A thread/photographic essay of humans among Classical ruins where Time, master of men, reigns supreme.
A Peloponnesian shepherd sits among the ancient ruins of the athletes' entrance to the Olympic stadium in Olympia, Greece c.1907
A Peloponnesian shepherd sits among the ancient ruins of the athletes' entrance to the Olympic stadium in Olympia, Greece c.1907
A seated woman is dwarfed by the Cyclopedian stones of the Roman Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon- ca.1920's autochrome photo by Maynard Owen Williams.
A draughtsman sits among the ruins of the Roman Forum, seeking to capture the irretrievable, 1949 photograph by Herbert List.
An old man sleeps on a fallen acanthus capital with the colonnade of Palmyra in the background, Syria c.1867 photograph by Félix Bonfils.
Alexandrian Greek dancer Alexander Iolas poses on the Athenian Acropolis like reaching out to the past of Hellas ca. 1927-30 photograph by Nelly's.
The Roman Aqueduct of Segovia towers above men like an ancient colossus, Spain ca. 1920s
Sept 22nd,1943: Company of African American soldiers [US 5th Army] type/write reports between the ancient columns of the Greek Temple of Hera II-Paestum, Salerno.
A young girl sits against the Roman cyclopean city wall of Tarragona while a man walks along its 2,000 year-old mortar free masonry, Spain ca. 1872
Like an apparition from the Classical past, American dancer Isadora Duncan strikes a pose at the Portal of the Parthenon, Acropolis- 1921 photograph by Edward Steichen
Italian farmers till the soil around the Roman ruins known as the "Temple of Minerva Medica" (but really a nymphaeum), Rome ca. 1870
The name given to this ancient building "Temple of Minerva Medica,” derived from the discovery nearby of a statue of Minerva Medica (as goddess of medicine), thus identified erroneously. In fact, it was a nymphaeum built in late 3rd century AD, enclosing a sacred spring. [1]
Like Tiresias, the blind Borges faces the ancient ruins of a Greek Temple, a prophet who sees beyond our ordinary perception.
Selinunte, Sicily, 1984 photograph by Ferdinando Scianna.
Selinunte, Sicily, 1984 photograph by Ferdinando Scianna.
Finishing this thread with a powerfully evocative image: from Phidias to a XX century Greek stonemason, you can hear a continuous chiseling, still echoing among the Parthenon columns, 1962 photograph by Leonard Freed.
