E-Book Overview
As well as the Little Owl or glaux, so often seen accompanying the goddess Athena, many other birds played an important role in Greek art and symbolism. This booklet describes the ways in which the Greeks viewed birds, from useful hawks and fowl to exotic parakeets and peacocks. Some of the birds most often depicted are imaginary, from the griffin to the phallos bird, whose head and neck consisted of an erect penis. The book ends with a field guide to species likely to be seen on a visit to the Agora archaeological park today.
E-Book Content
EXCAVATIONS O F T H E ATHENIAN AGORA PICTURE BOOKS
Pots and Pans ofclassical Athens (195I ) The Stoa of Attalos I Iin Athens (1959) 3 . Miniature Sculpturefrom the Athenian Agora (1959) 4. The Athenian Citizen (1960) 5 . Ancient Portraitsfrom the Athenian Agora (1960) 6. Amphoras and the Ancient Wine Trade (revised 1979) 7. TheMiddleAgesin the Athenian Agora (1961) 8. Garden Lore ofAncient Athens (1963) 9. Lampsfrom the Athenian Agora (1964) 10. Inscriptionsfrom the Athenian Agora (1966) I I . Waterworks in the Athenian Agora (1968) 12. A n Ancient Shopping Center: The Athenian Agora (1971) I 3. Early Burialsfrom the Agora Cemeteries (1973) 14. Grafiti in the Athenian Agora (1974) IS. Greek and Roman Coins in the Athenian Agora (1975) 16. The Athenian Agora: A Short Guide (revised 1983) German and French editions (1977) 17. Socrates in the Agora (1978) 18. Mediaeval and Modern Coins in the Athenian Agora (1978) 19. Gods and Heroes in the Athenian Agora (1980) 20. Bronzeworkers in the Athenian Agora (1982) 21. Ancient Athenian Building hlethods (1984) 2 2 .Birds of the Athenian Agora (1985) I.
2.
These booklets are obtainable from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens c/o Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J. 08540, U.S.A. They are also available in the Agora Museum, Stoa ofAttalos, Athens ISBN
87661-627-9
Excavations of the Athenian Agora, Picture Book No. 22 Prepared by Robert D. Lamberton and Susan I. Rotroff, with thanks to George Watson Terminology follows North American usage; “hawk”, for example, is used for diurnal raptors as a group and not exclusively for the Accipiters. Produced by The Meriden Gravure Company, Meriden, Connecticut 0 American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1985 Front cover: Athenian silver tetradrachm, 5th century B.C
Birds of the Athenian Agora
For Spyros Spyropoulos and Eugene Vanderpool
AMERICAN SCHOOL
O F CLASSICAL STUDIES A T ATHENS P R I N C E T O N , NEW JERSEY 198s
I.
West side ofthe Agora today
THEB I R D S for which the ancient Athenian Agora wasjustly famous were metaphorical birds. The Agora was a place for the exchange of goods for money, and when Aristophanes made jokes about the “owls of Athens” that came flocking to the prosperous, his audience knew he meant coins like the one illustrated on the cover. It was also a place for the exchange ofideas, for conversation, for words, which as every schoolchild learned from Homer were “winged”. But beyond these metaphorical winged denizens of the Agora, we can point to evidence for actual birds there, both those that were objects of trade and those that occurred in either a wild or feral state. Unfortunately the birdwatchers of ancient Athens (Pausanias included) have failed to leave information on the wild birds, but it is possible to present a partially reconstructed picture of the birdlife of the ancient Agora and to offer an introduction to the birds of the modern archaeological park. The Agora today bears a strikingly different relationship to its immediate surroundings from that it enjoyed in antiquity. Today it is an eight-hectare oasis of green parkland, one of many in a system which covers I .8% of the sprawling metropolitan area of 433 square kilometers (nearly one f