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Author Topic: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!  (Read 5848 times)

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Offline museumguy

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Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« on: February 05, 2007, 01:42:40 pm »
Just picked this up off the University of Pennsylvania Museum website.  Sounds like an interesting program for all those that can take the "heat"!!  Sipping Cosmopolitans and talking about the ancient world's vixens.  Sounds like a winner to me!  Those in the Philly area might want to attend.

Steve

http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/events/calitem.php?which=1144

Offline slokind

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2007, 03:54:26 pm »
I believe this is called outreach, also called fund-raising.  Poor innocent Aphrodite Anadyomeme!  I'm sure, though, that a good time will be had by all.  Pat L.

4to2CentBCphilia

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2007, 05:37:43 pm »
That is hysterical.

I am surprised some prudish benefactor hasn't put the kibosh on this.

M

bruce61813

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2007, 06:24:09 pm »
Either that or the prudish types were asked to "put up" or "be qiuet"  :evil:

Bruce

Online Jochen

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2007, 06:38:55 pm »
Perhaps this is 'political correct' to be considerate of our fellow citizens with migration background? I hope, they may not mutilate the statues!

Best regards

Offline slokind

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2007, 12:28:05 am »
IMHO, it is mock titillation.  That statue has only generalized breasts and the CENSORED paste-over is undergraduate humor, but to pixellate her mons Veneris, when the Greeks themselves never make a ravine in the mons, so to speak, is really trashy.  This is, BTW, the sort of Anadyomene, as a statuary type distinct from a Pudica, that figures on coins of Deultum, for example.  Posted, reply #14, in https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=34863.0  Pat L.

Offline LordBest

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2007, 01:19:56 am »
It is very sad to see a museum debasing itself, not to mention ancient art, in such a way.
                                                            LordBest. 8)

Offline slokind

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2007, 04:02:58 am »
Dear Young Fogey,  Well, it is a university museum, and its record in publications and excavations and the like is outstanidng, so probably it can afford to allow this license.  It isn't to my taste, either, I admit.  I don't put every ancient statue on a pedestal, but neither do I regard them as fodder for the media mentality.  Pat L.

Offline museumguy

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #8 on: February 06, 2007, 07:41:59 am »
Lord Best,

Pat is right.  They are a University Museum with outstanding scholarship, publications, and staff.  Being a University Museum there is often a greater challenge to raise funds than it is for, lets say, the Met, and to try to communicate to the general public, no matter how kitchy(?) it might be, the excitement of, in this case, ancient history.  Some times you have to dumb things down a bit and have a little fun in the hope that you can hook your members and/or the general public into further supporting the museum.  But, again, the Museum's focus on scholarship is second to none.

Steve

Offline LordBest

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2007, 07:47:22 am »
I do not have an issue with the event in general, it is just that there is plenty of legitmately "wild" Roman/Greek art available for this sort of thing without treating Aphrodite in such a coarse fashion. Nor am I condeming the museum for the advertisement, I merely think it is sad they have had to stoop to such things to attract the modern audience.
I am curious about the standard of their Cosmopolitans...
                                                                  LordBest. 8)

P.S. I have half a dozen books on the arms and armour (and much else)in the U of P Museum, I'm well aware of the quality of their scholarship.

Offline slokind

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #10 on: February 06, 2007, 03:48:18 pm »
Dear Lord Best: Your comment opened another window.  As a student of vase-painting and other small-size art, there is little I don't know about ancient bad girls and boys, and guys, and dirty old men in action.
The really sad commentary is that the university can get by with that treatment of an innocuous statue, whereas, if they showed something truly erotic, whole hog, or even details from a few of the tombs at Tarquinia, they would be in trouble with the Community ('town' as distinct from 'gown') immediately.  Bad trouble..."the outrageous behavior of protected Elites", and so on. People of my age and kind first learned, for example, what a peony looks like from paintings by Braque and learned the modus operandi of sex from the Ancients.
Pat L.

Offline awl

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #11 on: February 06, 2007, 06:49:52 pm »
The Roman culture has always been stereotyped as being cruel military dicators and "lovers" this event supports the view of modern society to the ancient culture.

If they read an ancient history book events like these would not happen.

Offline Gilgamesh

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Re: Ancient Girls Gone Wild!!!
« Reply #12 on: February 06, 2007, 11:13:00 pm »
 :o I've done a lot of research on gender and sexual issues in the ancient world and this activity looks considerably tamer than what one might dare to do if scholarship could escape prudery. I don't think they are sensationalising. More a nice mix of scholarship and light=heartedness for Valentine's Day. As for the statue, just a good visual joke about modern attitudes.

Delving into the "sordid affairs" of the ancients is an important component of understanding them as human beings, warts and all. Mixing it with humour is almost inescapable; human sexuality is hilarious!

Perhaps we should just hope that, in the interest of pure scholarship, they don't actually enjoy themselves?
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