"Roman seal ring with Achilles killing Penthesilea found" Topic

… in Pyrenees

"A Roman seal ring with a gemstone carved with a dynamic image of Achilles supporting Amazon queen Penthesilea after he killed her has been discovered at the archaeological site of Tossal de Baltarga in the Catalan Pyrenees. The ring is made of a single wide hoop of iron with the oval intaglio gemstone set in a beveled border. From comparison to similar types found at other sites, the ring dates to around 100-50 B.C.

Achilles, in full armor wielding sword and shield, is depicted supporting a dying Penthesilea, his helmet crest waving as he turns. He has fatally wounded her. The Amazon queen is on her knees with her head bowed, leaning on her labrys. Achilles attempts to hold her up below her left arm. Their clothing is finely detailed, his double-row pteruges (the skirt of leather or stiffened linen flaps worn under Roman and Greek cuirasses) and shoulder strips are individually outlined. Penthesilea's chiton is meticulously rendered with pointed tails on the short skirt and diagonal folds wrapping her thighs leaving her legs free. You can even see the lines of her sandals on her right foot. Her hair is in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. All of this carved into a stone just 17 x 15.5 mm (.7 x .6 inches)…."

More here
link

Armand

A bizarre choice for a seal but nonetheless it is exquisite craftsmanship.

If I'd found it, I'd wear it for awhile.

"You like my ring, this old thing? I found it on the beach".

I worked on an archelogy project years ago. I was 19 and worked as a "lab rat", id and cleaning different artifacts brought in from the field.

Most were small pieces of pottery, nails, bits of glass, broken ends of clay pipes, etc.

One day, a large item comes in. Cleaned off it turns out to be a British cannonball fired into Charlestown during the Battle of Bunker Hill!

As I cleaned it off, I was struck by the thought that the last human hand to hold this was a British gunner during the battle.

I thought of "liberating" it and taking it home, how cool would it be to have a cannonball from that battle. No, I dutifully logged it in, put it in a plastic bag, then stored it in a cardboard box with other items found at that grid reference and ……. later learned that it had been moved into a government warehouse and stored, just like the end of Indiana Jones.

Might as well have left it in the ground as it will be another 300 years before another human hand picks this cannon ball up.

I also learned after I left the project that they found 4 other cannonballs in the same area, so it would have been NO loss to the "historic" collection.

Drat my ethics.

Oddball, you did the right thing. Shouldn't sell your integrity, even for a cannonball!

Museums have far too much junk that just just gets stored away and never looked at.
I'm thinking that the next time that junk sees the light of day will be 2000 years from now, when another batch of archaeologists dig it from this amazing warehouse…. and stash it away in another warehouse. In the meantime, we still won't know what flag the 5th Pennsylvania carried in 1779, because it's buried away, uncataloged.

Back to the original subject. Achilles was a son of a bitch.

Why?…

Armand

Oh, his treatment of Hector's corpse. Violating and raping the corpse of Penthiselia whom he had just killed. Sense a pattern? Little things like that.
Next to Agamemnon, he's the least likable Senior "Greek" of them all. Or maybe he's #1.

Of course it all depends on which source you read. It's not in the Iliad, of course.
But try Quintus of Smyrna.
But Thersites mocks Achilles for "falling in love with her" after he had slain her. Enraged, Achilles gouges out Thersites' eyes with a spear, making another black mark against his character.
Some of the sources and interpretations take this to mean that Achilles raped her corpse.

While "researching" this (Googling ) I came across a feminist article about necrophilia, and it specifically mentions this. So it's well known.
Read Bullfinch, or Graves. Pick a name at random, and you will have a half dozen wildly contradictory stories and sources of some one of the Seven Against Thebes, for instance.
A "modern scholar" has to reconcile them. Heck, even the Greeks couldn't.
So, am I cherry picking "bad things about Achilles"? Of course I am. Even when I only knew the Iliad, I couldn't stand him. The incident with Hector's corpse is enough to render him despicable. And his pouting.

Yea, I always thought Achilles was a thug. (Maybe I'm not a fan of Brad Pitt either). And I'm way more sympathetic to the Trojans in defending their city from a bunch of plunderers.

How do we know the figures on the ring represent Achilles and what's her name, and not some generic ancient thug?

Well, the dominant figure is a "Greek". Yeah, they had their own "Osprey problems" then.
And the other figure is definitely an Amazon type. Trousers, a chiton tunic, a labrum axe. That's "Amazon".
The story was well known.

Now, I'm not quite sure if he's carrying a lyre Telecaster, but I'd have to see what the wax impression showed.

^^ Copy the image and reverse it in a photo editor. Then his left arm will be holding the shield correctly.

" Achilles attempts to hold her up below her left arm."

Actually her right arm, if the image is reversed… ;-)

So, it's not a Telecaster?

That is some beautiful craftsmanship. I never cared for Achilles either.

Thanks!

Armand