Talk:Orientalizing period

Daedalic

Daedalic redirects here, yet the term does not appear in the article.— Randall Bart ^(talk) 06:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Time period reference

"In the history of ancient Greece, the Orientalizing period is the cultural and art historical period informed by the art of Anatolia, Syria, Assyria, Phoenicia and Egypt, which started during the later part of the 7th century BCE.[dubious – discuss]"

Should perhaps read "early part of the 7th century BCE" (which equates to late 600's BCE) based upon foot-noted citations?

--Flausa123 (talk) 20:32, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the late 8th or early 7th century (i.e. about 700 BC) is about right. It would help to use references though.

Actually, the entire page is "more or less right", I suppose, it's just that so far nobody has bothered to invest much work in it, and for a start its content should really be based on the references directly. There should be a no-nonsense report on what art historians have to say, and the interesting part will then be a section about what Burkert 1992 had to say about the whole cultural context of this. --dab (𒁳) 12:20, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

googling the term, I find some sources just equating it with the 7th. c. while others take it to last mid 8th to mid 7th (nb overlapping with the "geometric period"). This stuff isn't set in stone, of course, it's natural that the old-style vases should have been produced alongside the new-style ones for many decades. Late 8th and much of the 7th seems about right. Also, Egyptian influence seems to increase later on in the 7th, so it may make sense to spend more time on distinguishing Assyrian/Syrian from Egyptian elements. --dab (𒁳) 12:25, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

A pan-Mediterranean movement

Although the Greeks ended up dominant in the northern Mediterranean trade, during the Archaic period they shared the sea with Phoenicians and Carians. The Phoenicians reached Etruria first. It looks like they reached Caria first too, because their alphabet takes an independent departure from the Phoenician base (which is why the language took so darn long to interpret, despite that everyone's first candidate was Luwic). I have edited this essay to make the subject more universal. I agree that the Greeks were the most important of the "Orientalisers", if that's a word; so they'll remain the focus.-- Zimriel (talk) 14:47, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I came here to say the same thing. Srnec (talk) 20:11, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Israel

I removed Israel because the Orientalizing period concerns craftmanship and artistic representations, which one wouldn't expect as an influence from the Old Kingdom of Israel with its inchoate hostility to iconic representations. I checked in Burkert and a few other books and can find no evidence for this. This is massive evidence for mythic, legendary and other cultural overlaps between Palestine and Greece, but that is a distinct issue from art.I'll be happy to be corrected on this, if a strong academic source can be found.Nishidani (talk) 19:26, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

If you think the Old Kingdom of Israel Had an inchoate hostility to iconic representations at the relevant period, which I would have thought questionable! Syria arguably covers the area at this point, or we might use Levant. The initial addition of that bit (by me, with a reference) of course had no reference to Israel, which was added by this editor, who does a lot on Jewish stuff and nothing on ancient Greek stuff. Johnbod (talk) 21:31, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Singling out Israel's ancient kingdom means identifying the specific cultural traits characteristic of that early culture as it differentiated itself from the larger northwest Semitic traditions of Canaanite/Phoenician culture and then finding them inflecting Graeco-Mediterranean art. The evidence of extensive, if not indeed profound interpenetration between those two culture-zones has been confirmed incrementally since 1946, and especially after the 1960s. In itself I find nothing odd for the possibility of such a reverse flow, even from the innovative court arising in northern Palestine - after all part of David's bodyguard consisted of Greek mercenaries. One just has to have a source for the artistic impact. The other factor influencing my elision was that the ancient kingdom of Israel was destroyed before the onset of the Orientalizing period in Greek art; admittedly my point about iconic representation is a tad anachronistic, since that emerges in biblical literature postdating both periods. My apologies: I was tired after a long and exhausting offwiki day. Nishidani (talk) 07:29, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

By the way, your original edit

In the Archaic phase of ancient Greek art, the Orientalizing period is the cultural and art historical period which started during the later part of the 8th century BCE, when there was a heavy influence from the more advanced art of the Eastern Mediterranean and Ancient Near East. The main sources were Syria and Assyria, and to a lesser extent also Phoenicia and Egypt, though motifs were adapted by the Greeks, making it rarely possible to point to a single clear source.

looks better than what we have at the moment. You might reconsider tweaking it back.Nishidani (talk) 10:59, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks - done that. Johnbod (talk) 15:47, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

References