Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient Greek city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. Its ruins lie near the current city of Antakya, Turkey, to which the ancient city lends its name.
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly popular in the Ancient Roman world.
In Greek mythology, Amazonomachy was one of various mythical battles between the ancient Greeks and the Amazons, a nation of all-female warriors. Many of the myths portrayed were that of Heracles' ninth labor, which was the retrieval of the girdle of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons; and of Theseus' abduction of Hippolyta, whom he claimed as his wife, sparking the Attic War. Another famous scene portrayed is that of Achilles' victorious battle against Penthesilea during the Trojan war.
Antiochus XI Epiphanes Philadelphus was a Seleucid monarch who reigned as King of Syria between 94 and 93 BC, during the Hellenistic period. He was the son of Antiochus VIII and his wife Tryphaena. Antiochus XI's early life was a time of constant civil war between his father and his uncle Antiochus IX. The conflict ended with the assassination of Antiochus VIII, followed by the establishment of Antiochus IX in Antioch, the capital of Syria. Antiochus VIII's eldest son Seleucus VI, in control of western Cilicia, marched against his uncle and had him killed, taking Antioch for himself, only to be expelled from it and driven to his death in 94 BC by Antiochus IX's son Antiochus X.
Antakya, historically known as Antioch, is the capital of Hatay Province, the southernmost province of Turkey. The city is located in a well-watered and fertile valley on the Orontes River, about 20 kilometers (12 mi) from the Levantine Sea.
Daphni or Dafni is an eleventh-century Byzantine monastery eleven kilometers northwest of central Athens in the suburb of Chaidari, south of Athinon Avenue (GR-8A). It is situated near the forest of the same name, on the Sacred Way that led to Eleusis. The forest covers about 18 km2 (7 sq mi), and surrounds a laurel grove. "Daphni" is the modern Greek name that means "laurel grove", derived from Daphneion (Lauretum).
The art of Ancient Rome, its Republic and later Empire includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings, and glass are sometimes considered to be minor forms of Roman art, although they were not considered as such at the time. Sculpture was perhaps considered as the highest form of art by Romans, but figure painting was also highly regarded. A very large body of sculpture has survived from about the 1st century BC onward, though very little from before, but very little painting remains, and probably nothing that a contemporary would have considered to be of the highest quality.
The Basilica of San Vitale is a late antique church in Ravenna, Italy. The 6th century church is an important surviving example of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture. It is one of eight structures in Ravenna inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Its foundational inscription describes the church as a basilica, though its centrally-planned design is not typical of the basilica form. The Roman Catholic Church has designated the building a "basilica", an honorific title bestowed on exceptional church buildings of historic and ecclesial importance.
Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BCE, when the Greek mainland was taken, and essentially ending in 30 BCE with the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt following the Battle of Actium. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and His Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. It follows the period of Classical Greek art, while the succeeding Greco-Roman art was very largely a continuation of Hellenistic trends.
Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, c. 900–700 BC. Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the Aegean. The Greek Dark Ages lasted from c. 1100 to 750 BC and include two periods, the Protogeometric period and the Geometric period, in reference to the characteristic pottery style. The vases had various uses or purposes within Greek society, including, but not limited to, funerary vases and symposium vases.
The Hatay Archaeology Museum is the archaeology museum of Antakya, Turkey. It is known for its extensive collection of Roman and Byzantine Era mosaics. The museum is located in Antakya, the main city of Hatay. Construction of the museum started in 1934 on the recommendation of the French archaeologist and antiquities inspector Claude M. Prost. It was completed in 1938 and came under Turkish control in 1939 following Hatay's unification with Turkey. The museum was opened to the public in 1948 and re-opened in 1975 following renovation and expansion.
The Hermit Saints is a religious oil on panel painting displayed as a triptych, meaning it is one whole painting composed of three separate scenes. This artwork was made by the Renaissance artist Hieronymus Bosch, dating from 1493. The entirety of the triptych painting measures 86 by 60 centimetres. This artwork is currently being housed at the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
Confronted animals, or confronted-animal as an adjective, where two animals face each other in a symmetrical pose, is an ancient bilateral motif in art and artifacts studied in archaeology and art history. The "anti-confronted animals" is the opposing motif, with the animals back to back.
Early Byzantine mosaics in the Middle East are a group of Christian mosaics created between the 4th and the 8th centuries in ancient Syria, Palestine and Egypt when the area belonged to the Byzantine Empire. The eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire and its continuation, the Byzantine Empire, inherited a strong artistic tradition from pagan Late Antiquity. The tradition of making mosaics was carried on in the Umayyad era until the end of the 8th century. The great majority of these works of art were later destroyed but archeological excavations unearthed many surviving examples.
A Roman mosaic is a mosaic made during the Roman period, throughout the Roman Republic and later Empire. Mosaics were used in a variety of private and public buildings, on both floors and walls, though they competed with cheaper frescos for the latter. They were highly influenced by earlier and contemporary Hellenistic Greek mosaics, and often included famous figures from history and mythology, such as Alexander the Great in the Alexander Mosaic.
The Antioch mosaics are a grouping of over 300 mosaic floors created around the 3rd century AD, and discovered during archaeological excavations of Antioch between 1932 and 1939 by a consortium of five museums and institutions. About half of the mosaics are housed at the Hatay Archaeology Museum in Antakya, with others currently residing at the Worcester Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Baltimore Museum of Art, Harvard University and Princeton University Art Museum among others. The mosaics range in design from realistic imagery and scenes, to purely geometric patterns.
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
The Judgement of Paris is the theme of a mosaic from the early second century AD, discovered in 1932 in Antioch. It is one of the most important mosaics from the ancient city, which was located a short distance from the site of modern Antakya (Antioch). The mosaic is normally housed in Paris at the Louvre, although it has been known to go on tour. In 2007 it was scheduled to feature in an itinerant exhibition of important pieces that the Louvre organised in the United States.
The Worcester Hunt Mosaic is a large Byzantine floor mosaic located at Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. The mosaic was originally constructed for an upscale villa in Daphne, just outside of Antioch. The mosaic was discovered during an archeological expedition which lasted between 1932 and 1939. It is currently the largest Antioch mosaic located within the United States. It measures approximately 20.5 feet x 23.3 feet.
The art of Uruk encompasses the sculptures, seals, pottery, architecture, and other arts produced in Uruk, an ancient city in southern Mesopotamia that thrived during the Uruk period around 4200-3000 BCE. The city continued to develop into the Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia) around 2900-2350 BCE. Considered one of the first cities, the site of Uruk – modern-day Warka in Iraq – shows evidence of social stratification, institutionalized religion, a centralized administration, and what art historians would categorize as high art and architecture, the first in the long history of the art of Mesopotamia. Much of the art of Uruk shows a high technical skill and was often made using precious materials.
