The Artemesion Bronze, right? The God from the Sea? Poseidon? Uh. Well. I have my doubts, and here&a
The Artemesion Bronze, right? The God from the Sea? Poseidon? Uh. Well. I have my doubts, and here’s why. Some visionary cast this glorious bronze during the high Classical period, around 460 BCE, and sometime after that the sculpture fell into the sea off Cape Artemision. Oops! Except wait, that means that unlike almost every other bronze sculpture from antiquity, the Artemision Bronze never fell into the money-grubbing hands of conquerors, despoilers, and the bankrupt, so it was saved from being melted down and turned into other bronze things. Great! So what is the problem! Some people say this fellow is Poseidon, because Poseidon was the sea-god and the sculpture was in the sea, so he’s missing his trident. Some people say this fellow is Zeus, because there exist about one billion bronze figurines and vase paintings that depict Zeus in the same posture, holding a fistful of fury. I mean, thunderbolts. Well it seems like it’s pretty hard to tell which one of these possibilities makes more sense! Is he Poseidon, because he was found in the sea, sans trident? Or is he Zeus, because he looks the same as all these other Zeuses, lacking his thunderbolts? Man, I don’t know. But come on, if he was Poseidon the trident would be covering up his face. Also, there is not a whole lot of evidence for Greeks throwing expensive sculptures into the sea except by accident. I think we have gotten to the bottom of this. Either we have a very demure Poseidon, covering up his face and hiding far away from his worshippers, or we have a Zeus that fell into the Mediterranean during a shipwreck. I think we all know what the answer is. -- source link
#ancient greece#sculpture#conspiracy#debunking#artemision bronze#poseidon#classics