Keynote address: The Power of Figuration on an Athenian Landmark

Milette Gaifman, Yale University

The lecture explores different forms of figuration featured on a landmark commemorating a victory in a choral competition during a festival in honor of Dionysos in Athens of the fourth century BCE. Taking a holistic approach, it shows how figural, ornamental, and inscriptional elements come together to assert the power of the god, in whose celebration a chorus of boys and their patron were triumphant. 

Defining Figuaration in Ancient Visual Culture is a colloquium sponsored by the Departments of Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and History of Art & Visual Studies, the Sage School of Philosophy, and the Cornell Institute of Archaeology & Material Studies.