Everything about Antikythera Ephebe totally explained
The bronze
Antikythera Ephebe is a statue of a young man of langourous grace that was found by sponge-divers in the area of an ancient shipwreck off the island of
Antikythera in 1900, the first of the series of Greek bronze sculptures that the
Aegean and
Mediterranean yielded up in the twentieth century, which have fundamentally altered the modern view of
Ancient Greek sculpture. By the end of 1902 the same wreck site also yielded the
Antikythera Mechanism, an astronomical calculating device, and a characterful head of a Stoic philosopher. The hoard of coins found in the wreck included a disproportionate quantity of
Pergamene cistophoric
tetradrachms and
Ephesian coins, leading scholars to surmise that it had begun its journey on the
Ionian coast, perhaps at Ephesus; none of its recovered cargo has been identified as from mainland Greece (Myers 1999).
The slightly over lifesize
Ephebe was retrieved in numerous fragments; its first restoration was revised in the 1950s, under the direction of Christos Karouzos, changing the focus of the eyes, the configuration of the abdomen, the connection between the torso and the right upper thigh and the position of the right arm; the re-restoration is universally considered a success (Myers 1999).
The
Ephebe doesn't correspond to any familiar iconographic model, and there are no known copies of the type. He held a spherical object in his right hand, and possibly may have represented
Paris presenting the
Apple of Discord to
Aphrodite; however, since Paris is consistently depicted cloaked and with the distinctive
Phrygian cap, other scholars have suggested a beardless, youthful
Heracles with the
Apple of the Hesperides. The loss of the context of the
Antikythera Ephebe has stripped it of its original cultural meaning. It has also been suggested that the youth is a depiction of
Perseus holding the head of the slain
Gorgon.
The
Ephebe, dated by its style to about 340 BC, is one of the most brilliant products of Peloponnesan bronze sculpture; the individuality and character it displays have encouraged speculation on its possible sculptor: perhaps it's the work of the famous sculptor
Euphranor, trained in the
Polyclitan tradition, who did make a sculpture of Paris, according to Pliny:
» By Euphranor is an Alexander [Paris]. This work is specially admired, because the eye can detect in it at once the judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen, and yet the slayer of Achilles.
The
Antikythera Ephebe is conserved in the
National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
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