Metrological Relief | |
---|---|
Material | Marble |
Size | length: 2.09 meters height: 62 cm |
Created | 460–430 BC |
Discovered | 1625–26 Turkey or Greece |
Discovered by | William Petty |
Present location | Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom |
The Metrological Relief is an Ancient Greek relief of a man with arms outstretched, cut with hammer and chisel on a triangular, marble slab between 460 and 430 BC. [1]
It was found in Turkey or the Greek Islands in 1625–26 by a chaplain called William Petty collecting sculptures for Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. It was sold to Sir William Fermor in 1691 and then presented to Oxford University in 1755. It is now on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom. It was the only known metrological relief until 1988 when another was found on Salamis Island, Greece.
The relief measures 2.09 m long, 62 cm high, c. 10 cm thick and is broken over the figure's left forearm but when complete it measured one Greek fathom or orguia. [2] There is also an image of a foot above the right forearm which measures 29.7 cm, an imprint of a clenched fist over the right forearm of 11 cm and fingers, which measure between 1.85 and 2 cm. [3] Eric Fernie studied the relief and noted its ancient measurement of the Greek fathom. [4]
Sir Arthur John Evans was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age.
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. It is also the world's second university museum, after the establishment of the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1661 by the University of Basel.
A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems equal to 6 feet (1.8288 m), used especially for measuring the depth of water. The fathom is neither an international standard (SI) unit, nor an internationally accepted non-SI unit. Historically it was the maritime measure of depth in the English-speaking world but, apart from within the US, charts now use metres.
The cubit is an ancient unit of length based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It was primarily associated with the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Israelites. The term cubit is found in the Bible regarding Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and Solomon's Temple. The common cubit was divided into 6 palms × 4 fingers = 24 digits. Royal cubits added a palm for 7 palms × 4 fingers = 28 digits. These lengths typically ranged from 44.4 to 52.92 cm, with an ancient Roman cubit being as long as 120 cm.
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Eric Campbell Fernie is a Scottish art historian.
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Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 581 is a papyrus fragment written in Ancient Greek, apparently recording the sale of a slave girl. Dating from 29 August 99 AD, P. Oxy. 581 was discovered, alongside hundreds of other papyri, by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt while excavating an ancient landfill at Oxyrhynchus in modern Egypt. The document's contents were published by the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1898, which also secured its donation to University College, Dundee, later the University of Dundee, in 1903 – where it still resides. Measuring 6.3 x 14.7 cm and consisting of 17 lines of text, the artifact represents the conclusion of a longer record, although the beginning of the papyrus was lost before it was found. P. Oxy. 581 has received a modest amount of scholarly attention, most recently and completely in a 2009 translation by classicist Amin Benaissa of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Susan Walker is an archaeologist specialising in the study of Roman art. She was previously the Keeper of Antiquities and is currently an Honorary Curator of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Asthall barrow is a high-status Anglo-Saxon burial mound from the seventh century AD. It is located in Asthall, Oxfordshire, and was excavated in 1923 and 1924.
Jane Elizabeth Ann Masséglia is an ancient historian and Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Leicester.
Maria Millington Lathbury, Lady Evans (1856–1944) was a classical scholar, archaeologist and numismatist. An alumna of Somerville College, she campaigned for Oxford University to award degrees to women. Along with Ethel Abrahams, she was one of the first female scholars of classical Greek dress. She married the archaeologist John Evans, and their daughter was art historian Joan Evans.