At a glance, our digital museum room has the following six artifacts; dueling gold masks of Agamemnon, Goddess Figurine, Koros statues, Kore statue, and warrior’s helmet made from tusks and finally the portrait of homer. The room therefore has a unique theme as evident in the six artifacts.
Starting from the first artifact in the room, a little light with reflections and re-reflections off the head can be seen, a death gold mask reproduction that is very old. In fact, this reproduction predate all the ancient Greek artifacts including the poet Homer itself. This wonderful mask is the Mask of Agamemnon. However, what can be seen now is not the original Agamemnon mask. The real Agamemnon masks dates back to the 16th century B.C. The original is also kept in Greece in a place called the National Archeological Museum of Athens. A brief history about our first artifact is that it was discovered in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann who was one of the archeologists excavating the Mycenae’s royal cemetery.
The second in the room is the goddess figurines. This depicts one of the upper Paleolithic statuettes that mostly portrayed a woman. They date back to about 26,000 to 21,000 years ago or just the Gravettian period. These were curved from rocks and most of them have been discovered in Europe(Rautman, p.3). They were usually curved from bone, soft stones like limestone and steatite, fired clay or ivory. Today, there are 144 goddess of figurine known and they are about 3 cm to 40 cm or slightly more. They therefore form part of the earliest art work of prehistory. As shown in the artifact, they have wide hips, small heads and tapered legs.
Kore or maiden statue is next. Kore is a Greek word for maiden and in plural is korai. Therefore, it is one of the ancient Greek sculptures that was free standing and it dates back to the archaic period. This sculptures usually depicted young female figures. The male were also curved and given a name “Kouroi” or “koros” and it can be seen as the next artifact in this digital room. They show a smile and have an archaic braids or braided hairstyles. They have more of a natural posture and are relaxed and at times depicted with extended arms(Richter, p.12). Both of them are also freestanding and they are believed to be dedications to certain gods.
The portrait of homer is a 41 cm sculpture as seen in the next artifact. It dates back to the Hellenistic period and it is probable that this sculpture is based on the Pergamene School of the second century(Rautman, p.24). It is basically an image invented for the author of the Odyssey and the Iliad. As seen in the artifact, it has a knitted brow, unruly hair and the way the eyes are treated, it reflects the blind bard during the ancient times.
The warrior’s helmet is the last of the artifacts herein which is made from tusks. This is one of the artifact that has great interest as it is also mentioned several times in the Homer’s poem. For instance, it can be found in the Iliad book X that Odysseus was given a helmet by Meriones which was made of shiny tusks. According to Everson (p.3), these helmets dare back to 12 century B.C. and the Bronze Age. They were curved from the boar’s tusks which was a preferred material for the helmets of warriors (Everson, p.6)
References
Everson, Tim. Warfare In Ancient Greece. Stroud: Sutton Pub., 2004. Print.
Rautman, Alison E. Reading The Body. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Print.
Richter, Gisela Marie Augusta. Korai: Archaic Greek Maidens. London: Phaidon, 1968. Print.
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