All language subtitles for Treasures of Ancient Greece 1of3 The Age of Heroes 810p_Subtitles01.ENG

It was the ancient Greeks
who shaped our ideas

of what art should look like.

No other civilisation
has played such an important

role in creating our vision
of artistic perfection.

Of beauty.

Of realism.

Today, we take the idea of
realistic art for granted.

But in fact, it was the ancient
Greeks who invented it.

In a fundamental sense,
they taught us how to see.

But while we're taught that
Western civilisation was born

here in ancient Greece,
its art emerged from a much darker,

stranger place -
an older world of myths,

monsters and the imagination,
with roots in unexpected places.

A world that's still being
revealed, even now.

Over a period of 1,000 years,
the idea of Greece would

emerge from a handful of kingdoms
scattered across the Mediterranean.

And art would be instrumental in
bringing the Greek people together.

From a fascination with
the natural world,

the intricacies of geometric design,

heroic tales of gods and monsters,

to a passion for the human form...

..and the triumph of Athens,
and the Classical Style.

In this programme, I'll be
piecing together what we know

about those earliest influences
and separating history from myth.

Drawing on the epics of Homer

and the discoveries of
the 20th century...

..to reveal how the miracle of
Greek art came into being.

Our quest for the origins of Greek
art begins not in ancient times,

but just over a century ago.

In the year 1900, an Englishman
arrived on the island of Crete.

Arthur Evans was the Keeper
of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

But what brought him
to Crete was a long held dream.

His guide was the ancient
Greek poet Homer.

"There is a land called Crete
in the midst of the wine-dark sea,

"a fair rich land,
surrounded by water.

"Among their cities is the great
city Knossos, where Minos reigned."

Homer, author of The Iliad
and The Odyssey,

composed these lines probably
in the 8th century BC.

Over 2,500 years later,

Evans recalled them
as he set foot on Crete.

Evans never forgot his Homer.

The Greek poet told
stories of King Minos,

said to be the ruler
of ancient Crete.

And according to myth,

his palace incorporated a maze or
labyrinth, and at its dark centre

was this terrifying monster -
half-man, half-bull -

the Minotaur, a creature that dined
on the flesh of boys and girls.

Evans was convinced
he was onto something.

One morning in March,
he set out for the hill of Kefala,

to begin digging at a site he'd
recently purchased.

An ancient palace was thought to
be buried under the hill.

What no-one knew was how big it was.

It didn't take long for Evans'
team of diggers to find the first

archaeological remains.

What they unearthed exceeded even
Evans' wildest dreams.

He believed that he had
found Knossos,

the royal palace of Minos, king of
a people Evans termed the Minoans.

Evans and his workers uncovered
the sprawling remains of a vast

series of unfortified
buildings mostly dating from

between 1700 and 1400 BC.

He reconstructed sections of Knossos

in an attempt to bring the
Minoan world alive.

With its network of
twisting passageways,

he believed he'd had
found his labyrinth.

And everywhere he looked,
he saw bulls.

This bull's head was used as an
elaborate vase or drinking vessel.

It has two openings -
one at the top of the head,

the second under the snout.

Evans plainly knew that the Minotaur
was a mythical creature.

But objects like these seemed to
offer historical proof that

bulls did play a major role in the
ceremonial lives of the Minoans.

And one of the most exciting pieces
of evidence was this

remarkable wall painting.

This is such an
extraordinary fresco,

and it's one of the real prizes that
Evans unearthed here at Knossos.

And it is partially a
reconstruction. If you look closely

you can tell which bits are the
original fragments.

But nevertheless, as reconstructions
go, it's entirely plausible.

And what it appears to represent is
a central spectacle in public

Minoan life, which is the very
dangerous sport of bull-leaping.

And compositionally,
it's such an effective work of art.

Dominating everything in the middle
is the magnificent beast,

the bull himself.

He's charging, hurtling
pell-mell through space

at this light-skinned
attendant at one end.

Your eye is naturally drawn,
in a very subtle fashion,

via the sinuous curve that goes from
the tips of the bull's horn

around onto his head,
over the hump of his powerful neck

and then down onto his back,
leading your eye towards the other

light-skinned
attendant at the other end.

But of course, in human terms,

the star of the show here is this
red-skinned figure in the middle.

The daredevil acrobat,
the toreador himself.

And he's depicted mid leap -
his hair is fluttering in the air -

there's a tremendous
sense of buoyancy, joyful movement

and life,
as he spins through the air.

It makes me think of works of art
created thousands of years later

by Matisse,
his paper cut-outs of acrobats.

They both share artistically
what you might call

the audacity of simplicity.

The bigger picture pieced together
by Evans at Knossos was of a people

at one with nature, deeply connected
with the world around them.

The patterns of the natural world
preoccupied Minoan artists.

They were fascinated by its curves
and shapes, but also its dangers -

this Minoan goddess holds two snakes
aloft, one in each hand, defiant.

Arthur Evans was convinced
he'd found the Knossos

he was looking for.

But what he had actually
discovered was, in a sense,

far more tantalising.

An apparent Eden
of peace and plenty,

a people in harmony with nature.

The myth of King Minos would
remain just that - a myth.

But the sensitive
and subtle art found on Crete -

which dated back to 1,000 years

before the heyday of
Classical Greece -

proved without doubt
that Greek art had deeper,

richer roots than anyone had
previously imagined.

And a recent discovery on
an island north of Crete

showed that those roots spread
further than even Evans knew.

The legend of a Minoan empire
stretching across the sea

is a recurring theme from Homer
in the 8th century BC,

to the philosopher Plato,
more than 300 years later.

Plato wrote about a large
and prosperous island, where the

people sacrificed bulls within
splendid palaces,

but which sank beneath the waves
following an earthquake.

And he called this lost
island Atlantis.

Whatever the literal
truth about Atlantis, it is

tempting to understand the story of
its disappearance as a distant

Greek memory of Minoan civilisation.

Especially when an island
in the Minoan world would suffer

an uncannily similar fate.

Santorini sits among a
group of smaller islands

in the Aegean Sea,
a day's sailing from Crete.

Originally,
it was one single island.

But more than 2,500 years ago,

it was blown apart by a colossal
volcanic explosion -

one of the largest in
recorded history.

Little was known of life there
before the eruption - until in 1967,

a team of Greek archaeologists made
an extraordinary discovery.

Buried beneath really thick
layers of volcanic ash,

they discovered this ghost town -
a winding, warren-like

settlement filled with one, two,
even three-storey buildings.

And inevitably, the
site was instantly called the

'Greek Pompeii.'

As at Pompeii, the catastrophe had
transformed the town,

as well as its contents,
into this astonishing time capsule,

offering remarkable visual
evidence for what life

was like on Santorini before the
island was obliterated.

What the archaeologists found here
showed that the inhabitants of

the town, known today as Akrotiri,
were in regular contact with Crete.

In other words,
Akrotiri was a Minoan colony.

And evidence for this came with
the discovery of a series

of exquisite frescoes, that share
the Minoan love of the natural

world seen by Arthur Evans on Crete.

Looking at Minoan art,
it's easy to be transported to this

pastoral realm,
where everything is lush and sunny.

So many of the paintings
from Akrotiri,

they have this joyful,
springtime quality.

This scene, for example,
it exalts in the volcanic

landscape of Santorini,
with its eye-catching red rocks,

and these billowing clusters
of lilies in full, rampant bloom.

But the details that are most
delightful have to be

the pairs of cavorting,
flirting, amorous swallows.

They twist and kiss in midair,
like nimble fighter-jet pilots

spinning, barrel-rolling
just for fun.

And we're presented here
with something fleeting, playful.

It's a moment of spontaneity,

but one that's been
preserved for millennia.

Time and again,
the frescos from Akrotiri offer

insights into the lives
and habits of its inhabitants.

These blue monkeys appear
irrepressible as they clamber

over the rocks of Santorini.

They are supple and lithe,
with nimble limbs and alert eyes.

Whoever has created it
has thought long

and hard about the intrinsic
quality of monkeyness.

The device is so effective because
it relishes how you can unleash

this visual energy simply by varying
up quite straightforward elements.

The slope of a back, a bent knee,
the curling, sinuous tails,

even the differences
between their stiletto-like feet.

It's almost as if whoever entered
this room, decorated with this

fresco, has provoked the monkeys
into this whirlwind of activity.

You can almost hear them chattering
away with alarm and consternation.

The beguiling world captured
by the Akrotiri frescoes

would come to a brutal end.

The island of Santorini was
blown sky-high by the volcano

sometime around 1600 BC.

Yet the pumice and ash preserved
another fresco that offers evidence

that a new, very different people
had already reached the island.

There are drowned bodies here.

Warriors are marching up a hill.

We can tell from their weaponry

and armour that these aren't
Minoans or friendly traders.

They're fighting men -
Mycenaeans, from mainland Greece.

And in time, they'd take over
at Knossos on Crete.

Just as the Minoans had
colonised Santorini,

so the Mycenaeans
colonised the Minoans.

But their art would offer a stark
contrast to the paradise

imagined in the art of the Minoans.

The Mycenaeans occupied key
strategic positions

on the Greek mainland.

From 1600 BC, their capital
was a citadel on a rocky

hillside in the Peloponnese.

Like the treasures of Knossos,
their art is known to us

thanks to the exploits of
a maverick explorer.

In 1876, a 54-year-old German
adventurer and chancer,

who'd spent time in California
during the Gold Rush, arrived here.

And like Arthur Evans,
he came in search of heroes -

the kings and royal palaces
celebrated in Homer.

Heinrich Schliemann was his name,

and he'd plundered already

royal treasures from Troy.

But now his quest was to unearth
here in Mycenae the grave and riches

of Agamemnon - leader of the Greeks
at Troy, who'd returned home after

ten years of war only to be murdered
by his wife and her new lover.

It's possible there was a
king called Agamemnon.

But as with the rest of Homer,
what was myth

and what was history was
anyone's guess.

Mycenae was a huge
fortified palace that had

lain in ruins for around
3,000 years.

And when Schliemann arrived, it had
lost none of its imposing presence.

Approaching Mycenae
feels like stepping into a scene

from Lord of the Rings.

It's a fortress,
a citadel on a hilltop,

a place built by warriors
for warriors - the sort of men

who'd neck a pint of bull's
blood before breakfast.

And just look at these
thick, intimidating,

utterly impregnable walls!

They're constructed using these
vast, monumental blocks.

So you have to imagine -
you're an approaching army,

you're heading up this steep ramp,
hoping to storm the citadel -

looking at this, you'd be
quaking in your boots already.

And that's before you
arrived at the gate itself,

where any would-be marauders would
then be confronted by this.

To enter Mycenae, you had to pass
through the Lion Gate,

under a carved relief showing two
upright feline creatures

flanking a central column.

Schliemann believed the Lion Gate
guarded treasures buried within.

And once inside, it didn't take him

long to discover a monument
to the kings of Mycenae.

Enclosed by the city walls was
a circle of shaft graves.

These graves, sunk into the ground,

were rectangular trenches
several metres deep.

At the entrance stood
an imposing carved stone.

And what lay beyond
would exceed even Schliemann's

dreams of Homeric riches.

Just imagine the excitement
of uncovering the horde.

Glittering amid the gloom
of the graves,

Schliemann discovered hundreds
of luxurious golden objects, more

than justifying Homer's description
of Mycenae as "rich in gold."

Including this spectacular
full-sized death mask.

And although there is an
obvious interest in pattern

and design and symmetry -
the spirals of the ears

echoing each other, the horizontal
lines of the eyes - there's also

a sense that it was meant to convey
something at least of an individual.

A well-groomed,
debonair individual, in this case.

Look at the way his moustache
curls up at either end.

The way that the
beard has been fashioned,

with these artfully ruffled
lines in different directions.

It must have made
Schliemann's heart stop.

And there's a story that at once,
he feverishly sent off a telegram

that said "I have gazed upon
the face of Agamemnon."

The stunning horde included this
poignant golden burial suit

for a young child.

And a dagger blade, inlaid with
precious metals, gold and silver,

showing an intricate action scene -
a lion hunt.

Schliemann had discovered
an unparalleled wealth

of treasures that shone new light
on royal life and death at Mycenae.

In time, it would turn out that
these artefacts didn't

actually belong to
Agamemnon and his family -

they predated Homer's hero
by several centuries.

But in a sense, what Schliemann had
uncovered was even more exciting -

the riches of a powerful,
sophisticated civilisation

that numbered the Minoans
among its conquests.

And there's evidence of their
two worlds coming together,

in a pair of exceptional objects.

These two golden cups combine
the bull imagery of the Minoans

with the hammered gold
of the Mycenaeans.

They were made by pressing thin
golden sheets from behind to create

these raised designs, in this case,
two scenes of wild bull-hunting.

And the detail in the landscape
is completely extraordinary.

If you look close, you can
make out the gnarled trunks

and miniature branches
of olive trees.

And while one of the scenes
is perfectly peaceful,

as a docile bull is trapped using
a rope tethered around its leg,

the other one is remarkably
fierce and vigorous.

Just look at this enraged bull,

hurtling around the side of the cup,
and smashing into its would-be

captors, toppling them
like skittles.

On one level, you could read these
cups as a reflection on man's

relationship with the natural world.

But perhaps there's another
reading here too.

Because if we understand the bulls
as symbols of political power,

then maybe what we see here
is the upending of one

civilisation by another,
much fiercer way of life.

But the Mycenaeans
were about to experience

an apocalypse of their own.

By the 11th century BC,

all of the strongholds on the Greek
mainland, such as Mycenae,

lay abandoned, their people fled.

Centuries later, the ancient Greeks
would rediscover Mycenae,

and marvel at the ruins, wondering
who had built them, and for whom.

They called the walls at
Mycenae 'cyclopean,'

because they believed that only
a giant, like the Cyclops

from The Odyssey, could move such
immense, awe-inspiring stones.

The Age of the Mycenaeans -
an age of wild beasts,

warrior kings -
would become their Age of Heroes.

And in the centuries to come,
legends left over from that

mythical era would inform Greek art
as well as shaping Greek identity.

The destruction and abandonment
of palaces and settlements

across the Aegean came to be
known as Greece's Dark Ages.

An era that lasted around 300 years,
from 1100 to 800 BC.

Historians traditionally dismissed
this as a period of obscurity -

an interruption in the otherwise
glorious progress of Greek history.

The population plummeted
by three-quarters.

Those who were left were forced to
scratch out an existence.

The causes of the catastrophe
remain a mystery.

Was it environmental disaster -
plague, famine, earthquake?

Cataclysmic war?

Deadly internal power struggles?

Or perhaps a 'perfect storm'
of all of them?

Whatever it was, Mycenae and other
kingdoms across the Mediterranean

rapidly fell apart, ushering
in a new age that was characterised

by hardship, pain and grief.

The accepted history was that
the visual arts almost

disappeared during the Dark Ages.

Certainly, one casualty
was the human figure,

which vanished from Greek art
for several centuries.

Yet in recent years, the idea
of a lengthy interruption in Greek

art and culture has been challenged.

Just off the eastern coast
of the Greek mainland

lies the island of Euboea.

Here, evidence is only now emerging
that life in the so-called

Dark Ages wasn't quite
as dark as has been thought.

The site is known today as Lefkandi.

For 3,000 years, there was nothing
here but a gigantic mound.

When they started digging,
though, they uncovered

the remains of a vast building -
it was 45 metres in length.

It had a thatched roof,

and it was surrounded by a wooden
colonnade, preceding the

architecture of Greek temples by an
astonishing two centuries at least.

But the most exciting discovery of
all was hidden even deeper.

They discovered the cremated
remains of a man in his forties,

and the skeleton of a younger woman.

Among the grave goods were fine
items of jewellery, including a

Babylonian necklace that at the time
was already 1,000 years old.

And nearby they came across
a remarkable object,

dating from the 10th century BC,

that pointed the way to an emergent
new vision for Greek art.

This impish little fellow is a
centaur - a fantastical creature,

half man, half horse -
potentially an unruly

being on the fringes
of civilisation.

And to our eyes, he looks initially
like a toy - a plaything -

a My Little Centaur
for the ancient world.

But it would be doing him
a disservice to belittle him

like that, because he offers us

the first known depiction
of mythology in Greek sculpture.

He doesn't quite have the impact
of the Lion Gate at Mycenae,

or the so-called Mask of Agamemnon,

but this pixie-ish creature offers
a blueprint for the development

of Greek art over the next few
centuries, because it

combines a love of geometric pattern
with a passion for mythology.

The founding myths of the Greek
world, and of Greek art,

began to develop at this time among
the surviving people of the region.

Tales of their dimly
remembered forefathers,

from places like
Knossos and Mycenae.

In time, these myths would become
integral to Greek art.

But it was the fascination with
pattern that would lead Greek art

out of the Dark Ages.

For centuries,
rather than human scenes,

Greek pots were decorated
with swathes of geometric designs.

But thanks to this survival from an
ancient cemetery, we can witness

the moment in around 750 BC when the
human figure returns to Greek art.

By the 8th century BC, big,
swollen pots just like this one

were being used as
tomb markers in cemeteries.

And all of them were covered,
from the neck to the foot,

with regiment upon
regiment of marching,

relentless ornament
and geometric pattern.

Rows of triangles and dots,
parallel lines, meanders, zigzags,

even bands of well-drilled animals,
in this case grazing deer.

The whole thing similar in effect to
the patterned centaur of Lefkandi.

But then -
as you move down the pot -

you suddenly chance upon
something totally new.

The central pattern,

filled with human figures,
commemorates a custom

known by the Greeks as 'prothesis'
or lying in state, where the

dead person would be laid out to be
mourned by friends and family.

And you can see ranks of mourners
here on either side,

tearing out their hair with grief,

their blocky bodies,
this play of angles and geometry,

with triangular torsos - but then
also surprisingly shapely legs.

And in the middle, there's the
deceased - probably a woman, judging

by the clothing - with a ceremonial
blanket laid out above the body.

Despite their humble,
even rudimentary appearance,

these matter-of-fact
stickmen mark a crucial

moment in the development of
Greek art because they stand

at the start of the Greek
obsession with the human form.

The decoration on Greek vases soon
acquired a new, vivid quality.

The figures were no longer
just ornamentation -

now they were people and monsters.

By the 7th century BC,
the decoration of large pots

like this one was changing
very fast indeed.

All that dense, claustrophobic
pattern has disappeared -

there are geometric motifs here,

but they float freely like
elaborate snowflakes.

And those ranks of tiny animals -
they've swollen,

they've gained in interest - here
on the shoulder you can see this

handsome lion and a boar.

And the figures,
well, they've expanded.

In fact, some
of these are the largest ever

painted on a Greek vase.

Up here you have three men thrusting
a stake into this slumped giant,

bearded, holding a cup of wine.

And it's a story that's related
by Homer in The Odyssey, when

Odysseus gets the Cyclops Polyphemus
drunk, before blinding him.

The body of the pot is
also painted with huge figures.

These are some of the earliest
depictions of Gorgons in Greek art.

Recognisable by their snake hair,

they could turn you to stone
just by looking at you.

And that stony stare draws you
into a world of myths

and monsters that soon transformed
the substance of Greek art.

That change was hastened by
the arrival of a new

decorative style for Greek pots.

It's known as
black-figure technique.

At their studio in Athens,

Vicky Xyda-Ralli and her
colleagues have spent years

learning how to faithfully reproduce
the black-figure technique.

First, decorative bands
are painted on,

to show where the design
should be drawn.

Then Vicky begins to mark out
the design onto the pot.

Can I see what it is doing?

Right, so it's a very clever
way of transferring the design.

Do you think that ancient artists
would use tools like this,

or was it all freehand?

The next stage is for Vicky
to paint on the figures

using a watered-down clay.

You're applying a colour to the pot
which looks kind of orangey-red.

So how does it turn black?

What was new about black-figure was
the use of a sharp point to scratch

in the detail - a technique learnt
from Middle Eastern metalworkers.

I think I've got a basic handle
on the technique, and I know

that I've got down here, well, this
is a pot you've prepared already.

Which is the same design,
but it's once it's been fired.

So, it's a total
transformation, obviously.

Black-figure became the
dominant style in Greek

pottery for the next century or so.

Its bold, graphic approach
opened up exciting

possibilities for storytelling.

One of the things we start
to find during this period

is that there was an explosion of
pots decorated with mythical scenes.

Here, we've got
the death of Patroclus,

best friend of Achilles, at Troy -
whose burial was described by Homer.

Around this time, sets of stories,
folktales really,

handed down through generations
were being canonised -

effectively that's what
Homer was doing.

And as the stories became
common currency,

painted onto pots
just like this one,

they started to contribute to
a binding sense of Greekness.

Perhaps surprisingly,

that growing Greek identity
was stimulated by foreign influence.

As was Greek art.

The island of Samos lies in
the eastern reaches of the Aegean.

In antiquity, it was frontier
territory - where Western

culture could meet
and mingle with the East.

At an ancient site
known as the Heraion

and dedicated to the goddess
Hera, a remarkable horde

of treasures has been retrieved,
showing distinct Eastern influence.

These hammered bronze griffin
heads were originally

a Middle Eastern image.

Now they were made
in workshops on Samos,

and put on Greek cauldrons
dedicated at the Heraion.

This bronze goddess is
recognisably from Egypt,

dedicated by a pilgrim
in around 700 BC.

This wooden figurine,
produced 50 years later,

clearly owes a debt to
the Egyptian statue.

Yet it was made by Greek hands.

In the early 1980s, archaeologists
at the Heraion on Samos

made a discovery that dramatically
laid bare that Eastern influence.

This giant statue stands
nearly five metres tall,

and dates from the 6th century BC.

When you first look at this monster,
you have to ask yourself -

is he from ancient Greece
or ancient Egypt?

Because at first,
everything screams Egypt!

The stiff pose, with his fists
clenched by his sides,

the frontality,
the monumental scale.

And ancient Egyptian art
was extremely powerful

and effective - after all,
it lasted for thousands of years.

In part, because it used
easy-to-replicate formulas

such as dividing up the block
for carving using a grid of squares.

Yet there is another spirit
here too. A Greek spirit.

And it's visible in the slight
softening of the flesh,

the sensuousness of his face.

And also these folds
of muscle above his knees.

And this frankly curvy quality to
the back and the buttocks,

all of which anticipates later
developments in Greek art.

And unlike the sort of Egyptian
statuary that provided the model,

this man is very clearly naked.
In Greek art, statues like this one,

they form an important type
known as kouroi, or youths.

And originally
this particular kouros,

along with many other statues,
lined the Sacred Way of the Heraion.

What you can't deny is that his
overblown presence has

a truly mesmerising power.

Like so much early Greek art,

kouroi reveal a deep fascination
with symmetry and pattern.

In time, they would be found
all over Greece - marking graves

or commemorating victories.

By the end of the 6th century,

it's estimated there were as many
as 20,000 kouroi in the Greek world.

The heyday of Samos coincided
with an important

period in the development
of Greek art.

Greek artists were in thrall
of course to these strange

but seductive influences from the
East, but they also melded them

to fashion characteristic
Greek forms, such as the kouros.

As the 6th century wore on,
Samos wasn't the only

ambitious Greek city with
splendour to show off.

And gradually, as the Greeks
accumulated wealth and power,

they stopped looking east, and began
searching instead for somewhere

they could gather to compete
on their own terms.

Greece - more a people
than a nation -

had begun to coalesce into
a number of thriving city-states,

such as Athens, Corinth and Sparta.

Ambitious rivals,
they fought frequently.

But they also needed places to
come together in peacetime.

To share what they had in common -
poetry, religion.

Or to compete in athletics.

One of the most important of
these places was Delphi.

As soon as you come here,

you sense why this spot was
so special for the ancient Greeks.

Delphi has an aura, a presence,
a rugged majesty,

and it transports you that little
bit closer to the divine.

Over the centuries,

the significance of Delphi as a
sacred site grew and grew,

until it became what
is known as a 'sanctuary' -

a vital spiritual and religious
space that was visited by Greeks

from every city-state.

And so it was essential in
forging that strong sense of

Greek togetherness.

The origins of Delphi as a sanctuary
lay in the tradition that the

voice of Apollo could be heard
from a crack in the rock.

This oracle became a way
for warring city-states to

settle their disputes.

And once here,
they wanted to leave their mark.

Sanctuaries like this were
a complete godsend for artists.

From the 6th century onwards,
this place would have been

completely crammed, a visual jumble,
a cornucopia of imagery -

images of gods, statues of athletes
commemorating great victories in

the games - even elaborate sculpted
friezes decorating impressive

buildings that were built to honour
and record military triumphs.

And all of it, all this stuff,
it was given up, inevitably, as

thanks to the gods, but it was also
a way very simply of showing off.

Because Delphi was an arena
for public competition in many

different senses,
including the highly political

contest between city-states
of the most conspicuous expenditure

and power - all of it
communicated via art.

Greek city-states built
treasuries along the Sacred Way

to impress visitors
to the sanctuary.

The fanciest treasury at Delphi
was built by one of the smallest

Greek states -
the wealthy island of Siphnos.

The Siphnian Treasury had
an elaborate frieze that

ran around its outside
like a ribbon.

And while a statue like a kouros
was stiff and formal,

here the carved human
form leaps into life.

The frieze dramatises a battle
from Greek mythology,

the struggle between the gods
and the giants to rule the world.

It's about the forces of order
and civilisation -

the Olympian gods,

vanquishing the savagery and
barbarism of the helmeted giants.

The interest for us, if you
like, of this frieze now

is the way it's been sculpted,

because you find this surging,
rippling, pulsing rhythm

to the piece, which takes us
right into the melee of the battle.

The tumult of activity.

But it's the carving of the
figures that's so crucial here.

They're not seen in isolation,
one by one.

You have all of this interweaving,
overlapping of form.

For example, this corpse here,
you find him

snaking in-between legs
of the giants above.

But maybe the choicest
scene of all is this moment,

very ferocious,
at the heart of the frieze,

where one of the Olympians riding a
chariot charges towards the giants.

And the chariot is powered
by these two lions.

And you can see one of them
here attacking this poor giant

that we're almost invited
to sympathise with.

The lion is practically hugging
his haunches. You can see the way

that the paws overlap and there's
a real sense of depth of space.

This is something that felt
dynamic, it felt radical,

it felt unprecedented.

In fact, it ushered in a whole
new spirit for Greek art,

that takes us out of that
archaic world of stiffness,

towards something resembling,
if not real life,

then a certain new vigour
of animation and spirit.

Sanctuaries like Delphi
stimulated a new energy

and creativity in Greek art.

Motivated less by noble ideals
than by something far more

down-to-earth - competition.

Athletic contests at the
sanctuaries - they led to a greater

demand for art - but in turn,
the artists began to compete

among themselves, like athletes, in
a bid to scale new creative heights.

But if that was the purpose of all
this art, then the effect was

much greater and more unexpected,
because art, like the revered

words of Homer, began to bind Greeks
together, just as much as it

was used to distinguish one
city-state from another.

It wouldn't be long before
writers used a single word -

Hellas - for the land
occupied by Greek speakers.

This new sense of Greek identity
would soon invigorate even

the stiff, formal kouroi.

While they still owed something to
the original Egyptian model, there

was no denying they were relaxing
into something unmistakably Greek.

This imposing figure was
found in a cemetery.

And what's interesting artistically
about him is that although

he exhibits many of the hallmarks of
kouroi generally - the frontal pose,

his arms rigidly clamped by his
sides, even his long hair - he also

has something new, something of the
poise and presence of a real person.

It's true that, to our eyes,

his pumped-up muscles don't
necessarily seem realistic.

Particularly in the lower half -
his buttock, haunches, his calves,

they're all overinflated -
yet this isn't an empty

exercise in symmetry,
this is an expressive attempt

to start to understand how human
anatomy actually works.

Slowly but surely,
Greek sculpture was softening up,

and before long, kouroi like this,
standing to attention for eternity,

would be a thing of the past.

By the end of the 6th century BC,

Athens was emerging as the
dominant city-state in Greece.

And it was here that the heroic
aspirations of Greek artists

were most keenly felt.

In 514 BC,

two Athenian citizens murdered the
brother of the city's tyrant ruler.

Within a few years,
the fledgling democracy of Athens

had commissioned statues of
the 'tyrant slayers,'

as they became known.

When these two figures were
erected in the main public square

of Athens, just think what a
dramatic impact they must have had.

Everything about the sculpture
announces a new self-confidence -

both artistically,
and in terms of Greek identity.

The viewer is cast, with daring
panache, in the role of the victim.

And the old stiffness and formality
of those outdated kouroi

has been consigned to history.

Instead, we've got this moment
of vigorous action, in the round,

all lunging legs and slashing arms.

These two dynamic figures
are rushing headlong

into a new era for Greek art.

Over a period of 1,000 years,
the civilisation of ancient

Greece had gone from an age
of scattered kingdoms trading,

waging war upon each other,

surviving Dark Age catastrophe,

to a cultural rebirth and the
development of a rich mythology.

And finally, to the foundations
of what we know today

as classical Greece.

Now Greek art was a leader,
on the brink of its own unique,

distinctive style. A revolution
was just around the corner.

Next time...

The revolution is announced.

Art in Greece's
classical Golden Age.