WHAT CAN ART TELL US ABOUT

AFRICANS IN ANCIENT GREECE?

PPT by Aixa B. Rodriguez

ESL/Visual Arts

High School of World Cultures Bronx NY

Based on:

Hemingway, Sean, and Colette Hemingway. "Africans in Ancient Greek

Art". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, 2000–.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/afrg/hd_afrg.htm (January 2008)

Narrow Understanding

All black Africans were known as Ethiopians to the ancient Greeks, as the fifth-century B.C. historian Herodotus tells us.

Iconography was narrowly defined by Greek artists in the Archaic (ca. 700–480 B.C.) and

Classical (ca. 480–323 B.C.) periods, black skin color being the primary identifying physical characteristic.

High quality fine art depictions of Africans appear in the Hellenistic period. (ca. 323–31 B.C.),

Lack of Geographical

Knowledge

Most ancient Greeks had only

a vague understanding of

African geography.

They believed that the land of

the Ethiopians was located

south of Egypt.

Clues in Literature

Tales of Ethiopia as a mythical land at the farthest edges of the earth are recorded in some of the earliest Greek literature of the eighth century B.C., including the epic poems of Homer.

Greek gods and heroes, like Menelaos, were believed to have visited this place on the fringes of the known world.

Pendant in the form of the head of an

African (known as Ethiopian), 9th–8th

century b.c.

Cypriot; Said to be from Amathus,

Cyprus

Chlorite The Cesnola Collection,

Purchased by subscription, 1874–76

(74.51.5010)

Clues in Mythology

In Greek mythology, the pygmies were the African race that lived furthest south on the fringes of the known world, where they engaged in mythic battles with cranes.

Aryballos, ca. 570 b.c.; black-figure

Greek, Attic

Signed by Nearchos as potter

Terracotta

H. 3 1/16 in. (7.77 cm)

Purchase, The Cesnola Collection, by exchange,

1926 (26.49)

Pygmy fighting a crane. Attic red-figure chous (oinochoe,

type 3), 430–420 BC. National Archaeological Museum of

Spain

Drama: Plays, Masks

Ethiopians were featured in the tragic plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and preserved comic masks, as well as a number of vase paintings from this period, indicate that Ethiopians were also often cast in Greek comedies.

Theater mask representing an

African slave. Terracotta, made

in Sicily, ca. 350 BC. British

Museum

Trade Connections

However, long before Homer, the seafaring civilization of Bronze Age Crete, known today as Minoan, established trade connections with Egypt.

Bare head of African male on

coin ARKADIA, Circa 370-360

BC.

Civilization Collapse- End of

Trade

The collapse of the Minoan and Mycenaean palaces at the end of the Late Bronze Age, severs trade connections with Egypt and the Near East .

Greece entered a period of impoverishment and limited contact.

Trade and Settlements/Renewed

Contact

During the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., the Greeks renewed contacts with the northern periphery of Africa.

They established settlements and trading posts along the Nile River and at Cyrene on the northern coast of Africa.

Already at Naukratis, the earliest and most important of the trading posts in Africa, Greeks were certainly in contact with Africans.

Jug, ca. 750–600 b.c.; Cypro-

Archaic I

Cypriot

Terracotta H. 7 1/2 in. (19.1 cm)

The Cesnola Collection, Purchased

by subscription, 1874–76

(74.51.532)

The Minoans may have first come into contact with Africans at Thebes, during the periodic bearing of tribute to the pharaoh.

In fact, paintings in the tomb of Rekhmire, dated to the fourteenth century B.C., depict African and Aegean peoples, most likely Nubians and Minoans.

Tomb Paintings

Depictions in Fine Art

Large-scale portraits of Ethiopians made by Greek artists appear for the first time in the Hellenistic period. (ca. 323–31 B.C.),

High-quality works, such as images on gold jewelry and fine bronze statuettes, are tangible evidence of the integration of Africans into various levels of Greek society.

Vase Painting

Ethiopians were considered exotic to the ancient Greeks and their features contrasted markedly with the Greeks' own well-established perception of themselves.

The black glaze central to Athenian vase painting was ideally suited for representing black skin, a consistent feature used to describe Ethiopians in ancient Greek literature as well.

Neck-amphora (jar), ca. 530 b.c.; Attic, black-figure

Attributed to an artist near Exekias

Greek

Terracotta

H. 15 7/8 in. (40.3 cm)

Gift of F. W. Rhinelander, 1898 (98.8.13)

Pottery

One piece shows an

Ethiopian being attacked

by a crocodile, most likely

an allusion to Egypt and

the Nile River.

Mercenaries Serving Egypt/Military

Connection

It is likely that images of Africans, if not Africans themselves, began to reappear in the Aegean.

In the seventh and early sixth centuries B.C., Greek mercenaries from Ionia and Caria served under the Egyptian pharaohs Psametikus I and II.

Neck-amphora (jar), ca. 500 b.c.; Attic, black-

figure

Attributed to the Diosphos Painter

Greek

Terracotta

Fletcher Fund, 1956 (56.171.25)

Military Exposure

It is recorded that Ethiopians were among King Xerxes' troops when Persia invaded Greece in 480 B.C. Thus, the Greeks would have come into contact with large numbers of Africans at this time.

Attic white-ground alabastron, 480-470

BC. From Athens. Louvre, Ethiopian

warrior.

Depictions in Real Life?

Well into the fourth century B.C., Ethiopians were regularly featured in Greek vase painting, especially on the highly decorative red-figure vases produced by the Greek colonies in southern Italy (50.11.4).

Depictions of Ethiopians in scenes of everyday life are rare at this time, although one tomb painting from a Greek cemetery near Paestum in southern Italy shows an Ethiopian and a Greek in a boxing competition. Column-krater with artist painting a marble statue of Herakles, ca. 350–320 b.c.;

Red-figure

Greek, South Italian, Apulian

Attributed to the Group of Boston 00.348

Terracotta H. 20 1/4 in. (51.51 cm)

Rogers Fund, 1950 (50.11.4)

Urban Life

With the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty and Macedonian rule in Egypt, after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., came an increased knowledge of Nubia (in modern Sudan), the neighboring kingdom along the lower Nile ruled by kings who resided in the capital cities of Napata and later Meroe.

Cosmopolitan metropolises, including Alexandria in the Nile Delta, became centers where significant Greek and African populations lived together. Ethiopian's head and female head, with

a kalos inscription. Attic janiform red-

figure aryballos, ca. 520–510 BC. From

Greece. Louvre Museum

A Large Minority ?

During the Hellenistic period (ca.

323–31 B.C.), the repertoire of

African imagery in Greek art

expanded greatly.

While scenes related to

Ethiopians in mythology became

less common, many more types

occurred that suggest they

constituted a large minority .

Statuette of an African (known as

Ethiopian), 3rd–2nd century b.c.

Greek

Bronze H. 7 1/5 in. (18.29 cm)

Rogers Fund, 1918 (18.145.10)

Occupations Held by Africans

Depictions of Ethiopians as athletes and entertainers are suggestive of some of the occupations they held.

The Slavery Question

Africans also served as slaves in ancient Greece (74.51.2263), together with both Greeks and other non-Greek peoples who were enslaved during wartime and through piracy. Vase in the form of a sleeping African (known as Ethiopian) boy, 3rd–2nd century b.c.

Cypriot

Terracotta H. 8 3/16 in. (20.8 cm)

The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76 (74.51.2263)

Black youth with hands bound

behind his back. Found in the

Fayum, near Memphis, Egypt,

bronze, 2nd–1st century BC.

Louvre Museum

•Scholars continue to

debate whether or not

the ancient Greeks

viewed black Africans

with racial prejudice.