Due to the seal’s small size and veining on the stone, many of the miniature details are only clearly visible via photomicroscopy. (all images Courtesy of The Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati, and used with permission).
Drawing of the detailed combat scene captured on an agate sealstone discovered by the University of Cincinnati’s Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis. (images Courtesy Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati).
The piece of stone may only be a little over 1.4 inches long (~3.5cm), but the meticulous detail of the carved scene featuring three warriors in hand-to-hand combat is a stunning display of ancient artistic skill and it may challenge our perceptions of naturalism in the Ancient Aegean era.
[…]
Jack Davis, who is one of the excavation’s co-leaders, suggests the find is unprecedented. “What is fascinating is that the representation of the human body is at a level of detail and musculature that one doesn’t find again until the classical period of Greek art 1,000 years later,” Davis explained to UC Magazine. “It’s a spectacular find. … Some of the details on this are only a half-millimeter big,” he said. “It seems that the Minoans were producing art of the sort that no one ever imagined they were capable of producing. … It shows that their ability and interest in representational art, particularly movement and human anatomy, is beyond what it was imagined to be. Combined with the stylized features, that itself is just extraordinary.”
The source for the battle scene may not be clear, but researchers believe that the miniature battle must reflect a legend that was well known to the people of the region. The tomb also held an intact skeleton, which UC researchers have labeled the “Griffin Warrior” for the discovery of an ivory plaque depicting a mythical griffin. The 3,500-year-old shaft grave also includes more than 3,000 objects, including four solid gold rings, silver cups, precious stone beads, fine-toothed ivory combs, and an intricately built sword.
You can read more at Hyperallergic, and definitely check out the Griffin Warrior.
I swear, the figure doing the stabbing is a woman. A very muscular and sexy warrior woman.
That was my first thought, before I saw the clarification drawing, and that thought held after seeing it, too. Could be a man, but it really reads as female to me.
I’ve worked with lead miniatures -- this piece is crazy amazing.
That is amazing!
When I was at Firefly Forge, Michael Bell told me an interesting thing about the carvings you see in Japanese lacquer and sword-fittings. They suddenly get much more complex and detailed … around the same time that Portuguese traders started bringing -- lenses. This thing was done with the naked eye, and agate is not my idea of fun to work with. Aiee!
I assume those are scabbards for the swords -- what an unusual shape!
This is just incredible. And if it was done without magnifiying glass, the incredibility is even more magnified.
There are uses for extremely myopic people. I didn’t need magnifiers before I got my cataracts fixed….
A very dynamic scene.
I wonder if the one about to be stabbed is wearing a (bronze) face mask. The details I can see don’t support it, but the face as a whole has a mask-like feel to it.
Isn’t it amazing? So strange, when an unprecedented object like this comes to light. There had to be a whole artistic tradition lasting a generation or two, minimum, for some genius to have crafted it. (By the assumption of mediocrity, this shouldn’t even have been the most virtuosic example of the tradition, which is hard for me to even imagine.) So much about the Bronze Age Mediterranean we don’t know. But I’m honestly surprised that nothing of this sort has ever come to light before. I guess they were fragile, and tradition or no, clearly we’re looking at some serious person-hours, so even across the duration of the period with seals of this detail and realism, there could never have been very many produced.
I’m imagining a single family, serving a single and not-very-long-lived dynasty, who made these, possibly only in the dozens total? Or maybe it really is a sport, a one-off, it took years and ruined some guy’s eyesight and nobody ever tried again. But the style of representation, not just the diminutive size is unprecedented, and surely that wasn’t the product of a single mind?
coragyps: Indeed, bronze age nearsight…
CJO:
From what I read at the Griffin Warriror site, this is the rarest of critters: an intact shaft grave. It seems most of them were looted ages ago, and who knows what was in them, and what ended up lost to all time? Whoever this person was, they were highly honoured, the grave goods were so extensive, they actually collapsed onto the remains. There was a beautiful comb, a bronze mirror, and some beautiful jewelry, among other things.
There may have been one extraordinary artist who did such seals, and of course, the cost would have been very high, so I don’t imagine there were ever many to begin with. I wish we knew more.
Ice Swimmer:
It looks like a mask to me on the stone and in the clarifying drawing. The shield is also interesting, there’s no easy open place on that soldier to strike, which makes the killing blow all the more extraordinary. If I had pulled that off, I’d want it commemorated too.
I want to know the legend. I’ve made one up for me, but I doubt it’s anything close to the real thing.