Thracian gladiators were one of the four most common gladiatorial groups in Ancient Rome. They evolved during the 2nd century BC when the Romans discovered the race of warriors in the northern Greece region of Thrace. 
The armor of the gladiators was used to helped draw the crowds to the games and their helmets became works of art. Thracian helmets changed a great deal over the centuries, especially during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, which allows them to be dated depending on their features. Earlier helmets have no visor, leaving the eyes exposed to the attacker while the cheeks are covered with plates, and the narrow rim protecting the face like a hat was only slightly curved. On the other hand, more recent helmets contain a grill covering the eye, a wider rim and a more covered neck piece, as shown in the photo.
Today standing guard on the Giza pyramid complex’s eastern face, the Great Sphinx in fact predates Ancient Egypt’s most famed architectural achievements by at least 500 years. Modern archaeology tells us that the Sphinx was built during Old Kingdom Egypt’s fourth dynasty, sometime between 2723 and 2563 BC - making it the world’s oldest known monumental edifice.
Though the lion with the head of a man was a common trope of both the Egyptian and Greek mythologies of the era, time and the elements have significantly worn Giza’s and ancient depictions of the Great Sphinx are few. Written accounts of its physical appearance are plentiful, but the West got its very first visual depiction of the two hundred foot long monument in 1556, via Andre Thevet’s Cosmographie de Levant. Thevet, who had visited Giza some seven years prior, presented a curly-headed, European-featured face of indiscriminate sex, perched atop a grassy mound. He described it as “the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter.”
German traveler Johannes Helferich’s take was altogether different when he published a drawing in an account of his Oriental travels in 1579; here the Sphinx was definitively female, with its distinctive headdress portrayed as shoulder-length, harshly cropped hair. (Helferich’s travelogue also recounts, interestingly enough, that Egyptian priests showed him a secret tunnel within the statue in which they could hide and make it appear that the Sphinx was talking.)
For two centuries, equally embellished pen and ink drawings, etchings and sketches continued to circulate throughout Europe - with most providing conflicting depictions of the face’s broken/unbroken nose. The artists’ objectivity wasn’t helped along by the Sphinx’s mysterious nature; its body remained concealed beneath tons of sand, leaving only the head visible and obscuring its true scale.
The first true approximation the monument’s actual appearance comes from Richard Pococke’s Travels, published in 1743 – though he did take the liberty of penciling in the face’s nonexistent proboscis (believed to have, in fact, been destroyed at least a century before the publication of Thevet’s account). By the time Napoleon paid a visit to Giza in 1798, most of educated Europe knew the Sphinx’s true face – though its body would remain buried in the desert’s dunes, until one of many excavation attempts finally succeeded in 1936.
As for the famous face its self, it is commonly believed to be a likeness of the pharaoh Khefre, the fourth dynasty ruler most often associated with its construction. That assertion, however, is hotly contested in some circles with some scholars claiming that the Great Sphinx’s features bear little resemblance to those found upon other sculptural representations of Khefre.
| Nonetheless, the fact remains the monument’s true identity was unknown to even the Egyptians themselves. By the time of the New Kingdom, it was commonly spoken of as an image of the sun god Ra, following its incorporation into the myth of the pharaoh Thutmose IV. As a once prince ineligible for the throne, Thutmose had a dream during an afternoon nap beneath the great monument. He told of being visited by the deity, who offered him the kingdom of Egypt in exchange for his veneration of Ra above all over gods and repairs to his earthly |
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| embodiment. The would-be pharaoh soon began an expansion and restoration of the Great Sphinx. The rest, as they say, is history. | ||||||||||||
Tags: 1556, 1579, 1798, 1936, 2563 BC, 2723 BC, ancient egypt, Andre Thevet, Archaeology, Cosmographie de Levant, egyptian mythology, Egyptian New Kingdom, Egyptian Priests, Egyptian Sphinx Miniature Statue, Egyptian Sphinx Statue, Giza pyramid, great sphinx of giza, Greek Mythology, Guardian of the Ages: The Great Sphinx DVD, head of colossus, Inachus, Isis, Johannes Helferich, Jupiter, lion with head of man, Napoleon in Egypt, old kingdom of Egypt, pharaoh Khefre, Richard Pococke, Richard Pococke's Travels 1743, The Great Sphinx of Giza Statue, Thutmoses IV
Though the term doppelganger - translated as “double walker” - first saw print in Jean Paul’s German Romantic novel, Siebenkas, in 1796, the motif of the evil twin as externalized self draws upon millennia of world mythology. Ancient legends of Roman, Indian, Norse, Native American, Egyptian and Greek origin all recount the consequences of tumultuous twins – one good, one evil and often unaware of one others existence, until a fateful and ontologically devastating meeting. The philosopher Aristotle contributes the earliest recorded firsthand account of such an encounter to the historical record.
English poet Percy Blythe Shelley, while visiting the Italian city of Pisa, encountered a hooded doppelganger, who upon revealing his face, Pisa said but two words: “Siete soddisfatto (Are you satisfied)?” Shelley would go on to drown in the Mediterranean shortly before his 30th birthday. French novelist Guy de Maupassant wrote about meeting doppelganger “face-to-face.” While writing his story, “The Horla,” Maupassant’s double entered his study, casually sat itself and began to dictate the contents of his freshly written page as if from memory.
The great events in history are those where, upon special occasions, a man or a people have made a stand against tyranny, and have preserved or advanced freedom for the people. Sometimes tyranny has taken the form of the oppression of the many by the few in the same nation, and sometimes it has been the oppression of a weak nation by a stronger one. The successful revolt against tyranny, the terrible conflict resulting in the emancipation of a people, has always been the favorite theme of the historian, marking as it does a step in the progress of mankind from a savage to a civilized state.
At a period before authentic history begins, it is probable that roving tribes of shepherds from the north took possession of the hills and valleys of Greece. Shut off on the north by mountain ranges, and on all other sides surrounded by the sea, these tribes were able to maintain a sturdy independence for many hundred years. The numerous harbors and bays which subdivide Greece invited to a maritime life, and at a very early time, the descendants of the original shepherds became skillful navigators and courageous adventurers.
Thence improvements went forward with rapid strides. Hints received from Egypt were reproduced in higher forms. Massive temples became light and airy, rude sculpture became beautiful by conforming to natural forms, and hieroglyphics developed into the letters which Cadmus invented or improved. Schools were established, athletic sports were encouraged, aesthetic taste was developed, until in the arts, in philosophy, in science, and in literature the Greeks took the lead of all peoples.
