Dura Europos, Syria is an important site that did not receive much attention until around 1921 when murals were discovered by accident in one of the many temples.READ ABOUT SOME OF THESE GREAT DISCOVERIES HERE.
The image on the left, entitled Ezekiel's Vision is one of the wall paintings at Dura-Europos. It shows the Mount of Olives on the right side, out of which the rising dead come. Ezekiel was one of few who had the power to awaken the dead, just as the Messiah will do. There are the hands of God coming down in the top.
Dura Europos, synagogue, west wall, ark versus paganism, Syria, 244-245Comments for this post are due by Monday November 5th.
16 comments:
i love the in-home paintings.. i personally think we should abandon wallpaper and plain colors, and hire artists to decorate our homes.. i bet it makes your house feel alot more personal
Dura Europos is considered to be the world's oldest preserved Jewish synagogue.That's pretty cool. It's interesting how we discover most things....by accident...Just as the United States was found my accident and other such lands and people. But it's worth finding. :)
We should seriuosly have these in our houses but in a way we kind of do...not in our houses but on the streets....Just brings color and character. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos_synagogue
I find the concept of forgotten cities to be kind of weird. It's interesting that the city was rediscovered in the 1920s and then shortly after it was excavated. But then seemingly forgotten about again (they call it lack of funding) until the 1980s. This seems like long periods of time for them to be piecing together what happened there, but they weren't.
I think that the way the city was laid out is interesting, because the streets look like city blocks. Even though it is from a long time ago, it looks like a plan from a modern city. I also like how protected the city was from invaders. Pretty much the only way enimies could get into the city were by diging under the wall.
as butch has said i too would love to see some paintings not in a frame but painted right on my wall. I love going to big cities cus i really like to see the graffiti thats up in places, some of those paintings would looks really REALLY great on my wall.
I really enjoy looking at the all the different paintings from this time. I agree that we should get rid of some of our current "art" or paintings and just start painting directly on the walls again! Its unique and has its own style to it. Knowing the story behind Dura Europos makes it even more interesting to look at the art work. I found a few websites that tell more about the site and its history .
http://www.janus.umd.edu/May2001/Stephanos/01.html
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/syria/dura-europos.htm
Also,on the same web page above you can see more pictures of what it looks like:
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/syria/dura-europos-pictures/
Little had changed about the basis structor of cities over the centuries. Then again, how much can really change? Food, shelter, efficient transportation and the like have been priorities of people since they started living in groups. Once you get passed the basics of the city, the beauty of what is left is breath taking. Dura Europos reminds me of Babylon. Before the war in Iraq, a great deal of work was done by archeologist to unearth the lost city. Sadly, Saddam Hussein's rebuilding of the city and then the destruction of the American army have severely damaged the archeological record of the site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon
It is kinda funny how Dura (meaning fortress)Europos, a fortified city did kind of become "lost" over time. As far as the paintings are concerned, I think as we mentioned in class, some of them depict the Jewish culture/community and the Old Testament stories. I would find it interesting if we did paintings like these in our homes, but I personally wouldn't like them on a wall in my house unless it is in the correct proportions.
http://pages.cthome.net/hirsch/dura.htm
It's amazing that these walls were unseen for so long, but also preserved in the condition it was. Examples such as well-preserved arms and armor belonging to the Roman garrison at the time of the final Sassanian siege of 256.
It makes you wonder what could be found with GPS and modern technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos
WOw the persians trying to break in by building a ramp and digging mines (and the underground fight) is really interesting to me. And i'm still trying to figure out how they had an underground battle. Could they really have dug that deep? its also amazing to me that these pieces of artwork have withstood their composure after all these years in the temples. you can tell theres creases and cracks in the pictures but everything is still...there..and its funny how in the picture of the rising dead, how (on the left side) how one of the dead rising is just a head lol
I think it is very interesting that they actually dedicated all this wall space to art. Now days we hang a single picture in a whole room, very boring. I would love to paint all my walls with great, huge mural like things. But, I could also see that with so much going on in one area at one time my inner interior designer would have a meltdown. It might become a little too much.
Dura Europos was founded in 303 BC as a great Hellenistic city. That means that some art was probably influenced by the Hellenisitc culture. The city was found on the major crossroads of a grid system. This means that they had a great amount of culture influencing them. It's no wonder that the art of this city is impressive.
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/syria/dura-europos.htm
Painting on the walls would be cool up to a point. If everything was painted with bright vibrant colors and intriquite designs, I think I would get distracted very easily and it would eventually drive me insane. Ill keep my walls plain white for now though.
this post has been graded
quite interesting article. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did you guys know that some chinese hacker had hacked twitter yesterday again.
very useful post. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did any one know that some chinese hacker had busted twitter yesterday again.
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