualizing portraits of women is as much a social as an artistic commentary because it demonstrates that their role was limited and minimal. The sculptures and reliefs of Hatshepsut illustrate this point well; this female pharaoh is typically portrayed in the guise of a male. The only compromise that convention allowed is Hatshepsut’s very occasional portrayal in female form in some of her portraits.

The third portrait type is the most intensely personal, a representation intended neither as an official image nor as a private commission, but as an independent work. It is a category that either did not exist or was rare in ancient Egypt. The artist is free of constraints and expectations and endows the portrait with whatever qualities and sensations come to mind. Because these images are occasionally unflattering to the individual, they may seem more honest and realistic. For example, caricatures, especially the political and social varieties, are freighted with prejudice. Nonetheless, the majority of “independent” portraits are more benign, and on first consideration they are ostensibly the most important of the three types because they represent a personal, unbound, and therefore objective response; but they are no more realistic than portraits commissioned as official images or as more private and personal works. The representations of the same individual are subjective aesthetic responses that may differ from one artist to the next. Which portrait is the most realistic? Whether physical or internal, realism in portraiture is not an empirical, objective quality grounded in consensus. It is an ethos, a preference, or an interpretation, an ever-shifting variable, whose validity and expression depend on the audience, the subject, and the artist.

Few ancient Egyptian portraits are free of stylization. The best illustration consists of the plaster masks found in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose at Tell el-Amarna, the capital of the eighteenth dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. Some of the masks seem unretouched, but the majority are reworked or stylized to fit the prevailing artistic style. Although part of the individual’s outward appearance is preserved, the alterations suggest that realism was not as important as the assimilation of the individual with the pharaoh by adopting his official style.

Stylization occurs in even the most seemingly realistic portraits. From the fourth dynasty come numerous sculptures known as “reserve heads,” which display highly individualizing features. Among the most “realistic” of all Old Kingdom artistic works, these sculptures are regarded as true portraits. In one case, evidence exists for their anatomical veracity: the hooked nose on the head of Prince Nofer, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, recurs among his tomb reliefs. The function of the reserve heads has been debated, but it is generally agreed that they preserve the deceased’s vital character. Interestingly enough, that character or inner life is less in evidence than the meticulous surface treatment. However, on a related sculpture, the bust of Ankhkhaef, also in Boston, both the internal and external aspects are revealed. The significant point is that on all these realistic heads, stylization is also crucial. The eyes and the eyebrows are rendered in an artificial manner that is not lifelike but is a traditional aesthetic style. The awkward proportions of some of the heads, the peculiar treatment of their mouths, and their overall ungainly appearance indicates stylization or at least suggests that the heads are not completely lifelike.

Because the mummies of numerous kings survive, a comparison between their heads and their artistic representations is often instructive. The aquiline noses of the mummies of the nineteenth dynasty pharaohs Sety I and Ramesses II are prominent throughout not only their sculptures but also their paintings and reliefs, which are among the most individualizing royal representations in these two media. Nonetheless, they display the same stylization around the eyes found in the reserve heads.

Even the most anatomically detailed Egyptian representations can be deceptive, sometimes they are almost caricatures. The idealizing images of the deceased as slim and athletic have their counterpart in remarkably corpulent figures such as the renowned Old Kingdom statues of Kaiaperu in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and of Hemiunu in the Pelizaeus Museum, Hildesheim. Although physical correspondence is a possibility, these statues may have been shaped by a class distinction. Both persons held important positions that freed them from need and from hard manual labor. Their dramatic bodily presence may have been a visual conceit manifesting their affluence. At the opposite extreme, the depictions in painting and relief of pot-bellied fishermen, emaciated and lame cowherds, bald and bewhiskered laborers, and carefully observed foreigners are probably more genre figures born of social commentary than actual individuals. The famous relief of the queen of Punt from Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri and the innumerable scenes of other foreigners are meticulous in their detail; yet it is the peculiarity of the subject matter, its non-Egyptian otherness, that captured the artist’s attention. The image of the queen of Punt may seem at first to be extraordinarily realistic, but it could well be a caricature. Unless the artist accompanied Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt, he would have relied on eyewitness reports, which no matter how reliable would have resulted in exaggeration and stylization. Likewise, for all their ostensible realism, the representations of foreigners surely served as conventions or stereotypes; they are not necessarily realistic portraits of actual, historical foreigners simply because they seem to be individualizing.

Still, not every secondary character is formulaic. From the tomb of Horemheb at Saqqara come several reliefs depicting stock figures such as mourners, some of whom have anatomical details (receding hairlines, everted navels) that are unparalleled in similar scenes and probably indicate actual persons. These surprising individual flourishes in ancillary figures provide much of the liveliness of Egyptian art and serve as reminders of the profit to be gained from close study of even the most formulaic or repetitive phenomena.

Realism can be misleading also among representations of historical persons. The well-known statues of Senwosret III and his late twelfth dynasty successors in various collections, for example, have very lifelike, careworn faces, lacking the usual stylization of the eyebrows and eyes. Most remarkably, indications of advanced age are manifest in these statues as never before. Nonetheless, their expressions and appearances seem to be idealizations, evincing a quality or aspect of the king that was part of his official image, his self-presentation to deities and the public. Although the rulers of the waning twelfth dynasty may have had family resemblances that were accurately rendered in their sculptures, the close similarities between the sculptures of Senwosret III and his successors indicate that more than genealogy is at work. Actually, the rudiments of the style successfully exploited by Senwosret III first appear in the reign of Senwosret II. A new ideology expresses itself in the ponderous, haggard faces, which have their analogy in several pensive didactic texts related to kingship.

The phenomenon of appropriation is the clearest indication that physical correspondence was not essential for portraiture. In the thirteenth dynasty and about a millennium later in the twenty-fifth dynasty, private persons followed the late twelfth dynasty royal style. The physiognomy of these nonroyal persons obviously had no importance in their self-presentation. Their borrowing or adaptation of the official image of earlier kings allowed them to share some of the ideological aspects inherent in the royal sculptures. Similarly, portraits of the early Ptolemaic rulers are often hard to distinguish from those of the thirtieth dynasty. This similarity may have been a deliberate royal policy to link the Ptolemies with Egypt’s past or, alternatively, the continuation of a stylistic convention. The type was then copied by private individuals, who commissioned portraits that demonstrated a desire to be associated with the royal house.

Exactly the same process recurs throughout Egyptian art, royal and nonroyal, not only in sculpture but also in painting and relief. Once a new official royal style was established, it became the archetype among kings and commoners, who made their own modifications through successive generations. Among many examples, there are a Thutmosid and a Ramessid style. Sometimes the official image had an antiquarian aura. Because Ahmose and Amenhotpe I, the first two kings of the eighteenth dynasty, restored native rule after the Hyksos domination and saw themselves as the heirs of Nebhepetre Montuhotpe, the late eleventh dynasty pharaoh who reunified the country after a period of civil strife, they depicted themselves in his image. Many pharaohs, particularly Ramesses II of the nineteenth dynasty, appropriated the sphinxes and other sculptures of much earlier kings; sometimes the only alterations were not to the face but to the identifying cartouche.

In many respects, portraits filled a general role. It was not necessarily just the facial features of an individual that mattered, but rather the role that was fulfilled. When the pharaoh died, the portrait could be reused acceptably by his successor because it represented the ideals of kingship and not merely the actual features of the individual ruler. New portrait types developed in order to show a ruler’s desire—such as association with the previous pharaoh and the promotion of a dynasty—rather than his features. The representation of women in Egyptian art follows a similar pattern: their continual idealization indicates the limited social role of the eternally youthful, slim, beautiful woman.

Portraiture enabled the Egyptians to promote themselves to their deities and their fellows alike in a desired or prescribed manner. The evidence for “realistic” representations of individuals needs to be treated with the utmost caution, because they potentially account for the most stylized type. Idealizing images at least portray an individual in a specific role, and as a consequence they should not be misleading to the modern onlooker.

The Academy was a public gymnasium in northwest Athens. Plato taught there, and the Academy remained the centre of Platonic philosophizing until the first century bc. Hence the term ‘Academy’ came to be used to designate Plato’s school; members of the school were called ‘Academics’. (And hence, ultimately, the modern use of the words to describe intellectual institutions and their members.)

The word ‘Academy’ originally had a topographical reference. A mile and a half northwest of the Athenian agora, along the Ceramicus road, there was a public gymnasium and wrestling square set in a spacious park. Like most gymnasia, the Academy contained an exedra – a sort of open-air lecture theatre. Here Plato talked and taught philosophy. He set up a shrine to the Muses in the park; and he acquired a house, with a little garden, in the neighbourhood, where his friends and pupils congregated. A contemporary comic poet imagines a group of students assembled in the garden earnestly attempting to produce a definition of the pumpkin.

Plato’s house was used by his successors until the time of Polemo (in the late fourth century bc), whose pupils lived in huts in the garden; and Platonists continued to teach in the Academy until the beginning of the first century bc. But after that time there seems to have been no special relationship between Platonism and the geographical Academy.

The word ‘Academy’ was readily transferred from the concrete to the abstract: it came to designate the school or institution which Plato established and which his successors conserved. The nature of the institution is imperfectly known; but it is clear that there was a head, or ‘scholarch’, who was (at least sometimes) elected to office; that there were senior and junior members; and that there were discussions, lectures and dinners. Yet the Academy was not an embryonic university: there were no degrees and no administration block.

On Plato’s death in 347 bc, his nephew Speusippus led the school. He was followed by Xenocrates Polemo and Crates. In about 265 bc Arcesilaus assumed the scholarchate and turned Platonism down the sceptical path which it followed for almost two centuries. Of later scholarchs the most engaging and the most celebrated was Carneades. In 88 bc, when Athens was in the grip of war, the scholarch Philo of Larissa decamped to Rome. It seems likely that Philo was the last Platonist geographically connected to the Academy. But philosophy is above mere geography, and Platonism survived and flourished until the end of the ancient world. Modern authors will refer to later Platonists as Academics: the nomenclature is inaccurate, the inaccuracy venial.

Ancient writers, remarking upon apparent changes in the intellectual drift of the school, would speak of a plurality of Academies. The most generous listed five: the Old Academy, which lasted from Plato to Polemo; the Middle Academy, founded by Arcesilaus; the New Academy, inaugurated by Carneades; a fourth Academy under Philo; and a fifth under Antiochus. The Academics did not necessarily endorse these divisions. Thus Cicero , himself professing an Academic scepticism, simply distinguished between the Old Academy from Plato to Polemo and the New Academy from Arcesilaus onwards; and Philo notoriously maintained that there had only ever been one Academy.

The sarcophagus itself was closed by a granite lid, apparently broken while being lowered into place. The cause of this accident was probably the discovery that the toes of the outermost gilded wooden anthropoid coffin of the king were higher than the rim of the sarcophagus coffer, and needed adzing down. The middle coffin was also of wood, but elaborately inlaid as well as gilded; it had been made for the burial of Tutankhamun’s elder brother, Smenkhkare/Neferneferuaten, in traditional style. It had not apparently been to the revolutionary taste of the latter’s co-regent, the sun-worshipping Akhenaten, who was responsible for Smenkhkare/Neferneferuaten’s burial, following his premature death. Smenkhkare/Neferneferuaten had thus been interred in an adapted Atenist coffin, leaving his original one in store, along with other pieces, to be employed for his brother a decade later.

Tutankhamun’s innermost coffin was made of solid gold. Like the outer coffins it was adorned with a feathered, rishi, pattern that represented the king as a kind of humanheaded bird. The mummy within was equipped with a gold portrait mask, gold hands, and inlaid bands containing religious formulae. The mummy wrappings contained huge quantities of jewelry, but the cloth was in a very poor state at the time of its discovery, having carbonized through the chemical reaction of the unguents with which the royal body had been drenched at the funeral. These had badly damaged the flesh of the mummy itself, which had also been stuck to the floor of the gold coffin by then.

The sarcophagus was surrounded by four gilded wooden shrines, each covered with visual representations from the various Egyptian funerary texts and a linen pall. The walls of the burial chamber were the only ones of the tomb to be decorated, being adorned with scenes painted on a yellow background. One wall shows the king’s mummy receiving the last rites from Tutankhamun’s successor, King Ay. Other elements of the decoration include depictions of the king standing before various deities, vignettes from the Book of Imyduat, and a depiction of the king’s catafalque, drawn by his officials. Like the scene with Ay, this latter depiction seems to be unique for a royal sepulcher, although it is a type common to private tomb chapels.

A doorway opposite the foot of Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus led into a small room, dubbed the “Treasury” by the tomb’s excavator. A large shrine-shaped chest, upon which rested a canine image of the god Anubis, lay at the threshold of the chamber. The most important item within the room was Tutankhamun’s square canopic shrine, which contained the calcite canopic chest, a goddess carved at each corner, and inscribed with formulae associated with the protection of the embalmed internal organs. Inside were four miniature coffinettes of inlaid solid gold. Each of these was of identical design to the full-sized middle coffin, and they too had all been made for Smenkhkare/Neferneferuaten. These coffinettes each held a linen-wrapped bundle of embalmed viscera, heavily anointed with unguents.

The Treasury also held a large number of resin-varnished shrines, containing wooden figures of the king and various deities, overlaid with gold leaf; some of these were also leftovers from earlier reigns, including possibly the early years of Amunhotpe IV. Similar figures have been recovered from other royal tombs, but they were less ornate, being merely covered with black varnish. Other containers in the room held a large number of shabti figures. Also present were a model granary, two chariots, model boats, and three miniature nests of coffins, the largest set containing a gold figure of a king and a lock of the hair of Queen Tiy, grandmother of Tutankhamun. The other two nests, with designs appropriate to private persons of the later Eighteenth Dynasty, contained the mummies of two premature infants; both were female, and one had suffered from spina bifida. They almost certainly represent the offspring of Tutankhamun and his sister and wife, Queen Ankhesenamun.

The burial chamber was separated from the antechamber by a false wall and sealed doorway, the latter guarded by a pair of gilded and varnished wooden statues. These are of a type familiar from royal tombs of the Ramesside period. Against one wall of the antechamber three gilded wooden couches were stacked, each with a different pair of animal heads, under and on top of which were piled all kinds of food containers and furniture, including a richly gilded and inlaid throne. Half of the other side of the room was taken up by four dismantled chariots.

A door under one of the stacked couches gave access to the so-called Annex, a storeroom crowded with all kinds of funerary equipment, badly disturbed by tomb robbers and those who had cleared up after them. The tomb had apparently been entered by robbers on two occasions, not long after the funeral, perhaps in the reign of Horemheb, when the tomb of Thutmose IV was certainly plundered. Considerable damage had been done, but the innermost shrines and sarcophagus remained intact, the thieves perhaps being caught in the act.

After the last robbery, and the resealing of the sepulcher, the tomb, which lay in the very bottom of the valley, was progressively covered by debris, in part from the construction of neighboring tombs, until the huts of the artisans working on the tomb of Rameses VI (KV 9) were erected directly above its entrance. Accordingly, the tomb remained undetected during the period of intensive tomb robbing that occurred during the social disorders of the late Twentieth Dynasty. Because of the depth of its burial and its position near the entrance to the much-visited tomb of Rameses VI, Tutankhamun’s tomb escaped discovery by the nineteenth-century excavators in the Valley of the Kings, although a number came fairly close. Its entrance was revealed only during the systematic clearance of hitherto-uninvestigated parts of the valley by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon after World War I. The first step of the access stairway was uncovered on 4 November 1922, and work on the tomb and its contents continued until the spring of 1932, when the last objects were removed to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The royal mummy, the outer coffin, and the sarcophagus remain in the tomb.

The importance of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun lies in the fact that, alone of all New Kingdom royal tombs, it was essentially intact, thus providing detailed evidence on the kind of equipment that accompanied a king of that era to the grave. It also allowed the reconstruction of some of the fragmentary items that had been recovered from the badly robbed tombs of the period, and provided useful comparison with the burial outfits found in the intact Twenty-first Dynasty tomb of King Psusennes I at Tanis, and the partly robbed tomb of Thirteenth Dynasty King Hor, at Dahshûr.

Practical, sharply defined, and well-proportioned shapes are another characteristic of Greek pottery. Although the details changed over time and varied in different areas, most of the same forms were used for centuries, and some are still with us today. The more important are large containers (amphorai, hydriai, and pelikai), small containers primarily for oil and perfume (alabastra, aryballoi, and lekythoi) or for small objects (lekanides and pyxides), drinking vessels (cups, kantharoi, and skyphoi), mixing vessels (dinoi, kraters, and stamnoi), jugs (oinochoai), storage vessels (pithoi), plates (pinakes), and ritual vessels (loutrophoroi and phialai). The potting is so distinctive and fine in some cases that individual potters have been identified. Some of the shapes, and perhaps many, are derived from metal prototypes, while a few are adaptations of foreign shapes or of vessels made from other materials such as wood, stone, and leather.

Stylistic Development
Figured decoration in a central band around the pot is a characteristic of most Greek fine wares. Stick figures, first animal and later human, appear in the eighth century B.C. during the later half of the Geometric Period (ca. 900–700 B.C.), so-called after the neat and balanced rows of geometric patterns decorating parts of the vase. Although pottery in the Geometric style was produced in many regions of the mainland, islands, Italy, and the western coast of Turkey, the Athenians were the leaders in the development of figured scenes.

In the succeeding Orientalizing Period (ca. 700–600 B.C.), the stick figures flesh out, the geometric patterns disappear, and Orientalizing motifs, such as rosettes, pepper the background of the scenes that often include various Oriental beasts. A variety of drawing techniques are developed, including outline, polychrome, incision, and black figure, and mythological pictures start in earnest. Corinth is the leader, and Proto-Corinthian pottery (ca. 720–630 B.C.) with its lively animated scenes is the forerunner of full Corinthian (ca. 620–550 B.C.), which is characterized by the “animal style,” that is, stacked friezes with rows of animals—lions, panthers, goats, Sphinxes, and Sirens, among others. Corinthian vases were the most widely exported ware in the seventh century B.C., and they are found throughout the Mediterranean also during the first half of the Archaic Period (600–480 B.C.).

In the sixth century B.C., Attic black-figure pottery became the predominant fabric, replacing Corinthian by mid-century. It is characterized by figures painted black on the red-orange background of Attic clay with incision and added white and purplish red for details. Early on, the Corinthian animal style is often imitated, but later it and the Orientalizing fillers disappear, and mythological and everyday life scenes are the norm. Other regions developed their own black-figure pottery, the most important being Laconian, Boeotian, and Chalcidian. The latter is now believed to have been made in southern Italy. There are also several important eastern Greek painted wares, such as Wild Goat and Fikellura.

Around 530 B.C. the red-figure technique is invented in Athens. It is the photonegative of the black-figure technique in that the figures are left in the red-orange color of the clay, having been outlined with a thick strip of black, and the background filled in with black. Relief lines help delineate many of the important features, and golden dilute gloss, the lesser features, and added white and purplish red are used, but to a lesser extent than on black-figure pottery. The more fluid, painterly lines produced with this technique quickly led to experimentation in foreshortening and depicting anatomy. By 480 B.C., Attic red-figure had replaced black-figure pottery as the predominate fine ware in the Mediterranean.

White-ground pottery is another important Athenian fifth-century-B.C. technique. The decorated area of the vase was first covered with a white slip, and then the figures and ornament were added over it in black gloss, dilutions thereof, and polychrome, the latter playing an ever increasingly important role. Lekythoi, intended primarily for local funerary use, are the dominant shape.

Later in the century two southern Italian regions start producing their own red-figure pottery. Lucanian is the earliest, ca. 440 to 430 B.C., followed shortly by Apulian. At first they are highly dependent on Attic models, but later develop their own traditions, including the tendency for more elaborate decoration with a much greater use of color, floral ornamentation, and tiered compositions. Other important southern Italian red-figure pottery fabrics that developed in the fourth century B.C. are Sicilian, Campanian, and Paestan. The Italian fabrics replace Attic in Italy as the preferred, and a much larger portion of Attic is sent to the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean than previously. Several other areas develop their own local red-figure pottery, including Boeotia and Corinth. The Etruscans also produced their own red-figure pottery, as they had black-figure earlier. All of these were primarily for local use. Attic red-figure pottery loses its popularity at the end of the Classical Period (480–323 B.C.) and red-figure ware of all types virtually disappears by the end of the fourth century B.C.

In the Hellenistic Period (ca. 323–31 B.C.) the tradition of painted figured decoration lingers on in a much reduced form, primarily as occasional minor decoration on black wares. The two most important are West Slope ware on the mainland and in the east and Gnathian in the west. Figured scenes are found on some relief bowls, mold-made vessels produced in several locales, including Athens, Boeotia, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Asia Minor, and Macedonia.

Fine ware painted black, sometimes banded or with stamped or incised decoration, was another important and widely exported fabric made in Athens between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C. Many areas made local imitations of it, and these took the place of Attic after ca. 400 B.C. With the cessation of red-figure pottery ca. 300 B.C., black gloss became the most important fine ware. Redwares replaced black gloss late in the Hellenistic Period, earlier in the east than in the west.

The Study of Ancient Greek Pottery
Several of the artists decorating painted vases signed them, but most did not. Sir John D. Beazley (1885–1970) was the first to use the methodology of the art critic Giovanni Morelli (1816–1891), who believed that artists had standard formulae for many of the minor elements of their drawing by which they can be recognized. By comparing the details of drawing carefully, Beazley was able to isolate the many anonymous artists who decorated Attic black-figure, red-figure, and white-ground vases and to establish their stylistic relationships. Similar work has been done for other fabrics, most notably by Arthur Dale Trendall for southern Italian red-figure pottery. In this manner the major artists and their characteristics and accomplishments have become known, and a firmer grasp on the development of Greek art has been gained.

This stylistic sequence has been coordinated with securely dated monuments and the vases found in several finds with fixed historical dates so that most fine wares can be dated securely within a quarter of a century and some even within a decade. This makes them an extremely important dating tool for excavators.

The range of subjects depicted on Greek painted pottery is remarkable. Mythological scenes have received the most attention. Not only do they provide pictures of many of the stories from Greek and Roman literature, but in some cases they provide myths or versions of myths, which are otherwise unknown. Sometimes they are our earliest source for a particular mythological character or story. The François vase in Florence, the most famous of all Greek vases, with its 270 figures, 130 inscriptions, and 8 mythological friezes, is the best example and an important early source for myth.

The study of the iconography of mythological scenes not only illuminates the changing nature over time of different stories and characters, but it also provides insights into various aspects of Greek life. Some vases are clearly connected with the theater and provide information about lost plays. Other scenes and figures are thought to reflect political or historical events. For example, many scholars believe that the sudden popularity of scenes with Theseus in Athens at the end of the sixth century B.C. is connected with the founding of the new democracy. Still other depictions appear to reflect lost monuments, such as the Niobid krater in the Louvre, which was almost certainly inspired by largescale mural wall paintings.

After the middle of the sixth century B.C. the range in scenes of everyday life expands. Just about every aspect of Greek life is depicted, making the vases an extremely important source. The activities include religious, military, seafaring, social (such as the wedding ceremony), athletic, industrial, domestic, musical, dance, and other entertainment. Some scholars have focused their attention on the subliminal meanings and attitudes reflected in both these and mythological scenes, giving us a better understanding of the Greek mentality.

Many vases, but not a large proportion of the total, have inscriptions, a few of which are some of the earliest known examples of Greek writing. These are important documents for the history of the language and writing. The terms “egraphsen” and “epoiesen” occur most frequently on Attic pottery between 550 and 460 B.C., and although there is disagreement about the exact meaning in every case, “painter” for the first and “potter” or “workshop owner” for the second are the best and usual interpretations of the terms. The evidence from these combined with that from studies of individual shapes and painters suggests that most pottery workshops were small, family affairs. Other types of inscriptions provide useful information about prosopography and chronology: these include kalos names praising the beauty of young Athenian aristocrats on Athenian pottery (primarily between ca. 550 and 450 B.C.), the archons and several other officials named on fourth-century Athenian Panathenaic prize amphorae, the manufacturers and officials listed on the stamps of transport amphorae, and the prominent citizens inscribed on ostraka, the pot shards used in Athens for voting in the process of ostracium.

Some vases have trademarks that are painted or incised. Although they provide some information on prices and names of shapes, the meaning of many is unclear or far from certain in respect to their role in the commercial process.

Sculptural works of this period have been regarded since antiquity as precise, beautiful, monumental, balanced, and perfect in their rendering of the human form. The fame of sculptors like Myron, Polyclitus, Pheidias, Alcamenes, Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippos is amply attested in ancient literature. These artistic personalities, who defined a naturalistic and idealized style that continued to resonate in later Roman and Renaissance art, have held an enduring interest in the period. However, focus upon the artistic personality, especially in the absence of firmly documented works from their hands, has at times overshadowed the study of the extant material, most of which is unattributed.

Context and Typology
The human figure constitutes the central form of Classical sculpture, as found in metal, stone, and terra-cotta statues and reliefs carved on temples, other civic buildings, tombs, and commemorative plaques. Subjects include narratives drawn from mythology, or more rarely from contemporary events like the Battle of Marathon. Frequently, however, myth is used metaphorically, so that a subject like the battle of the Amazons and Greeks symbolizes the struggles of the Greeks with the Persians. Freestanding statues depicted gods and goddesses, heroes, or idealized representations of generic figures. Their purpose ranged from cult statues to votive offerings for victories and other benefices, from symbols of groups or the polis to honorific portraits.

Sculpture from the Classical Period has survived in large numbers, though often in a very fragmentary condition, from a wide range of areas, contexts, and quality. Much has been found in the excavations of religious sanctuaries and civic areas like the agora. The surfaces of stone buildings provided a platform for sculpture, mostly of stone. Sculpture in Doric buildings was concentrated in the pediments and metopes of the superstructure, while in Ionic and Corinthian buildings pediments, friezes, and the drums of columns were frequently used. Crowning acroterial figures standing on temple roofs were also an integral part of building decorations. In each case, the subject, composition, and pose of the figures had to fit within the confines of the architectural space. This was most problematic in triangular pedimental compositions like those on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (470–457 B.C.), the Parthenon (437–432 B.C., and the Temple of Asclepius at Epidauros (380–370 B.C.). A progression of standing, striding, seated, and reclining figures from center to corner provided a unity of scale, but an overall unity of design and composition resulted from the ability to show emotion and reaction among the figures.

Inside the temple were freestanding statues, including cult images. The chryselephantine statues of Athena for the Parthenon and of Zeus for his temple at Olympia by Pheidias, whose workshop at Olympia was found in excavations, were two of the most elaborate made during this period. The written testimony of ancient viewers reveals the feelings of wonder and awe that such statues were meant to invoke. Unfortunately, most of these cult statues, frequently made of valuable materials, have been lost, while the architectural sculptures that do survive attracted less attention originally.

The desire to leave an enduring public testimony to an individual or accomplishment resulted in votive and honorific statues. These include single figures or groups, including chariot teams, and represent either mythological, eponymous, or generic subjects or specific individuals. During the Classical Period these statues were frequently done in bronze and have disappeared, although bases for these statues found in excavations reveal some information about their original position and purpose. Many of these statues were cast in bronze, using the more complicated and multiple-step lost-wax method that was perfected during the Classical Period. Examples of large-scale sculpture in this material are quite small due to the frequent melting of statues for their valuable metal material, but in some cases their stone bases survive. Discoveries of bronze sculpture through excavation, especially of ships lost at sea, have provided some material for the study of style and techniques in that medium.

Several other types of smaller-scale sculpture also existed. Small terra-cotta figurines and plaques are found in large numbers in sanctuaries as votive offerings, and are functionally similar to the larger-scale votive statues of bronze and stone. These works were mass produced from molds and then painted, constituting a more affordable type of dedicatory work. Although these figures are not as precise and carefully produced as larger-scale sculpture, their style and composition parallel developments in larger media and show the diffusion of the style and ideals of Classical art to a broader level of society. Relief plaques in stone were made for graves or to commemorate a specific event or document. Grave reliefs usually show the deceased in an idealized manner, sometimes surrounded by members of the household. Laws against individual extravagance occasionally suspended production of this type of work, but there are numerous examples coming from Attica in the later Classical Period. Commemorative reliefs often combine an image of heroic or mythological nature with an inscription below. These works are important because they sometimes provide a date derived from the text for their creation, giving a fixed point for the development of style in sculpture.

Style
Classical Greek sculpture is distinguished from the arts of other cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East by its style. A notable feature of this style is its mimetic or naturalistic quality: The sculpted figure approximates the appearance and movements of the real human figure, rather than relying upon a series of more abstract conventions. For example, statues, rather than standing squarely on both feet as in the Archaic Period, place the weight on one leg (contrapposto), leaving the other leg free and introducing asymmetries into the figure. Classical sculpture is idealized, utilizing systems of proportions, balance, and expression that bring order, serenity, and completeness to the figure.

Style in Greek sculpture is less fixed than in many other periods and cultures and shows a relatively steady and rapid progression. In the Early Classical Period (ca. 480–450 B.C.), figures display a more naturalistic sense of movement than in the Archaic period, exploring the patterns of movement and adjustment in the body in the performance of an action, encapsulated in the Greek term rhythmos and seen in works like the Kritios Boy from the Acropolis in Athens. Sculptors also focused upon facial expression, gesture, and attitude to convey emotion, or pathos, giving the figure a psychological movement in addition to a physical movement. These developments allowed the artist to explore the character (ethos) of the figure. Some of the most important examples of this can be seen in the sculptures from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, found in the excavations of 1876 to 1882, but still presenting problems in the reconstruction of their original placement, and in the bronze figure known as Riace Warrior A, found in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in 1972. The figures of this phase have a solidity and simplicity of surface that has led to the term “Severe Style” for this period.

In the succeeding High Classical phase (450 to 430 B.C.), artists perfected their rendering of the anatomy and included more detailing and modeling of the modeling surface. The figures convey more effectively the impression of motion that has been frozen in time and space, and display a serene and contained expression that turns away from the earlier interest in pathos and is more evocative of a perfected ideal often referred to as Olympian. The transition to the High Classical style and its development can be seen in the Parthenon, dated from the inscribed building accounts to the years 447 through 432.

Late Classical sculpture between 430 and 400 B.C. develops a more ornamental and sensual style. The figures of Victory (Nike) on the balustrade from the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis portray a new kind of sensuality and refinement through transparent draperies that reveal the figure underneath and with intimate poses and situations, found more broadly in grave reliefs and vase paintings of the time.

Sculpture of the fourth century shows more diversity in style. An intense emotionalism, associated with Scopas, can be seen in the sculptures from the temples at Epidauros and Tegea and in some of the figures from the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos. The strong lines, sharp movement, and deep undercutting of this work forms a strong contrast to the smoother surfaces, contrasts of textures, and more languorous poses of the Hermes from Olympia, once identified as an original of Praxiteles. Praxiteles also created one of the most famous statues in antiquity, the cult statue of Aphrodite at Cnidus, known only from copies. A third tendency in the fourth century was toward a greater realism of detail and fidelity toward the appearance of real life that is associated with Lysippos, whose work is linked with the Agias from the Daochos Monument found at Delphi and the bronze Getty Athlete. The development of psychological portraiture and of a dramatic sense of composition can also be linked to Lysippos, making him a transitional figure between Classical and Hellenistic art.

The existence of fixed chronological points for some works and the developmental nature of style in Classical sculpture provide criteria for dating works and contexts without written documentation. Although this model has come under some criticism in recent years, it is generally sound. Problems with this model lie in the copies produced of classical works in the Roman Empire, which do not precisely replicate the original, and in the phenomenon of revivals of older styles which begins to appear in the fifth century and which expands from that point onward. Determining whether a work is Classical or classicizing can frequently create problems for determining the date of associated works and material from a context.

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