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Mar. 24th, 2006 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endymions_bowerAncient Sarcophagus Unearthed in Cyprus
NICOSIA, Cyprus -- A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday […] Experts believe the ornate decoration features the hero Ulysses in scenes from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey -- both hugely popular throughout the Greek world. In one large painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep. Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans from the Iliad. Archeologists think the scenes hint at the status of the coffin's occupant. "Why else take these two pieces from Homer and why deal with Ulysses? Maybe this represents the dead person's character -- who possibly was a warrior," Flourentzos said. Other drawings depict a figure carrying a seriously injured or dead man and a lion fighting a wild boar under a tree. These are not believed to be linked with Homer's poems.
Or perhaps this is evidence of an earlier origin than previously suspected for the symbolic interpretation of the Odyssey which identified the wanderings of Odysseus with the peregrinations of the mortal soul on its way to resurrection?
Neoplatonists interpreted the Trojan War as a symbol for the conflict by which forms struggle to establish themselves in the physical world, the wandering paths of the heroes returning home after the war being symbols for the diverse routes souls find back to their sources in the ideal, whether this is enlightenment during life or the arrival at the place of choice between lives, as in the tenth book of Plato's Republic.
NICOSIA, Cyprus -- A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday […] Experts believe the ornate decoration features the hero Ulysses in scenes from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey -- both hugely popular throughout the Greek world. In one large painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep. Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans from the Iliad. Archeologists think the scenes hint at the status of the coffin's occupant. "Why else take these two pieces from Homer and why deal with Ulysses? Maybe this represents the dead person's character -- who possibly was a warrior," Flourentzos said. Other drawings depict a figure carrying a seriously injured or dead man and a lion fighting a wild boar under a tree. These are not believed to be linked with Homer's poems.
Or perhaps this is evidence of an earlier origin than previously suspected for the symbolic interpretation of the Odyssey which identified the wanderings of Odysseus with the peregrinations of the mortal soul on its way to resurrection?
Neoplatonists interpreted the Trojan War as a symbol for the conflict by which forms struggle to establish themselves in the physical world, the wandering paths of the heroes returning home after the war being symbols for the diverse routes souls find back to their sources in the ideal, whether this is enlightenment during life or the arrival at the place of choice between lives, as in the tenth book of Plato's Republic.
