Posted on 10/25/2006 10:22:04 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A Roman-era bust of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle found beneath the Acropolis in Athens has confirmed some contemporary reports attesting to his hooked nose, a senior archaeologist told AFP on Tuesday.
The 46cm marble bust of the famous philosopher who lived over 2300 years ago and taught Alexander the Great is "the best-preserved likeness ever found", archaeologist Alkestis Horemi said.
"This is the only bust portraying the philosopher with a hooked nose in line with ancient descriptions," said Horemi, who supervises archaeological and conservation work at the Acropolis site.
Out of 19 other known Roman-era busts of Aristotle in existence, some show the philosopher's nose as straight or upturned, Horemi said, adding that these works are copies of earlier Greek originals.
Dating from the late first century AD, the latest bust was found during excavation work that preceded the construction of Greece's new Acropolis Museum, situated near the south of the ancient citadel.
A representation of a bearded, resolute-faced man in his sixties, the bust had probably adorned a Roman villa, Horemi said.
The excavation work for the new Acropolis Museum also unearthed two more Roman-era marble busts, one probably representing a priest and another depicting the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who reigned from 117 to 138 AD and was a avid admirer of Classical Greece.
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Woulda better illustrated the story if they'd taken a profile shot! ;)
"You've heard of Socrates? Plato? Aristotle?"
"Of course."
"Morons."
He also claimed that stones don't fall from the sky, a claim that was enshrined for nearly 2000 years. :')
LOL! Yeah, maybe "one like this, and one like this" would have been better.
Mainstream science, which was a handful of members of the Royal Society and the French equivalent, denied until the end of the 1800s the meteorites came from the sky, even though the ancient Greek metallurgists knew that quite well and called iron sideros because it was all meteoric at first. The ancient Egyptians also knew this and their symbol for iron was a crucible and a couple of shooting stars. Give Aristotle credit for having the best collection of constitutions: he seemed to be up to speed on the gov'ts of the many various city-states and his comments on oligarchy and democracy would probably raise some hackles here if anybody bothered to read his book.
A meteorite strike in the presence of the Holy Roman Emperor (which obviously took place a while back) in, hmm, I think it was in Burgundy / Arelate, wasn't enough to convince most experts. And large impacts weren't accepted by most (except hypothetically, or in the remote past, such as the "Late Heavy Bombardment") until 1994 when SL-9's fragments smashed into Jupiter and left scars. :')
Yes, the experts denied the rants of peasants and blacksmiths. A French farmer saw the meteor fall about 1890 and found the meteorite on his farm, but the learned men rejected his eyewitness account.
Not a bad-looking sexagenerian:)
Since he has a bust, he must have been a cross-dresser.
[rimshot!]
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