Greek Dress

Greek Dress - A Study of the Costumes Worn in Ancient Greece, from Pre-Hellenic Times to the Hellenistic Age

In seeking to conjure up a vivid picture of the life of an ancient people, it is the task of the archologist to neglect no point that can in any way throw light on the manners and customs which that people practised from day to day, both in the exercise of their public duties and in the privacy of their own homes. Just as the habits and dress of an individual frequently give a true impression of his character and type of mind, so the salient characteristics of a nation are reflected in the external details of their manners and their costume. In making a careful study of the Greeks, therefore, whose innate feeling for beauty was part of their very being, and whose sense of the fitness of things rarely if ever played them false, we shall expect to find our efforts amply repaid, both by the satisfaction given to the sthetic sense and by the knowledge we[p. 2] shall have gained of the development of the national character. The study of costume has, moreover, an ethnological significance which in itself justifies a detailed investigation of the subject. Professor Ridgeway, in The Early Age of Greece, has pointed out that the civilization reflected in the Homeric poems differs in many essential points from that which is revealed by the monuments found at Mycenan sites on the mainland of Greece and in the gean islands. Confirmation has since been added to his convincing arguments by the discoveries of Mr Arthur Evans in Crete, which prove that the so-called Mycenan remains were but the last efforts of a dying civilization which stretched back at least as far as the third millennium before our era. The culture revealed by the excavations at Knossos and other sites in Crete presents a striking contrast to that of the Greeks of the classic period; whereas the state of society described in the Homeric poems seems to contain analogies with both periods. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 51128
Author: Abrahams, Ethel Beatrice
Release Date: Feb 5, 2016
Format: eBook
Language: English