How Do We Look? Civilisations


How Do We Look?

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There are many places where you can come face-to-face

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with the ancient world,

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but I have to say, this is hard to beat.

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This colossal stone head is almost 3,000 years old.

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It was made by the Olmec,

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the earliest civilisation in Central America.

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It really is big.

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His eyeballs are more than a foot across

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and he weighs in at almost 20 tonnes.

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Between his lips, you can just about glimpse his teeth.

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And his irises are traced out on his eyes,

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and he has a furled, slightly frumpy brow.

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It's hard not to feel just a little bit moved

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by this close encounter

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with the image of a person from the distant past.

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Since it was unearthed in 1939,

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this head has been a real puzzle.

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Who does it depict?

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Why was it made?

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And why just a head?

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The Olmec left us very few clues.

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But what they did give us is a powerful, in-your-face reminder

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that, no matter where in the world, when civilisations first made art,

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they made it about us.

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I want to explore why that is.

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What were those early people doing this for?

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What part did images of the body play

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in the societies which first created them?

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I'm not just going to be concentrating on the artists -

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I want to take a different approach.

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I'll be trying to see these bodies through the eyes of the people

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who lived with them, used them, and looked at them.

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And that's not all.

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I want to show how one particular way of representing the human body -

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one that goes all the way back to ancient Greece -

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became more influential than any other,

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coming to shape our Western ways of seeing.

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And returning in the end to the Olmec,

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we'll see how the way we look can confuse and even distort

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our understanding of civilisations beyond our own.

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Can we ever look through the eyes of people in the distant past?

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It's hard, but just occasionally we get the chance.

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It was some 2,000 years ago

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when the Roman Emperor Hadrian arrived in Thebes

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with his entourage.

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He'd come for a look-see around the fringes of his empire,

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and to take in the wonders of ancient Egypt,

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already thousands of years old.

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Hadrian was by far the most committed traveller

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of all the Roman emperors.

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He seems to have got everywhere.

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And on this occasion, he wanted to visit

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perhaps the most famous heritage site in Egypt,

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perhaps the greatest five-star tourist attraction

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of the whole of the ancient world.

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It wasn't the great pyramids he longed to see,

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but these colossal statues.

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Made around 1300 BC,

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they were originally statues of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep,

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marking his tomb.

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But over time, their meaning had changed.

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And by Hadrian's day,

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they were thought to depict a mythical African king, Memnon.

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And what had made them such a draw

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was that one of the statues could do things no other statues could.

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If you were lucky and came early in the morning,

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believe it or not, he could sing.

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It was a bit like a lyre with a broken string.

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And even in its prime,

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it couldn't be relied upon to make a sound every day.

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It was taken as a very good omen if it did.

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What's amazing is that Hadrian's encounter is recorded

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thanks to a piece of vandalism.

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For ancient tourists, part of the fun was to have their reactions

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carved onto the statue's leg.

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In Hadrian's party, the vandal was a lady-in-waiting, Julia Balbilla,

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who recorded her impressions in Greek verse.

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I've waited half my life to be up here,

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searching out Balbilla's poetry.

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Here is one of the things she wrote,

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and in some ways this is the beginning of her diary

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of the Memnon experience,

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because on this occasion she says that they got here really early

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but didn't hear anything.

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But there's another one.

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It's got Julia Balbilla's name written at the top

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and this is a bit more triumphalist

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cos here she says her Lord Hadrian actually heard Memnon.

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The truth is, it's not great poetry,

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but the verses do give us that kind of first-hand glimpse

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of what it felt like to be here.

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And there's something touching about being able to

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tread in the footsteps of Hadrian's party,

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to share their gaze,

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even if we can't actually hear the singing.

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Nobody knows exactly how the sound was made or why it stopped

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because the statue is completely silent now.

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But one thing I think is clear -

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the story of Memnon's statue is a great example

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of how images of the human body operate in the world.

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Not just as passive objects to be admired or wondered at,

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but as players, as part of an interactive, two-way relationship.

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Singing might be a rarity, but images often do something.

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Even more, the story is a reminder that the history of art

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isn't just the history of artists,

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of the men and women who painted and sculpted -

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it's also the history of the men and women like Julia Balbilla

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who looked, who interpreted what they saw,

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and of the changing ways in which they did so.

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If we want to understand images of the body,

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I think we've really got to put those viewers

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back into the picture of art.

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And one of the best places to do that is ancient Greece -

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in particular, the city of Athens from around 700 BC.

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Never much more than a small town in our terms,

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it was a place where you could find people of different classes

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and backgrounds cheek by jowl in a grand experiment in urban living.

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And one of the most distinctive things about Athenian culture

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was an intense focus on the youthful, athletic body.

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This body was a symbol of political and moral virtue.

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And Athens became a whole city of images devoted to the human form.

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Greek art almost never means landscape.

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It almost never means still life.

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Greek art means statues and drawings,

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paintings and models of human beings.

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These images were everywhere.

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They were out in the world playing their part.

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Imagine the public plazas and the shady sanctuaries

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full of people in stone as well as people in flesh and blood.

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We begin to get the point of all this if we look at the art form

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that contained more bodies than any other.

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The red and black of Athenian ceramics.

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These are some of the finest examples we have.

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Made from around 600 BC,

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they were produced in luscious colours

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using an intricate process of multiple firings.

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They were turned out in their millions.

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And with almost every surface displaying pictures of people,

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it was pottery that made the human image ubiquitous across Athens.

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These are two of my very favourite Greek pots.

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This is ordinary crockery,

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it's everyday homeware,

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the kind of thing you might have found on the kitchen shelf

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in an Athenian house.

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The larger of the two is a rich man's wine cooler

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to be brought out at his drinking parties.

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The smaller one is an ordinary water jug.

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But the images on both are much more than just pleasing decorations.

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These images are telling the Athenians how to be Athenians.

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This one here is, in a sense, a template

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for being an Athenian wife.

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There she is.

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She's sitting down, she's being handed her baby

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by a servant girl

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and, at her feet, she's got a wool basket.

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That about sums up the answer to the question,

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what were Athenian wives for?

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They were for making babies and making wool.

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This one is a bit different

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because it's covered with mythical creatures called satyrs

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who are half human and half animal,

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and they're all over this getting absolutely plastered.

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They're balancing goblets in very silly places

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and this one here is having wine poured straight into his mouth

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from an animal skin.

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It's kind of the equivalent

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of drinking whisky straight from the bottle.

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Now, what was that doing on the drinking party table?

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If this pot was telling Athenian women how to be women,

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this one was raising more difficult questions

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about where the boundary really lies

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between the human and the animal,

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about how much wine you have to consume

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before you really do turn into a beast.

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These aren't government health warnings in our sense,

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but the images are one way in which the Athenians paraded

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their idea of what civilisation was,

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defining themselves against the barbarians beyond the city.

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And it's a version of civilisation that's a long way

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from the lofty ideas of Greek culture we're often pedalled.

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It's deeply gendered and rigidly hierarchical,

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and it explicitly derides all those

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who have faces or bodies or habits that somehow don't fit -

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from barbarous foreigners to the old and ugly,

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the fat and the flabby.

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But, like it or not,

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what we are seeing here are visual images

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constructing one idea of a civilised human being.

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Of course, the human body can do many different things

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and so can its images.

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And the Athenians exploited that range,

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creating other bodies for very different purposes.

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This is one of the most gorgeous memorial statues

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ever to have been found in ancient Greece.

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Her name is Phrasikleia

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and that means something like "aware of her own renown".

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Phrasikleia was carved in marble around 550 BC,

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and was only rediscovered in 1972.

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She has a wonderfully patterned dress,

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clothed for eternity in her finest.

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And the traces of red pigment are a useful reminder

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that most Greek sculpture was richly, even gaudily, painted.

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And she wears that smile -

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that sign of life so common in early Greek sculpture.

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What I like about her so much is the way that she engages us as viewers.

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She's looking straight ahead

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and she's challenging us to look back at her.

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She's got a flower in her hand -

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it's not quite clear whether it's for her

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or she's about to give it to us.

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And in the inscription, she actually almost speaks to us.

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It says that it is the tomb sculpture of Phrasikleia

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and then, as if in her own voice, it says,

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"And I shall always be called a maiden

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"because I got that name from the gods, instead of marriage."

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That is, she died before her wedding day.

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But what's great about it is the encounter it sets up,

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and it's the encounter that, if we try hard,

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I think we can still enjoy.

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Phrasikleia faces death in the most forthright way,

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resolutely refusing to be forgotten.

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But can an image of a person ever fix time,

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suspended death,

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or even, for a moment, deny it?

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That's what these vivid faces from Roman Egypt appear to do.

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Though 2,000 years have passed since these people died,

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it feels like they're still with us.

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They looks like the kind of portraits

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that hang on gallery walls.

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And that's where we often see them.

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But these portraits actually belong on coffins.

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Few have remained intact, but this is one of them.

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It contains a man named Artemidorus,

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and his extravagant sarcophagus portrays

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a cosmopolitan way of death.

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His mummy is a wonderful amalgam

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of the traditions of Egypt, of Greece and of Rome.

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On the casing, you can see typically Egyptian scenes -

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there's a mummy being laid out on a couch,

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and those strange animal-headed Egyptian gods.

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His name is Greek.

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"Artemidorus, farewell," it says.

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His face is a quintessentially Roman portrait.

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Of course, other cultures before had represented the human face,

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but it was the Romans who made this kind of individual likeness

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very much their own.

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Modelled with light and shade,

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flesh layered in paint and wax,

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and a clever catch light in the eyes,

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these were the means by which Roman painters captured

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the infinite variety that we see in the human face.

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When Romans thought about where the impulse to portraiture came from -

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even the impulse to painting as a whole -

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they had a very vivid story to tell

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about a young woman who was the creative genius

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behind the very first portrait.

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Her lover was going away on a long journey

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and before he went, she got a lamp

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and she threw his shadow against a wall

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and traced round it to create a silhouette.

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She was trying not just to memorialise him,

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but to keep his presence in her world.

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I think there's something like that going on

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with the face of Artemidorus.

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Domestic ware and tear,

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even children's scribbles on some coffins,

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suggest that they weren't instantly confined to the grave.

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For a while, they may have stood in the land of the living,

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perhaps in the family home.

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These portraits, then, are not just memorials -

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they're attempts to keep the presence of the dead

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among the living

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and to blur the boundary between this world and the next.

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Painted faces and sculpted bodies always played vital roles

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in the lives of ancient people who lived with them and looked at them.

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But how do we make sense of those ancient statues

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that were not designed to be seen at all?

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China, as we know it, was born around 200 BC,

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united under its first emperor, Qin.

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Just as the Romans would do in the West,

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he standardised everything in his efforts to exert control.

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Currency, weights and measures, taxes, roads and transport.

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They were sweeping reforms

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and he left his mark on all aspects of Chinese life.

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But no Roman emperor would ever be buried on the same grand scale

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as Qin, or with so many bodies.

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-TV:

-It was just a mile away from the mound to the east

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that the Chinese made their historic discovery.

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It was 1974 when farmers in Shaanxi province discovered

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fragments of human forms buried in the earth.

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Scenes of mass archaeology followed,

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the finds assembled in an extraordinary display.

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It lies beneath this vast hangar-like structure.

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It would capture the world's attention

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as the most surprising archaeological find

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of the 20th century.

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It was, of course, the Terracotta Army.

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It's a menacing sight,

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this grey, ghostly remnant of an army,

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rows and rows of life-sized terracotta soldiers.

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These figures represent the Imperial Guard of the Emperor Qin.

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They were buried with him at his funeral

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and stand guard over his tomb.

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There were once more than 7,000 of them,

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but only a fraction have been excavated,

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and that alone gives an idea of the vast scale of this whole complex.

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This is quite simply the biggest tableau of sculpture

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made anywhere in the planet ever.

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Millions come here to be wowed by the sight of the army.

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But it's not just the scale that's impressive - it's the detail, too.

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Up close, you can see the individual plates and rivets of their armour.

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And their heads have been modelled so no two look alike.

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The contours of their faces differ,

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eyes and ears delicately worked.

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And a range of styles and textures have been used for the hair.

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But the individuality that we're at first so struck by

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isn't quite as simple as it seems.

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It's true that no two of these figures are quite alike

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but the differences between them that the craftsmen have introduced

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turn out to be rather formulaic.

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There's not much more than a handful of different eyebrow types

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or different moustache types, for example.

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They're a very standardised, institutionalised version

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of individuality.

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As one archaeologist has nicely put it -

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their faces are likenesses,

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but they are likenesses of no-one.

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They're not, in the terms of Western art history, true portraits.

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Some have admired this ancient form of artistic mass production,

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others feel it a perfect way of expressing a regimented army.

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Whatever you feel about them,

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they certainly raise all kinds of questions about what a likeness is.

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But one thing is for sure -

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in the scale and complexity of the tomb

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and even, I think, in the artistic detail

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that the Emperor, dead or alive, could command,

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there's a strong assertion of imperial power.

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And that's definitely the message of what happened

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just a few years after the Emperor's death.

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Because the famous Terracotta Army that we see

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were discovered in pieces,

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smashed and burnt by a rebel

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against the dynasty of the first Emperor

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who launched a direct attack on his tomb.

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There's something in that keen desire to destroy them

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that gives us our clearest sense of the power of these images.

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It was one thing to destroy the images

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of the Emperor's terracotta protectors,

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and so to nullify his power beyond the grave...

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..but power in the here and now called for

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bodies of an entirely different order.

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This is the figure of Ramesses II,

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who ruled Egypt around 1200 BC.

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He was the pharaoh who invested more in his image than any other.

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And his figure is found all over Egypt.

0:26:420:26:46

But by far the most imposing and memorable

0:26:470:26:51

are these great colossal statues

0:26:510:26:53

that stand guard at his temple in Thebes.

0:26:530:26:57

The one thing you really get here is that size matters.

0:26:590:27:04

These vast monumental figures

0:27:040:27:07

with that nice hint that they'd be even bigger

0:27:070:27:10

if they bothered to stand up for you, simply dominate.

0:27:100:27:13

They take over your field of vision.

0:27:130:27:16

It's an assertion of the power of the Pharaoh

0:27:160:27:19

through his huge, superhuman enthroned body.

0:27:190:27:24

However fragile that power might have been in real life,

0:27:260:27:31

the modern world has comprehensively bought in

0:27:310:27:34

to the monumentality of the Egyptian ruler.

0:27:340:27:38

And it's impossible not to think that when people walked past here

0:27:390:27:44

3,500 years ago

0:27:440:27:46

that they, too, would have got what the message was intended to be.

0:27:460:27:52

This kind of bombastic, bare-chested display

0:27:540:27:58

fits the picture we have of autocrats today.

0:27:580:28:02

Impressive though such images are,

0:28:020:28:04

I'm sure some ancient Egyptians would have found them as vulgar

0:28:040:28:09

or as irritating as we might.

0:28:090:28:11

But beyond the gates of the temple there's another set of statues

0:28:120:28:17

whose power and purpose is harder to fathom.

0:28:170:28:20

Deep inside, we're dominated by yet more vast images of Ramesses

0:28:230:28:29

that can't be explained away as propaganda to the people.

0:28:290:28:33

Only those closest to the king were allowed

0:28:360:28:38

into this part of the temple.

0:28:380:28:40

So what was the point of these towering statues?

0:28:420:28:46

Some think they were aimed at powerful elites

0:28:480:28:51

to remind them who was boss.

0:28:510:28:53

Others think they were aimed at the all-seeing eye of the gods.

0:28:550:28:59

I've got a different viewer in mind.

0:29:000:29:04

And that's the pharaoh himself.

0:29:050:29:09

Those of us with no inkling of power on a grand scale often forget

0:29:090:29:16

how hard it must be to believe in oneself as monarch or autocrat.

0:29:160:29:23

The person who really needs to be convinced that he is pre-eminent

0:29:230:29:29

above the common herd

0:29:290:29:31

is that ordinary human being who is masquerading as omnipotent ruler.

0:29:310:29:37

That's why, as a basic rule of thumb,

0:29:370:29:40

we find more pictures of kings and queens in all their finery

0:29:400:29:45

in royal palaces than anywhere else in the world -

0:29:450:29:50

and here in Egypt, too.

0:29:500:29:53

Monumental images of pharaohs,

0:29:530:29:56

commissioned by pharaohs themselves in vast numbers,

0:29:560:30:01

played their part in convincing the pharaoh

0:30:010:30:05

of his own pharaonic power.

0:30:050:30:08

These sculptures help the name of Ramesses live on.

0:30:110:30:15

But the style of this statuary would have a different

0:30:160:30:20

and very extraordinary legacy.

0:30:200:30:22

Almost certainly inspiring the earliest statues

0:30:240:30:27

of the human form in Ancient Greece.

0:30:270:30:30

We are now on the Greek island of Naxos.

0:30:370:30:40

It's a place famed since ancient times for its marble.

0:30:420:30:45

With a coarse grain and grey-blue tint,

0:30:500:30:54

it was easy to quarry and easy to work.

0:30:540:30:57

From way back, it was shipped off to make

0:31:070:31:09

some of the earliest monumental Greek sculptures.

0:31:090:31:13

They were large, rigid and stylised figures like this.

0:31:140:31:19

And up in the hills of Naxos, there's a disused quarry

0:31:240:31:29

where you can find one of those giant figures

0:31:290:31:32

which never made it off the island.

0:31:320:31:34

I've read lots about this.

0:31:380:31:40

But I've never actually seen it.

0:31:420:31:44

What it is, is a vast marble statue,

0:31:470:31:53

half-finished, still in its quarry.

0:31:530:31:56

This half-man, half-mountain was hewn out perhaps as early as 700 BC.

0:32:000:32:08

As you can see, it was going to be

0:32:100:32:13

one of those massive, static early Greek sculptures.

0:32:130:32:16

Here are his feet.

0:32:200:32:22

And I'm now walking up past his legs.

0:32:240:32:28

This thing here, this must be his outstretched arm

0:32:310:32:37

and then right up here, we come to his head.

0:32:370:32:44

And by the looks of it,

0:32:440:32:47

he was going to have a beard, and they have already

0:32:470:32:49

roughed out the shape.

0:32:490:32:52

LAUGHS: Makes me think that some men can be very stubborn.

0:32:520:32:57

But this guy hasn't budged in 2,500 years.

0:32:570:33:02

Quite why he's still here is a mystery.

0:33:040:33:07

Something must have gone wrong but, whatever, this figure gives us

0:33:070:33:11

a great view of how the Greek sculptors went about their work.

0:33:110:33:16

They must have cut a trench out all the way round it

0:33:160:33:20

in order to get to it to work,

0:33:200:33:22

and you can see a rather neatly worked trench at the back.

0:33:220:33:27

For me, it's just a wonderful illustration

0:33:280:33:31

of the number of people

0:33:310:33:34

that must have been involved in making a statue like this.

0:33:340:33:38

And every one of these little pockmarks

0:33:380:33:40

has been made by somebody's tool,

0:33:400:33:42

with hundreds of men hacking away to get this statue like this.

0:33:420:33:48

I find it a bit sort of weirdly surreal.

0:33:550:33:58

But his feet make an extremely nice place to sit.

0:34:000:34:03

Forever lying here in repose,

0:34:070:34:10

he's a remnant of the style

0:34:100:34:11

that the Greeks were soon to leave behind.

0:34:110:34:14

Because shortly after he'd been abandoned,

0:34:170:34:19

Greek sculptors developed an astonishing new style

0:34:190:34:23

that was distinctly their own.

0:34:230:34:25

There is a fundamental

0:34:300:34:32

and universal paradox at the heart of the sculptors' art.

0:34:320:34:35

The lived human body,

0:34:380:34:41

its mobility, it's warmth,

0:34:410:34:43

its changing character, has to be fixed...

0:34:430:34:47

..suspended in the cold and lifeless mass that is stone.

0:34:480:34:53

It's always an artificial compromise.

0:34:560:34:58

But the beginnings of the fifth century BC

0:35:030:35:06

sees Greek sculpture spring almost to life.

0:35:060:35:10

The rigid figures of the past give way

0:35:120:35:15

to daring experiments in form...

0:35:150:35:17

..nuance and subtlety...

0:35:200:35:22

..movement and musculature.

0:35:240:35:26

In under 200 years, Greek sculptors seemed to have developed

0:35:280:35:33

the tricks and techniques to weave the illusion of a living human body.

0:35:330:35:38

So radical was the change

0:35:400:35:42

that it has been called the Greek Revolution.

0:35:420:35:46

The exact cause of this revolution

0:35:500:35:52

is one of the great mysteries of the history of art.

0:35:520:35:55

Some believe it was Greek democracy,

0:35:560:35:59

of its new respect for the individual that launched it.

0:35:590:36:01

Others, that Greek artists just got better.

0:36:030:36:06

In truth, we don't know.

0:36:080:36:09

But whatever the causes, over the next centuries,

0:36:110:36:15

it was to have some truly astonishing artistic consequences.

0:36:150:36:20

This is one of the places that the Greek Revolution leaves.

0:36:430:36:46

It's impossible not to see this as an amazing work of art.

0:36:490:36:52

Dating is hard, but my guess is that it was cast around 100 BC.

0:36:590:37:04

Here, the hallmarks of the Greek Revolution

0:37:050:37:08

are brought together and trained on the body

0:37:080:37:11

of a battered and bruised boxer.

0:37:110:37:12

Boxing was always an important part of the ancient athletic repertoire.

0:37:150:37:20

And you can tell that he once had a fit body,

0:37:200:37:24

but it's really suffered.

0:37:240:37:26

What is equally striking is the loving care

0:37:280:37:32

with which this wreck of a human being has been depicted.

0:37:320:37:36

He's got a broken nose and cauliflower ears,

0:37:370:37:41

flabby from where he has taken all those blows.

0:37:410:37:44

And, in fact, he is still bleeding from fresh wounds.

0:37:440:37:49

There, the blood is shown in copper

0:37:490:37:52

and the bruises on his cheeks are brought out

0:37:520:37:56

by the slightly different colour

0:37:560:37:59

of a slightly different bronze alloy.

0:37:590:38:02

It's almost as if the bronze

0:38:030:38:06

has become the man's skin.

0:38:060:38:09

What makes the boxer so impressive

0:38:120:38:14

isn't just the extraordinary technique.

0:38:140:38:17

It's the point the piece is making.

0:38:170:38:20

The artist has used the descriptive powers

0:38:210:38:24

of this version of realism to launch a devastating attack

0:38:240:38:28

on the body culture that obsessed the Ancient Greeks.

0:38:280:38:33

He introduces a very different type of character

0:38:330:38:37

from those early, youthful, well-toned athletes.

0:38:370:38:43

Not just in the wounds and the scars,

0:38:430:38:46

but in the emotional collapse.

0:38:460:38:48

In a world in which there was something of a cult

0:38:520:38:55

of youthful athletic prowess,

0:38:550:38:59

all those telling realistic details add up to a reminder

0:38:590:39:03

that the body beautiful was not so very far from the body brutalised.

0:39:030:39:09

This work of art is prodding

0:39:110:39:13

at the awkward underbelly of Greek culture.

0:39:130:39:16

It's the incisive brilliance of sculptures like The Boxer

0:39:190:39:23

that gives the impression that the Greek Revolution

0:39:230:39:26

was an unalloyed triumph of artistic achievement.

0:39:260:39:30

But there is another way of looking at the Greek Revolution,

0:39:320:39:36

and at its losses as well as its gains.

0:39:360:39:39

Remember Phrasikleia, who died unmarried?

0:39:430:39:46

She was made long before that revolutionary change.

0:39:470:39:51

What I love is her elegance and simplicity.

0:39:540:39:57

The way she reaches out, offering a gift, or meeting us eye-to-eye.

0:39:580:40:03

That directness is exactly what gets lost in the Greek Revolution.

0:40:070:40:13

Later sculptures may be more supple than Phrasikleia,

0:40:130:40:17

they may seem to move more adventurously,

0:40:170:40:21

but they don't engage us in the same way.

0:40:210:40:24

In fact, if you try to look them in the eye,

0:40:240:40:27

many of them coyly avoid your gaze.

0:40:270:40:31

And many of them, like The Boxer, seem lost in their own world.

0:40:310:40:37

It's almost as if the involved viewer

0:40:380:40:41

has become an admiring voyeur,

0:40:410:40:44

and we are one step on the way to sculpture becoming an art object.

0:40:440:40:51

Phrasikleia is determinedly resisting being an art object,

0:40:520:40:57

and one thing she is not is coy.

0:40:570:41:00

But the problems of the Greek Revolution don't stop here.

0:41:030:41:07

Just a few hundred years after Phrasikleia,

0:41:170:41:20

this is what female sculptures in the Greek world had become.

0:41:200:41:24

This sculpture exposes some of the dangers

0:41:300:41:34

in the pursuit of realism,

0:41:340:41:36

and that blurry and perilous boundary between artefact and flesh.

0:41:360:41:42

This notorious body belongs to the Greek goddess Aphrodite.

0:41:460:41:51

It is a Roman version of a ground-breaking

0:41:510:41:54

statue by the sculptor Praxiteles

0:41:540:41:57

in the fourth century BC.

0:41:570:41:59

In the ancient world, this was celebrated

0:42:000:42:03

as a milestone in classical art

0:42:030:42:07

because it was the first naked statue of a woman.

0:42:070:42:11

Today, it's difficult to see beyond

0:42:130:42:16

the ubiquity of images like this

0:42:160:42:19

and recapture just how daring and dangerous

0:42:190:42:22

it would have been for the ancient Greeks.

0:42:220:42:25

This sculpture broke through social conventions.

0:42:280:42:31

It wasn't just that up to this point

0:42:330:42:36

female statues had been clothed.

0:42:360:42:39

In some parts of the Greek world, real-life women -

0:42:390:42:43

at least among the upper-class - went around veiled.

0:42:430:42:46

But, in fact, it wasn't just the nakedness -

0:42:470:42:51

this Aphrodite broke the mould in a decidedly erotic way.

0:42:510:42:57

Just look at her hands.

0:43:020:43:04

Are they modestly trying to cover herself up?

0:43:040:43:08

Are they pointing us in the direction

0:43:090:43:12

of what we want to see most?

0:43:120:43:13

Or are they simply a tease?

0:43:150:43:17

Whatever the answer,

0:43:200:43:21

Praxiteles has established that edgy relationship

0:43:210:43:27

between a statue of a woman

0:43:270:43:29

and an assumed male viewer

0:43:290:43:31

that has never been lost

0:43:310:43:33

from the history of European art.

0:43:330:43:35

But that difficult boundary between statue and flesh

0:43:370:43:41

was understood by the Greeks themselves.

0:43:410:43:44

They told a tale that shows how they, too, knew of the perils

0:43:450:43:49

they faced in creating what they saw

0:43:490:43:52

as realistic images of the human body.

0:43:520:43:55

One night, it was said, a young man became so aroused by this statue,

0:43:560:44:01

he forced himself upon it, leaving a stain of lust on her thigh.

0:44:010:44:07

He later threw himself over a cliff to his death, in shame.

0:44:070:44:12

That story of the stain not only shows

0:44:150:44:20

how a female statue can drive a man mad,

0:44:200:44:24

but also how art can act as an alibi

0:44:240:44:29

for what was - let's face it - rape.

0:44:290:44:32

Don't forget - Aphrodite never consented.

0:44:320:44:36

But however troubling

0:44:400:44:41

the Greek Revolution was in its own time,

0:44:410:44:44

there's a deeper legacy that reaches the modern age.

0:44:440:44:48

One to which we are often blind.

0:44:480:44:50

Inherited by Ancient Rome, rekindled in the European Renaissance,

0:44:590:45:04

faith in the Greek version of realism persisted through time.

0:45:040:45:08

And as the reverence for the classical style grew,

0:45:180:45:22

it would be invested with even greater meaning.

0:45:220:45:25

Not just as a model for figurative art to aspire to,

0:45:270:45:32

but nothing less than a barometer of civilisation itself.

0:45:320:45:37

To understand the forces at work,

0:45:420:45:44

you have to follow in the footsteps of the classical bodies

0:45:440:45:48

that left their original habitat of Greece and Rome...

0:45:480:45:51

..and by the 18th century

0:45:560:45:58

had found themselves in distinctly foreign worlds,

0:45:580:46:03

adorning the mansions and palaces of Northern Europe.

0:46:030:46:06

Syon House was once the fashionable country house

0:46:130:46:17

of the first Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.

0:46:170:46:20

In the mid-1700s, they transformed the house

0:46:250:46:29

into a vivid and imagined expression of the classical world.

0:46:290:46:34

Here, we're in the company of ancient bodies -

0:46:390:46:43

both originals and imitations.

0:46:430:46:46

And it can seem an oppressive space

0:46:490:46:52

in which no other way

0:46:520:46:54

of representing the human form is permitted.

0:46:540:46:57

The climactic set piece of the house

0:47:020:47:05

is in a central hall

0:47:050:47:07

where two great masterpieces of ancient sculpture face off.

0:47:070:47:11

At one end, the Dying Gaul...

0:47:130:47:16

..a figure who is said to embody the ancient virtue

0:47:180:47:21

of nobility in defeat.

0:47:210:47:24

But in this room,

0:47:290:47:30

he is forever overshadowed by what stands opposite.

0:47:300:47:34

By far the most important sculpture in the entire house is this one.

0:47:440:47:49

It's a replica of a classical work

0:47:510:47:53

originally made perhaps around 300 BC.

0:47:530:47:56

In the 18th century, it would achieve

0:47:580:48:01

unparalleled fame as the greatest sculpture ever made.

0:48:010:48:07

He is known as the Apollo Belvedere.

0:48:070:48:09

The Apollo takes his name from the Belvedere Sculpture Court

0:48:130:48:17

in the Vatican, where, since the early 16th century,

0:48:170:48:21

he stood on display.

0:48:210:48:23

Lovely as he is, that is probably where he would have stayed,

0:48:240:48:28

one sculpture among many, had it not been for the international fame

0:48:280:48:34

given to him by one man - Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

0:48:340:48:39

"This was quite simply", he wrote,

0:48:420:48:45

"the most sublime statue of antiquity

0:48:450:48:48

"to have escaped destruction.

0:48:480:48:50

"An eternal spring time," he went on,

0:48:510:48:55

"clothes the alluring virility of his mature years

0:48:550:49:00

"with a pleasing youth

0:49:000:49:03

"and plays with soft tenderness upon the lofty structure of his limbs."

0:49:030:49:09

"How is it possible," he asked, "to describe it?"

0:49:100:49:13

Winckelmann had worked his way up as librarian

0:49:170:49:20

and right-hand man to some of the biggest art collectors of the day,

0:49:200:49:25

and, finally, he had become Director of Antiquities

0:49:250:49:28

at the Vatican itself,

0:49:280:49:30

and the author of some of the most important books on art history ever.

0:49:300:49:34

Winckelmann was a man who had enthused over

0:49:350:49:39

any number of Greco-Roman bodies,

0:49:390:49:42

but the Apollo Belvedere really tipped him over the edge.

0:49:420:49:45

But Winckelmann offered more than words of adoration.

0:49:530:49:56

He would devise a brand-new theory

0:50:000:50:03

that would leave an awkward and lasting legacy.

0:50:030:50:06

In the library at Syon is the book

0:50:090:50:11

in which Winckelmann first laid out his theories.

0:50:110:50:15

Originally published in 1764,

0:50:180:50:21

it was in these pages that the Apollo was elevated

0:50:210:50:25

above a mere artwork to stand

0:50:250:50:28

as the ultimate symbol of civilisation itself.

0:50:280:50:32

This is Winckelmann's most influential book,

0:50:370:50:40

History Of The Art Of The Ancient World,

0:50:400:50:44

and on the front page, there is, in fact,

0:50:440:50:46

a lovely drawing which includes the Apollo Belvedere.

0:50:460:50:51

And what he did that no-one had systematically done before

0:50:510:50:55

was to say that the best art

0:50:550:51:00

was made at the time of the best politics.

0:51:000:51:05

It was almost as if he was wanting to argue

0:51:050:51:08

that you could track the history,

0:51:080:51:11

the rise and fall of civilisation

0:51:110:51:14

through the rise and fall

0:51:140:51:17

of the representation of the human body.

0:51:170:51:19

Winckelmann's views would seduce

0:51:210:51:23

even our most esteemed art historians.

0:51:230:51:26

-KENNETH CLARK:

-This is the figure of the most admired

0:51:290:51:32

piece of sculpture in the world.

0:51:320:51:34

The Apollo surely embodies a higher state of civilisation.

0:51:350:51:39

For more than 200 years,

0:51:410:51:43

Greek sculpture was regarded

0:51:430:51:46

as a beacon of a superior Western civilisation.

0:51:460:51:51

The northern imagination takes shape in an image of fear and darkness.

0:51:510:51:56

The Hellenistic imagination

0:51:580:52:00

in an image of harmonised proportion and human reason.

0:52:000:52:03

But for me, Winckelmann's legacy goes even further.

0:52:060:52:10

The inheritance of Winckelmann

0:52:110:52:13

has been a distorting and sometimes divisive lens,

0:52:130:52:19

deeply affecting the way people in the West

0:52:190:52:22

have encountered and judged

0:52:220:52:25

the art of other very different civilisations.

0:52:250:52:28

I think Winckelmann

0:52:300:52:32

has caught us in a narrow way of seeing

0:52:320:52:36

that's difficult to perceive, much harder to escape.

0:52:360:52:39

But there is a place we can pin down the legacy of Winckelmann.

0:52:450:52:50

It is back where we started, with the art of the Olmec.

0:52:500:52:54

It was 1964,

0:53:010:53:03

and Mexico was investing in a new national identity

0:53:030:53:07

that asserted the glories of its ancient past,

0:53:070:53:11

and central to the project was art.

0:53:110:53:14

A new museum was purpose-built

0:53:190:53:22

to showcase the depth of Mexican history...

0:53:220:53:24

..and the treasures of its great civilisations

0:53:270:53:30

laid out for all to see.

0:53:300:53:32

Of vital importance

0:53:340:53:36

was the celebration of Mexico's earliest civilisation -

0:53:360:53:41

the Olmec.

0:53:410:53:42

Along with this and other colossal heads

0:53:440:53:47

was an array of extraordinary Olmec bodies.

0:53:470:53:50

This gathering of stone figurines

0:53:550:53:57

was found exactly as you see them.

0:53:570:53:59

Whether religious symbolism or ancient vanity,

0:54:040:54:08

this clay figure clasps a mirror to its chest.

0:54:080:54:11

And what looks like a baby

0:54:160:54:18

was one of hundreds known from Olmec cemeteries.

0:54:180:54:22

But star of the show was a brand-new acquisition.

0:54:260:54:31

It was the statue known as The Olmec Wrestler.

0:54:370:54:41

Its display of anatomical detail

0:54:420:54:45

and Greek-style proportion

0:54:450:54:47

made it one of a kind in Olmec art.

0:54:470:54:51

Held as proof that the Olmec Civilisation

0:54:560:55:00

was every bit as sophisticated as any in the classical world,

0:55:000:55:04

he quickly became a poster boy.

0:55:040:55:07

Not just for the Olmec, but for all of ancient Mexico.

0:55:070:55:12

And it is with The Wrestler that we see the impact of Winckelmann

0:55:170:55:22

and his version of classical form on our Western way of seeing.

0:55:220:55:27

What appeals to us about him are those shades of Greco-Roman art

0:55:350:55:40

that seem to fit with our own expectations

0:55:400:55:42

of artistic achievement -

0:55:420:55:44

the expressive twist of the body,

0:55:440:55:47

the apparently naturalistic muscles

0:55:470:55:50

and strikingly realistic face.

0:55:500:55:53

There's even the name that he's been given

0:55:530:55:55

with its echo of classical Greek sport.

0:55:550:55:58

If this is the work of an outstanding Olmec sculptor,

0:55:590:56:03

it's one who, by chance, got later Western tastes spot-on.

0:56:030:56:10

But so perfectly does he measure up to Western ideals,

0:56:120:56:16

that some now believe that he is, in fact, a fake -

0:56:160:56:21

the work of someone who understood the all pervasive allure

0:56:210:56:26

of the classical style.

0:56:260:56:29

If true, it shows how Winckelmann's legacy

0:56:290:56:32

can cloud our appreciation of other cultures,

0:56:320:56:35

even taint our understanding of the past.

0:56:350:56:39

But, real or fake,

0:56:400:56:42

The Olmec Wrestler shows that ancient images of human figures

0:56:420:56:47

can tell us much about the past, and even more about ourselves.

0:56:470:56:52

When we admire The Olmec Wrestler,

0:56:540:56:57

we are also facing our own assumptions

0:56:570:57:01

about what makes a satisfying image of a human being.

0:57:010:57:05

But it does more than that.

0:57:070:57:09

Because it always shifts the focus onto us as viewers

0:57:090:57:14

and onto our own prejudices.

0:57:140:57:15

So in a way, The Wrestler is an acute reminder

0:57:170:57:22

of one fundamental truth of the art of the body -

0:57:220:57:26

that it's not just about how people in the past

0:57:260:57:29

chose to represent themselves or what they looked like.

0:57:290:57:33

It is also about how we look.

0:57:330:57:37

The Open University has produced a free poster

0:57:410:57:44

that explores the history of different civilisations

0:57:440:57:47

through artefacts.

0:57:470:57:48

To order your free copy, please call...

0:57:500:57:52

Or go to the address on screen

0:57:580:58:00

and follow the links for The Open University.

0:58:000:58:02

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