Thursday, December 2, 2010

Dying Chieftain:

This morning in Greek we looked at this sculpture, the Dying Gaul. At first glance, it seems to be your typical Roman copy of a Greek Hellenistic Bronze that was probably melted down for money or armor at some point. So what's so weird about Romans wanting to reproduce a naked man in distress? Nothing. Ancient Greeks and Romans are totally in to that. But wait-I invite you to take a closer look at this sculpture. Notice anything strange?



Maybe you are thinking, "You said this was a chieftain. How do you know? He's naked!" Excellent question. Gallic warriors wore beards; their chiefs shaved...But now that you are thinking about facial hair, you may want to look again. That's right. This man has a mustache even Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds would envy.
But that's not all (oh no, it certainly isn't). That thing around his neck? I admit, it is difficult to really tell on the marble copy, so please allow me to explain. In originality, his necklace or Torc, if you will, would have been gold leafed. The bronze original likely had a real gold Torc. Fascinating, I know.So why am I still talking about his man jewelry? Because it is a gold chain. That's right. This ancient warrior has both stache' and chain (no wonder Greeks loved young boys. Too far?). To get a better look, see below.
So far he is two for two. Now, completing the par, enters the star of the show; this man has a feathered mullet that even I couldn't pull off (and for those of you who don't know me, let me tell you, I know a thing or two about mullets).

So not to jump to conclusions or anything, but I'm pretty this man time traveled to the late 70s/early 80s, picked up a style guide, and then headed back to antiquity to rock Anatolia.

8 comments:

Emily said...

Best post EVER!!! Can we please post it on the canon? It is the greatest.

Claire said...

I love this! I covet his mullet. I really do.

Li-Sha said...

hahaha! i wish i could grow a mustache like him. and i'm a girl.

GG Baker said...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA- yep, that's my girl!

Rachel // Maybe Matilda said...

Humanities just got so much more interesting.

Amanda S. said...

Awesome. I'm totally seeing it.

Eric Harker said...

Was that Mark J killin' it in that class? Just glad you didn't post the "Scraper" statue with the wrestler scraping nappy sweat/mud off himself.

Cassandra said...

Hahahaha! Oh, man. Can I please time-warp back to art history classes with you? The best part is I've always had the same feeling about this guy as you. People get really emotional around this statue and I just got white-van-creeped-out.