Hellenistic Sculpture from the Excavations of Tell Abu Ghafil (Al-Suwayrah) 2024
(An analytical Study)
Abstract
When classical Greek civilization began to flourish, the Near East had witnessed nearly 2,500 years of historical experience. The cultures, economic sciences and political systems) of western Asia formed a sober structure that influenced the later Greek civilization in an orderly way but not fully explained form. Therefore, this research may allow us to see the details related to mutual influences and also the impact of Hellenism on Mesopotamia in a way that opens the way for students to enter this world easily. There was no philosophy separating East from West, the Greeks adopted or borrowed elements of Eastern culture and thought such as the alphabet, mathematics, music, and human-depicted gods. Accordingly, we hope that this combined analytical study of an artwork we are dealing with, both archaeologically and historically, will give us more information, not only about the function of art in society, but also, when the artistic-societal form is recognized to determine the history of individual sculptures. As for this piece of art, we studied and analyzed, it is a female head made of white marble, with a fracture and a missing part at the top of it and a layer of black paint. As mentioned above, the head represents a woman presents overwhelming features of beauty and softness in the facial details that the artist-maker excelled in directing in this way. The piece, through some of the details that we see in it, seems to be made for an elite figure of the people or of a goddess idolized in this era, Aphrodite, who came out to us here with a great deal of calm, tranquility and beauty, which is embodied in a wide soft forehead and very soft cheeks that reflect a degree of goodness and perfection. Through the above description and presentation of this piece of art, the researches may notice the features of Greek art, manifesting in it the measure of all the details that the artist worked to remove from a wonderful piece of stone.
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