"Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" - 07/16/07 03:26 PM
Re: aposematic
Reminds me of a most popular word we threw aroung indiscriminately in ancient art history/classical archaeology -- apotropaic, Gk apo + trepein, turn (turning away/warding off [evil/bad things/grave robbers, etc.]). Basically, anything ugly, foreign or otherwise inexplicable is considered to be apotropaic. Typical examples are sphinxes, gorgoneia. beasts like lions, esp in an architectural context, protomes (cf. med. gargoyles), phalloi, eyes, etc. It's not always easy to explain how a sphinx drawn on an 8" pot would be meant to turn away [evil], and one suspects that it's often a simplistic, catch-all explanation ...
Cheers
CM Witt
Reminds me of a most popular word we threw aroung indiscriminately in ancient art history/classical archaeology -- apotropaic, Gk apo + trepein, turn (turning away/warding off [evil/bad things/grave robbers, etc.]). Basically, anything ugly, foreign or otherwise inexplicable is considered to be apotropaic. Typical examples are sphinxes, gorgoneia. beasts like lions, esp in an architectural context, protomes (cf. med. gargoyles), phalloi, eyes, etc. It's not always easy to explain how a sphinx drawn on an 8" pot would be meant to turn away [evil], and one suspects that it's often a simplistic, catch-all explanation ...
Cheers
CM Witt