ASCSA/Parthenon Reflection
(Praying Athena comes in clutch to help me remember all the artists in this book.)
One cannot dismiss Dr. Tsakirgis as an expert on the subject that she is presenting. The first almost ten minutes of the video was someone listing off her impressive and varied accomplishments in both academia and in field work in the ancient world. Even an appointment to the Tennessee Architectural Society by the governor! Her credentials just didn’t stop!
The thing that stood out the most to me was how the art of the mosaics evolved from their earliest forms. Many of the designs and images initially were used only for decoration and to be aesthetically pleasing. Eventually, these beautiful images evolved to take on more important symbolic meanings to the Ancients, such as the rosettes becoming a ward for evil or malignant forces, or the many, many interpretations of the wheel, or the bird from Aphrodite.
Another fascinating piece of the presentation was just how widespread and almost standardized these mosaics came to be. They have been found all around the Mediterranean, in Greek and Roman cities as the Greeks came to be dominated by Rome during the Hellenistic period (a period that was cited as Dr. Tsakirgis’s expertise).
I see this as just another piece of evidence showing how truly connected the Ancient world was. These peoples from all around the Mediterranean were using all the same images, possibly not for the same purposes or same interpretations, but they were still using the same images. And even within the same culture, there were different interpretations and uses, such as between men and women, young and old.












