Winged representations of the soul in ancient Greek art from the late Bronze Age through the Classical period
Date
2010-02-03T18:57:42Z
Authors
Ross, Tina
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Abstract
This thesis argues that the bird depicted in art found in funerary contexts of the Greek Bronze Age is a representation of the soul released from the body. This conclusion was reached by tracing the origins of the avian qualities of the winged psyche present in Classical funerary art. The soul begins as a bird in the Bronze Age in certain funerary contexts and this continues in the Geometric period. In the Archaic period, the soul takes on human characteristics and it is represented by a figure with human head and feet but a bird body with wings. In the Classical period, the soul is mostly human with only wings remaining as a vestige of the avian origin. These soul-birds appear in art found in funerary contexts that depict some stage of the funerary ritual.
The thesis begins by discussing the Greek concept of the soul and how it was first conceived as several different entities but then became unified under the term psyche. The main evidence in this first chapter is the Homeric epics, which date to the eighth century BC, the mythic cycle of Orpheus. which was popular in the sixth century BC, and the philosophy of Plato from the fourth century BC. The progression of the soul toward a unitary model is important to this argument because it complements the increasing amount of human qualities that the bird in art acquires. Chapter Two outlines the funerary customs of the ancient Greeks in order to show how the Greeks treated the dead body and to show how they may have perceived the soul. Chapter Three details some of the scholarship on the birds including early theories about the soul as a bird. The most popular theory is that the bird represents a divine epiphany, meaning a manifestation of the divine in this world, but it is applied uncritically and it is not always appropriate for the bird in funerary art. Chapters Four, Five, and Six discuss the art of the Bronze Age, Geometric period. and the Archaic and Classical periods, respectively. The overall conclusion of this thesis is that the bird in funerary art of the Bronze Age can represent the soul of the deceased in some funerary contexts and it is the antecedent of the winged souls of the art in the Classical period. The aim is not to disprove the theory of divine epiphany in bird form, but to assert and highlight another possible interpretation in order to open up other avenues of interpretation and to shed light on Greek conceptions of the soul.
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Keywords
Greek art, ascension of the soul, Bronze Age