Category Archives: Museum

Archaeolgical Museum of Sitia and Petsofas

Today’s visit to the Archaeological Museum of Sitia was an opportunity to view the amazing finds from archaeological sites in Eastern Crete such as Mochlos and Palaikastro. The Palaikastro Kouros is an ivory figurine found burned and in fragments in a shrine room at the Minoan town settlement of Palaikastro. The discoloration of the burning makes it clear the Kouros was burned after being broken, perhaps deliberately. This intricate and exquisite object has fascinated archaeologists and art historians due to to its aesthetic virtuosity. Some archaeologists even speculate it may have been a cult statue of a young Zeus, who, according to myth, was born on the island of Crete.

Not only modern archaeologists speculate about the usage of unusual found objects. The Archaeological Museum of Sitia also displays pygmy hippopotamus skulls and a pygmy elephant tooth found on the island from approximately 80,000-50,000 BCE. Some archaeologists believe that ancient people who saw these unusual skulls may have misinterpreted the hole where the elephants tusk would go as something else entirely: a single eye socket, thus explaining the origins of the mythological Cyclops.

We ourselves were archaeologists today when hiking up to the Peak Sanctuary of Petsofas, where thousands of pottery fragments serve as visual evidence for the many ancient pilgrimages to this sacred site. Investigating and imagining what the sherds originally belonged to, for example a human figurine or a vase, was a fun and exciting exercise!

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Relaxing after our investigation of the Peak Sanctuary at Petsofas

Heraklion Archaeological Museum and Gortyn

As an art history student, I am most intrigued by how the visceral and intimate relationship between artist and viewer gives insight into social climate and personal expression thorough aesthetic language. Today’s adventure, viewing ancient objects in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, after visiting the archaeological site in which the objects were found, Gortyn, was a particularly enriching experience. 20140117-001259.jpg

Archaeological Site of Gortyn

Oftentimes it is difficult to reimagine the original context in which visual art objects functioned in antiquity. This task becomes especially difficult when we see these objects in pristine museums where the objects are displayed without context. Art objects existed in a certain time and place for a particular reason. As T.J. Clark, a prominent art historian, has noted, visual art objects represent history in a unique way; history is “actually there when the painter stands still in front of the painting, the sculptor asks his model to stand still.” Clark also describes how art represents the coalescing of a particular moment in time for both the artist and the society in which he or she lived. The opportunity to visit Gortyn helped achieve Clark’s mission for visual art objects; for the experience of viewing the art objects and understanding their social history was heightened after visiting the site.

Gortyn, a site in use from 700 BCE to 670 CE, was at its peak during the Roman era, when it served as the capital of the province of Crete and Cyrene. Gortyn’s importance to the Roman Empire is clearly communicated by the amount of imperial art depicting emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius. 20140117-001250.jpg

Marble Portrait of Marcus Aurelius

Additionally, Gortyn asserts itself as a city that is powerful enough to commission grand and magnificent sculpture, such as a copy of the Hellenistic prototype, the Crouching Venus, and is thus able to construct a royal identity on par with that of Rome. By leveraging the visual arts as political capital, Gortyn also spreads imperial narratives by continuing Greek artistic traditions, such as the archaic and classical styles, and aligns itself as inheritors of the Greek civilization.

Though Clark characterizes art in contemporary life as powerless and ineffectual, clearly this was not always so. In antiquity, visual art played an important role is shaping political discourse and imperial narratives; Gortyn effectively used the visual arts to their advantage in this regard. The visual art found at Gortyn clearly indicates how art can be, in Clark’s words, “historically effective” as well as capable of “a series of actions in but also on history.” Though we witnessed Gortyn centuries after its destruction, the visit to the site provided context and insight into the visual art objects seen at the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion.

Heraklion Archaeological Museum: Scholarly Debate / Should We Accept What We See?

Having gotten used to waking up to the smell of pies and feasting on goat cheese, chocolate, and spinach pies and mountain tea for the past few days, I was a little disoriented this morning waking up to the sounds of cars from the streets and eating a more “American-like” breakfast with sausages, bacons, and milk.

After a pretty relaxed morning, our first site was the Heraklion Archaeological Museum at the center of town with a large Minoan art collection. Stepping foot into the museum, I quickly noticed the difference between this museum and the others we have visited. Here, we were greeted a guard at the door to check our tickets and every room that was separated by the the different time periods also had a guard. The gray wall color and the blend of a white and gray colored floor matched with clear glass windows to protect the art provided us with a new experience in seeing the details of the paintings and the pottery. The lighting in each of these rooms were bright enough that small details could be noted and good photographs could be taken. We were also alongside many other tourists, which is definitely different than some of the other museums we had visited where we were the only people.

The Heraklion museum has collections ranging from the archaic to the Late Roman period, and most of the pieces of findings were from nearby sites including Knossos, Gortyn, and Ierapetra. In the first room, we entered we saw that the pieces that were found were included on a larger canvas and the missing parts were restored. This restoration process takes in what is known from what is found and completes the remainder of the paintings by interpreting the findings to provide a more complete picture of what they were depicting. This process can be problematic in the sense that as viewers we cannot “un-see” things, so we would only take into mind what is restored and not try to figure out from the pieces that were actually found.

One of the pieces we saw was the “Tripartite Shrine”, which is also known as the “Grandstand Fresco”. This scene is thought to depict a scene taking place at the Central Court of the palace of Knossos with open space in the front and spectators on the side. The building has the horns of consecration. The females conversing in the front are more detailed in their depiction and their higher class status is noted, and a large crowd of people are in the back and only their heads are visible. This painting gives people a general ideal of what kind of place Knossos was, but it should be noted that whether or not the setting is Knossos is still under debate by scholars.

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This is the first time that we also saw art pieces with high relief composition. One to take note is the “Prince of Lilies”, which is very characteristic of Minoan Crete. The life-sized figure is composed of parts that are not joined together, so the majestic headdress is still under debate as in whether it’s for the man or for the bull who is part of this larger mural composition but not depicted here. Likewise, the identity of this man is still much under debate because Sir Arthur Evans who excavated Knossos argued that he was the ruler of Knossos or a priest king, while other scholars suggest that he is an athlete.

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So is it a good idea to try to complete a piece provided that you only retrieve minimal information from the findings? This may not always be accurate as shown by Sir Arthur Evans. He made a copy of the pieces that he found at Knossos and using the pieces that he had recovered as shown on the left, he thought that the painting was of a boy placing flowers in a basket as a offering. After a piece of the muzzle of the monkey was identified, it was determined that the fresco was actually a portrait of a money picking up flowers and placing them in baskets that is offered to a goddess as a gift as shown on the right. Monkeys play an important role in Minoan culture and religions. If that extra piece had not been recovered, everyone would have assumed that it was a boy doing the offerings and not the monkeys. This revelation provides a more accurate and new view of the Minoan culture that would have otherwise been misunderstood. Therefore, the process of restoration, which is important and easier for viewers to see a more complete piece, is helpful but can sometimes be misleading.

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We continue our tour of these museum and see a wonderful collection of terra cotta pots, dedalic figurines found in tombs and sanctuaries, and sculptures of Roman emperors. After more free time to explore the vibrant city, we are off to another tour of Heraklion with Marinella!

Pitstop in Rethymno

I woke today to realize it was Sunday. This was extraordinarily obvious because I woke up much earlier than I planned on due to the bells calling us all to church. Rather than answering the call we all waited until a man’s chanting added ambiance to our breakfast. The chanting went on for a couple hours. Apparently after the morning service and communion was over, a funeral began. These words too were broadcasted throughout the entire town on giant speakers. I’ve never seen a church service broadcasted before, but that may be my own ignorance.

We then tried to fit all our luggage – including Caitlin’s giant bag – into the vans and headed to Rethymno. We went to the museum of Ancient Polyrrhenia, which was outside the high imposing walls of Fortetza Fortress.

20140112-200108.jpgNext to the entrance was some graffiti which, when translated, read “the only good fascist is a dead one.” Appropriately charmed we entered the museum. The one open room with the works could be navigated circumambulatory in a clockwise manner, progression chronologically from the Neolithic to Roman periods. Amongst the works were such pieces like Kamares ware pottery, the first sighting of what will apparently be common.

The as we explore a statue that is the only concrete evidence of religious life in early Minoan culture, fragments with Linear A, and statues of GUAs: Goddesses with Upraised Arms, typical of the final phase of the Cretan Bronze Age, LM IIIC. We also learned about the kernos, a ritual vase shaped like a stand with multiple vessels, and even how papyrus plants were made into paper. Most fascinating to me was an unfinished statue of Aphrodite. While unfinished, there was enough of the iconography that the subject was still pretty clear.

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We then walked around Rethymno looking for some place to eat, which was an unsuccessful endeavor. The town was picturesque though, and similar to Chania in its building style.
We did get to see a mosque as well, which was being reconstructed rather than allowed to fall due to earthquakes, like many of it’s other Cretian counterparts. The minaret had scaffolding and the mosque was closed, but the exterior was in itself quite impressive.

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Next – on to Tylisos!