mysteries monographs archaeology mediterranean

books:

Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology)

1 review
Kenneth D. S. Lapatin

Oxford University Press, 2002

A Great Book for Specialists
First, a reader alert - this is a superb work of scholarship, but its price and specialized nature may put it out of the reach of most readers. The book is divided into two parts. The first, a set of chronological essays, reviews in detail what is known about ancient Roman and Greek chryselephantine statues (that is, gold and ivory composites) based on archaeological evidence, physical ...

Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the Forging of History

5 reviews
Kenneth D. S. Lapatin

Houghton Mifflin, 2002

The Importance of a Forgery
For over eighty years, within the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, pride of place has been given to the Snake Goddess, a statue that is sixteen centimeters tall. She is a spectacular sculpture, long regarded as the pinnacle of Minoan art from the sixteenth century BCE. She is of delicately carved ivory decorated with gold, a sensuous figure in a wide skirt of multiple tiers, a narrow, belt-encircled ...