Many people are familiar with the Greek and Roman deities from reading about classical mythology as children. One thing many people are not aware of, however, is that there are actually quite a few direct references to a number of different Greek deities in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, which describes the apostles visiting Greek cities and encountering opposition from supporters of traditional Greek religion. The deities mentioned in the Book of Acts by name are Zeus, Hermes, Artemis, and the Dioskouroi.
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National Museum of Brazil Fire Should Come as a Warning
You may or may not have read about the devastating fire that engulfed the National Museum of Brazil three days ago on September 2, 2018. The museum housed over 20 million objects, including the largest collection of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts in Latin America and one of the largest in the entire western hemisphere. While the extent of the destruction has not yet been fully assessed, it is highly probable that nearly all the artifacts in these collections were destroyed or irreparably damaged by the fire. The entire interior of the building appears to have been reduced to nothing but ash and broken rubble. Worst of all, this destruction was not a freak accident of nature or an inevitable result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics; this disaster was entirely preventable. It was entirely the result of sheer human carelessness.
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Fascinating Ancient Artifacts
It is true that very little has survived from our classical past, but sometimes the objects that have survived can amaze us. When we see ancient artifacts in museums, we often like to imagine that they might have been touched by someone truly famous, but, with a few rare objects, we know that they were.
How the Ancients Greeted Each Other
In modern films and television shows, people from the ancient world are commonly shown greeting each other with a rather peculiar handshake in which, instead of merely clasping hands, each person grasps the other’s forearm. Films and television shows tend to most frequently associate this gesture with Roman men, but it has been portrayed in other contexts as well.
Many people will be disappointed to learn that the forearm handshake is not shown in any extant work of ancient art, nor is it ever referred to in any surviving work of ancient literature. We have no evidence that anyone ever used this handshake in antiquity and it appears to be purely a modern invention. This, however, raises a very interesting question: How did ancient people really greet each other?
Christian Adaptation of Pagan Iconography
We are all familiar with the conventional images of what entities such as angels, cherubim, Jesus, and Satan are supposed to look like. What may come as a surprise is that these images were not always so well-established. In fact, much of what we think of as “Christian iconography” is freely adapted from pagan iconography.
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No, Atlas Did Not Hold the Earth on His Shoulders
The image of the Titan Atlas holding the Earth on his shoulders is an iconic one that has inspired countless writers, thinkers, and artists. It is also a modern notion with no basis whatsoever in any ancient Greek texts. In actual ancient Greek mythology, Atlas does not, in fact, hold the Earth on his shoulders, but rather the sky. The misconception that the ancient Greeks imagined Atlas as holding the Earth on his shoulders arose as a result of the misinterpretation of classical representations of Atlas. In this article, I intend to set the record straight by examining how the ancient Greeks really envisioned Atlas and explaining how the misconception about him holding up the Earth arose.
Continue reading “No, Atlas Did Not Hold the Earth on His Shoulders”Cats and Weasels
Everyone knows that, in ancient times, the Egyptians worshipped cats, but across the Mediterranean over in Europe, the situation was much different. During the Archaic Period (lasted c. 800 – c. 510 BC), housecats seem to have been almost completely absent from the Greek world; they do not appear in Greek art and not referenced in works of Greek literature from this time period.
During the Classical Period (lasted c. 510 – c. 323 BC), housecats seem to have been gradually introduced to Greece and southern Italy from Egypt and the Near East, but they seem to have been seen as strange, exotic pets—in the same way that keeping a parrot as a pet might be seen as unusual today.
Eventually, starting during the Hellenistic Period (lasted c. 323 – c. 31 BC) and continuing into the Roman Period, housecats as pets gradually became more and more common in the Greco-Roman world. Curiously, though, weasels seem to have been much more commonly kept as pets in ancient Greece than cats and the words for “cat” and “weasel” seem to often been conflated.
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