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Flint Dibble 🍖🏺📖 Profile picture
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25 Feb, 11 tweets, 8 min read
Ancient Athenian ceramic painters loved to paint Heracles and the Nemean Lion. But it's clear that some of the artists had never seen a lion...

This one looks like the lion in the Wizard of Oz!
1/8
 my pic from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (@museumsmoments) ImageImage
This one is hilarious

An artist first scratched out a weird lionish head whose weirdness is emphasized by the painter who can't paint between the lines

at least he's got a bright red tongue!
/2

Pic by Marie-Lan Nguyen in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hera… ImageImage
What even is going on with this lion!
/3
In the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, pic by Marcus Cyron: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anti… ImageImage
This one from @metmuseum has two scenes with the Nemean Lion (the first one is Hera sending the Nemean lion out with Iris)

Extra points for the big white, blunt teeth
/4
metmuseum.org/art/collection… ImageImageImageImage
Heracles: Say, "Aaaahhhhh"

Lion: Aaaahhhhh

/5

From an exhibit at Middlebury College Museum of Art, pic by Daderot: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Band… ImageImage
Scholars: Herakles and the lion were just friends. They did like to dance together though

Herakles: You lead this time

/6

From the Martin von Wagner Museum, pic by Daderot: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bell… Image
Herakles: Are you a lion or a hippo?

Lion: Aaaahhhhh

/7
From the Archaeological Museum in Thebes, pic by Zde commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blac… ImageImage
Herakles: Did you just shave?

Lion: Can you tell?

Herakles: wow, like your whole face even

Lion: is that your dick?

Herakles: how do you even shave your whole face?

Lion: Aaaahhhhhh

/8
From @MuseeLouvre, pic by Bibi Saint-Pol commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hera…

cc #PhallusThursday Image
OK, OK, now this is a fierce lion
/end

From Vulci, pic by Bibi Saint-Pol commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hera… Image
We have a new contender for the most abstract ancient lion (with a side-dish of scholarly snark)

And a contender for derpiest lion

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More from @FlintDibble

Flint Dibble 🍖🏺📖 Profile picture
28 Feb
Alright, I'm joining the game and animating some ancient stuff. This is from the Acropolis Museum in Athens

Kinda fun, though it won't work on ancient animals! I'll add more as I get some OK ones
Here's Alexander the Great
Here's Myrtis, one of the little girls buried in an ancient Athenian plague pit. You can read more about her here:

This animation is based off of a facial reconstruction, which is based off her skeletal remains
Read 26 tweets
Flint Dibble 🍖🏺📖 Profile picture
27 Feb
This is where the phrase "when the carriage is a-rockin don't come a-knockin" comes from
For a more serious look at the significance of this carriage and our understanding of ancient Roman vehicles, see this excellent thread by @Pompeiana79 (with links to other threads by archaeologists)

For a deeper dive into the erotic imagery and its parallels, see this thread by @opietasanimi with links to other threads by art historians

Read 6 tweets
Flint Dibble 🍖🏺📖 Profile picture
9 Aug 20
[ARCHAEOLOGY THREAD] Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi is the stuff of legends

For over a thousand years, the famous oracle foretold the futures and fortunes of the city-states and heroes of ancient Greece

This thread explores whether she was stoned on geological vapors
/1
Set in a mountainous landscape, with a view down to the gulf of Corinth, the site at Delphi is breathtakingly beautiful

Ancient myths describe it as the center of the world, the place where Zeus’s two eagles met, each released at the opposite end of the earth
/2
I simply cannot get this point across enough. I’m not usually a romantic person when it comes to archaeology. It’s my job, after all. But, the feeling at this site is … it just is

It gets in your bones and fills your spirit
/3
Read 30 tweets
Flint Dibble 🍖🏺📖 Profile picture
31 Jul 20
We often think of life 6,000 years ago as short, nasty, and brutish. The site of Gourimadi reveals how innovative people were at the end of the Stone Age

This archaeology thread (with GREAT photos & video) shows how archaeologists uncover the prehistoric past
cc: @NorwInst
/1
Gourimadi is located on the island of Evia (Euboea) in Greece, right next to a huge rock outcrop of schist

It’s on a low ridge separating the Karystou plain to the south and Katsaronio plain to the north. The inhabitants had easy access to the plains all the way to the sea
/2
Everything about the site shows how cleverly located it is

The name Gourimadi means “big rock” in the Arvanitika (Albanian) dialect. I love this toponym

The rock was valuable to those living there 6000 years ago. The foundations of their walls were made from the local schist
/3
Read 27 tweets
Flint Dibble 🍖🏺📖 Profile picture
12 Jun 20
[ARCHAEOLOGY THREAD] One of the most pernicious racisms I see regularly is the myth that Africa has been an unimportant place in human history

But the archaeology of Africa is incredible. Black Lives matter, and so does their history
/1
Africa invented humanity

Not just once, but twice

Homo erectus first stood tall in Africa. Using tools, these clever ancestors of ours spread out all over the globe
/2
You think we’re a successful species?

Nah… Not on evolutionary terms. Homo sapiens have only been around a few hundred thousand years

Homo erectus thrived for a couple million
/3
Read 31 tweets
Flint Dibble 🍖🏺📖 Profile picture
2 Jun 20
So, as an archaeologist, I'm here to tell you the best way to destroy a racist statue

Please only do this on racist statues that deserve to be destroyed

There's lots of examples of destroyed statues. Iconoclasm is the fancy term
So, the first step, is to deface the statue

And by that, I mean remove its face

This can be done with a chisel and hammer. At least that's the traditional tool for much of iconoclasm

Pharaoh Thutmose III had mommy issues and did this on statues of his step-mom Hatshepsut
Usually the nose is the easiest thing to knock off. So go for it first

Like with this statue of Aphrodite excavated from the Roman Agora. The Christians knocked that honker right off and carved a cross into the forehead

And this brings up another key point. Make sure to tag it
Read 12 tweets

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