Imaginary Bodies: Power and Disembodiment in the Passage to the Afterlife Imagined in Attic White Ground lekythoi
Abstract
The Athenian ceramic workshops produced a shape that was specifically used in the context of the funeral rites: the white-ground lekythos. The bodies of the dead are represented in some of these vases. It is done in two ways, as full figures, indistinguishable from the living bodies and as eidola, small flying spectra lacking identity. In this article we study, through some images bequeathed by the classical Athens, the meanings accorded to these imaginary bodies and the loss of power that characterises the common destiny of the dead that the lekythoi illustrate in a fascinating way.Downloads
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