148-448: The Brothers Poem or Brothers Song is a series of lines of verse attributed to the archaic Greek poet Sappho ( c. 630 – c. 570 BC ), which had been lost since antiquity until being rediscovered in 2014. Most of its text, apart from its opening lines, survives. It is known only from a papyrus fragment, comprising one of a series of poems attributed to Sappho. It mentions two of her brothers, Charaxos and Larichos;
296-684: A Beverly Hills saleroom in 1997. In April 2017, in moved to a 4,500 sq ft (420 m ) two-story flagship space in Beverly Hills, designed by wHY . Christie's has been operating a space in Hong Kong's Alexandra House since 2014. In 2021, the company announced plans to move its Hong Kong headquarters to the Zaha Hadid -designed luxury tower The Henderson in 2024, where it will launch year-round auctions. Measuring more than 50,000 sq ft (4,600 m ) over four storeys,
444-545: A century – was the subject of significant media attention. James Romm, writing in The Daily Beast , called it "a spectacular literary discovery", and Tom Payne in The Daily Telegraph said that it was "more exciting than a new album by David Bowie ". Other commentators expressed concern about the provenance of the papyrus, fearing that it had been illegally acquired on the black market, or even that it
592-430: A civil lawsuit settlement of $ 512M. Christie's has been criticised for "an embarrassing history of a lack of transparency around provenance ". In 2003, Christie's was criticised for its handling of two Nazi-looted artworks claimed by heirs of the original Jewish owners. In one case, it refused to divulge to the heirs the location of an Italian painting formerly owned by Jewish Viennese banker Heinrich Graf, looted by
740-593: A climatic shift that took place between 850 and 750, which made the region cooler and wetter. This led to the expansion of population into uncultivated areas of Greece and was probably also a driver for colonisation abroad. Ancient sources give us little information on mortality rates in archaic Greece, but it is likely that not many more than half of the population survived to the age of 18: perinatal and infant mortality are likely to have been very high. The population of archaic Greece would have consequently been very young – somewhere between two-fifths and two-thirds of
888-533: A consequence of in-fighting between rival oligarchs, rather than between the oligarchs and the people. Recently historians have begun to question the existence of a seventh century "age of tyrants". In the archaic period, the Greek word tyrannos , according to Victor Parker, did not have the negative connotations it had gained by the time Aristotle wrote his Constitution of the Athenians . When Archilochus used
1036-536: A deal that valued the entire company at $ 1.2bn. The company has since not been reporting profits, though it gives sale totals twice a year. Its policy, in line with UK accounting standards, is to convert non-UK results using an average exchange rate weighted daily by sales throughout the year. In 2002, Christie's France held its first auction in Paris. Like Sotheby's, Christie's became increasingly involved in high-profile private transactions. In 2006, Christie's offered
1184-541: A leading power in Greece. The attempted coup by Cylon of Athens ( who became tyrant of Athens ) may be the earliest event in Athenian history which is clearly attested by ancient sources, dating to around 636 BCE. At this time, it seems that Athens' monarchy had already ended and the archonship had replaced it as the most important executive office in the state, though the archonship could only be held by members of
1332-435: A man. Anja Bettenworth has argued that the addressee is of a lower social status than Sappho, again based on the use of θρυλέω , but Kurke argues they are likely to be in a position of authority over Sappho, as she expects them to send her to pray to Hera. The final two characters, Charaxos and Larichos, are identified as Sappho's brothers in ancient sources. Charaxos is first mentioned by Herodotus, who describes his love for
1480-401: A newly-discovered ancient artefact; C. Michael Sampson describes this absence as "anomalous and suspicious". Archaeologists immediately criticised this lack of transparency, and the initial version of Obbink's article was soon taken down. Since then, several contradictory claims have been made about the history of P. Sapph. Obbink. The earliest discussions of the provenance began shortly after
1628-628: A prehistoric sculpture from Sardinia , valued at $ 800,000–$ 1.2m, put on auction by Michael Steinhardt , a US-billionaire, who was given a lifetime ban on acquiring further antiquities by the Manhattan district attorney's office in 2021. After having acquired artworks with unverified provenance for years, for example by convicted art dealer Giacomo Medici , Steinhard's collection had been subjected to search warrants and investigations since 2017. He finally surrendered 180 looted and illegally smuggled antiquities valued at $ 70m. According to The Guardian ,
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#17327758949911776-703: A reported $ 21M guarantee to the Donald Judd Foundation and displayed the artist's works for five weeks in an exhibition that later won an AICA award for "Best Installation in an Alternative Space". In 2007 it brokered a $ 68M deal that transferred Thomas Eakins 's The Gross Clinic (1875) from the Jefferson Medical College at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia to joint ownership by
1924-881: A retraction to Obbink's chapter in The Newest Sappho which repeated this account, citing the "tainted" provenance, and Obbink's failure to provide a "substantive response" to Sampson's allegations. A third possible provenance was reported in 2020, when Brent Nongbri published an email from Mike Holmes, the Director of the Museum of the Bible Scholars Initiative, which revealed evidence that P.GC. inv. 105 had been sourced from Turkish antiquities dealer Yakup Eksioglu. The Atlantic reported that Eksioglu had corroborated this, and had also claimed that P.Sapph.Obbink came from his collection. In an article for
2072-509: A series of others in the mid-seventh century BC, such as Orthagoras in Sicyon and Theagenes in Megara. Various explanations have been provided for the rise of tyranny in the seventh century BC. The most popular of these explanations dates back to Aristotle , who argued that tyrants were set up by the people in response to the nobility becoming less tolerable. As there is no evidence from
2220-515: A sign of exceptional wealth. A team of oxen could increase agricultural output significantly but were expensive to maintain. As they had in the Dark Ages, the wealthiest members of Greek society could own large herds of cattle. This pattern had probably developed before the beginning of the period and remained relatively consistent throughout it. The idea that it was preceded by a period of pastoralism and that agriculture only became dominant in
2368-467: A significant population increase in the eighth century. These two factors created a need for a new form of political organisation, as the political systems in place at the beginning of the archaic period quickly became unworkable. Though in the early part of the Classical period the city of Athens was both culturally and politically dominant, it was not until the late sixth century BC that it became
2516-490: A single image or set of images. Some of these were the symbol or image of an important deity in the city or visual puns on the city's name, but in many cases their meaning is obscure and may not have been chosen for any special reason. The reasons for the rapid and widespread adoption of coinage by the Greeks are not entirely clear and several possibilities, which are not mutually exclusive, have been suggested. One possibility
2664-556: A single word. In 2014, Dirk Obbink , Simon Burris, and Jeffrey Fish published five fragments of papyrus, containing nine separate poems by Sappho. Three were previously unknown, and the find amounted to the largest expansion of the surviving corpus of Sappho's work for 92 years. The most impressive is the Brothers Poem fragment, called P. Sapph. Obbink, part of a critical edition of Book I of Sappho's poetry. The remaining four fragments, P. GC. inv. 105 frr. 1–4, are written in
2812-766: A theme rather than an art classification or time period. As part of a companywide review in 2017, Christie's announced the layoffs of 250 employees, or 12 per cent of the total work force, based mainly in Britain and Europe. In June 2021, Christie's Paris held its first sale dedicated to women artists, most notably Louise Moillon's Nature morte aux raisins et pêches . In 2022 Christie's sold $ 8.4bn in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. Christie's agreed to acquire American classic car auction house, Gooding & Company , in September 2024. From 2008 until 2013, Christie's charged 25 per cent for
2960-653: A virtually constant 70° and 50% relative humidity. Located near the Upper Bay tidal waterway near the Atlantic Ocean, the Brooklyn facility was hit by at least one storm surge during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. CFASS subsequently faced client defections and complaints arising from damage to works of art. In 2013, AXA Art Insurance filed a lawsuit in New York court alleging that CFASS' "gross negligence" during
3108-495: Is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie . Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis , the holding company of François Pinault . In 2022 Christie's sold US$ 8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. On 15 November 2017,
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#17327758949913256-444: Is in the hands of the gods and offering to pray to Hera for his return. The narrative then switches focus from Charaxos to Larichos, who the speaker hopes will relieve the family of their troubles when he becomes a man. Scholars tend to view the poem's significance more in historical rather than in literary terms. Research focuses on the identities of the speaker and the addressee, and their historical groundings. Other writers examine
3404-493: Is likely to be at least authentically from archaic Lesbos. Neither of the two characters is named. Whether the speaker can be identified with Sappho herself is central to its interpretation. André Lardinois observes that most of the identified speakers in Sappho's poetry are female. Melissa Mueller identifies the speaker as Sappho, and the poem has generally been interpreted as being autobiographical. Not all scholars have identified
3552-399: Is not universally agreed upon. The classical historian Anton Bierl argues that the central dispute of the poem is between masculine and feminine ideologies. He suggests that the speaker's offer to pray to Hera is a "solution appropriate to her gender", and contrasts with the masculine belief that the family's problems can be solved through Charaxos' pursuit of wealth. He therefore suggests that
3700-460: Is obscure. Solon was also credited with abolishing slavery for debtors, and establishing limits on who could be granted Athenian citizenship. Solon instituted radical constitutional reform, replacing noble birth as a qualification for office with income. The poorest – called thetes – could hold no offices, although they could attend the Assembly and the law courts, while the richest class –
3848-415: Is original. Other sources for the archaic period are the traditions recorded by later Greek writers such as Herodotus . However, those traditions are not part of any form of history that would be recognised today. Those transmitted by Herodotus were recorded whether or not he believed them to be accurate. Indeed, Herodotus did not even record any dates before 480 BC. Politically, the archaic period saw
3996-498: Is shortly to come of age (Obbink puts him at around twelve); Sappho-the-speaker is therefore still a teenager herself. The addressee of the poem is unnamed in the surviving text, but many suggestions have been made as to their identity – Camillo Neri lists eleven possible candidates. Obbink suggests the most likely candidates are Rhodopis or Doricha, described in ancient sources as the lover of Charaxos, and Sappho's mother, to whom Sappho addressed other poems. Most scholars agree that
4144-403: Is that coinage was adopted specifically to enable communities to make payments to their citizens, mercenaries and artisans in a transparent, fair and efficient way. Similarly, when wealthy members of the community were required to contribute wealth to the community for festivals and the equipment of navies, coinage made the process more efficient and transparent. A third possibility, that coinage
4292-455: Is that it might even be a fake. 'Everything about it seems too good to be true,' one senior Cambridge classicist told me." Though classicists considered it the "most spectacular" of the 2014 finds, it is not considered one of Sappho's best works. Martin West originally considered the work to be "very poor stuff" and "frigid juvenilia", though he later toned down his criticism. Liberman wrote that
4440-403: Is the increased ease of commerce which coinage allowed. Coins were of standardised weights, which meant that their value could be determined without weighing them. Furthermore, it was not necessary for users of coinage to spend time determining whether the silver was pure silver; the fact that the coin had been issued by the community was a promise that it was worth a set value. Another possibility
4588-427: Is unable to be the moral example to the wayward Charaxos due to her gender; she must rely on Larichos who still has the potential to become an upstanding adult. Thus, Laura Swift sees the poem as an example of Sappho reworking established epic tropes from a female perspective – as she also does in fragment 16 . Anton Bierl identifies seven other fragments of Sappho that seem to have dealt with Charaxos or Doricha. Like
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4736-732: The Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $ 450 million to Saudi Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud , the highest price ever paid for a painting . The official company literature states that founder James Christie (1730–1803) conducted the first sale in London on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766. However, other sources note that James Christie rented auction rooms from 1762, and newspaper advertisements for Christie's sales dating from 1759 have also been traced. After his death, Christie's son, James Christie
4884-462: The Center for Hellenic Studies , Theodore Nash concluded that the papyrus was "almost guaranteed" to be connected to Eksiolgu. According to Eksioglu, P. Sapph. Obbink and P. GC inv. 105 had been in his family collection for over a century, though he provided no documentation for this. Brian D. Hyland rejects this as "simply not believable". Critics of the lack of transparency around the provenance of
5032-589: The Colossus of the Naxians from around 600 BC, are known to represent Apollo , while the Phrasikleia Kore was meant to represent a young woman whose tomb it originally marked. Over the course of the sixth century, kouroi from Attica become more lifelike and naturalistic. However, this trend does not appear elsewhere in the Greek world. The genre began to become less common over the last part of
5180-532: The Cycladic Islands in the 540s BC, Southern Italy and Sicily before 525 BC, and Thrace before 514 BC. Most of these coinages were very small and were mostly only used within the community that issued them, but the "turtles" of Aegina (from 530 or 520 BC) and the "owls" of Athens (from 515 BC) were issued in great quantity and exported throughout the Greek world. The images on coins initially changed rapidly, but increasingly each community settled on
5328-628: The Delmonico's Hotel grand ballroom on the second floor; in 1997 it took a 30-year lease on a 28,000 m (300,000 sq ft) space in Rockefeller Center for $ 40M. Until 2001, Christie's East, a division that sold lower-priced art and objects, was located at 219 East 67th Street. In 1996, Christie's bought a townhouse on East 59th Street in Manhattan as a separate gallery where experts could show clients art in complete privacy to conduct private treaty sales. Christie's opened
5476-462: The Eupatridae , the families which made up Athens' aristocracy. The earliest laws of Athens were established by Draco , in 621/0; his law on homicide was the only one to have survived to the Classical period. Draco's law code aimed to replace private revenge as the first and only response of an individual to an offence committed against them. The law code of Draco, however, failed to prevent
5624-641: The Gestapo . Christie's eventually revealed the holder's name after the Jewish Community of Vienna filed a successful suit in the UK on behalf of Graf's American daughters in late 2004. In the other 2003 case Christie's declined to inform the family that it had discovered that a painting consigned to it had been looted from Ulla and Moriz Rosenthal, a Jewish couple murdered in Auschwitz. On 19 May 2020,
5772-643: The Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period . In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea : by the end of the period, they were part of a trade network that spanned the entire Mediterranean. The archaic period began with a massive increase in the Greek population and of significant changes that rendered the Greek world at the end of
5920-548: The Mediterranean , the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea . This was not simply for trade, but also to found settlements. These Greek colonies were not, as Roman colonies were, dependent on their mother-city, but were independent city-states in their own right. Greeks settled outside of Greece in two distinct ways. The first was in permanent settlements founded by Greeks, which formed as independent poleis. The second form
6068-474: The Nereids , not just for the safe return of her brother but that "whatever his heart desires be fulfilled"; in the Brothers Poem she recognises that such a broad request is out of the competence of the Nereids and should more properly be addressed to the goddess Hera. Links between Homer's Odyssey and the Brothers Poem have been observed by many scholars. Bär describes the epic as a "crucial intertext" for
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6216-484: The Nigerian Civil War and were sold for €212,500 (after fees), below their low estimate of €250,000. Christie's claims to require "verifiable documented provenance that the object was taken out of its source nation prior to the earlier date of 2000, or the date which is legally applicable between the country in which the sale takes place and the source nation". In November 2014, Christie's had to withdraw
6364-701: The Peloponnesian League : by 550, cities such as Elis , Corinth, and Megara were part of the alliance. This series of alliances had the dual purpose of preventing the cities of the League from supporting the Helot population of Messenia, and of helping Sparta in its conflict with Argos , which in the archaic period was along with Sparta one of the major powers in the Peloponnese. In the eighth and seventh centuries BC, Greeks began to spread across
6512-655: The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts . In the same year, the Haunch of Venison gallery became a subsidiary of the company. On 28 December 2008, The Sunday Times reported that Pinault's debts left him "considering" the sale of Christie's and that a number of " private equity groups" were thought to be interested in its acquisition. In January 2009,
6660-584: The Society for Classical Studies . He claimed that the papyrus derived from the collection of David Moore Robinson , who had purchased it in 1954 from an Egyptian dealer, Sultan Maguid Sameda, and on his death left it to the University of Mississippi Library. Part of the Robinson collection was offered for sale through Christie's in 2011; Obbink reported that P. Sapph. Obbink was included in this sale, and
6808-579: The kouros and kore , near life-size frontal statues of a young man or woman, which were developed around the middle of the seventh century BC in the Cyclades . Probably the earliest kore produced was the Dedication of Nikandre , which was dedicated to Artemis at her temple on Delos between 660 and 650 BC, while kouroi began to be created shortly after this. Kouroi and korai were used to represent both humans and divinities. Some kouroi, such as
6956-454: The overthrow of president Mubarak ; or that they may have been among the uncatalogued papyri excavated by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus . The poem is 20 lines (five stanzas) long and written in Sapphic stanzas , a metre named after Sappho, which is composed of three long lines followed by one shorter line. The beginning of the poem is lost, but it is estimated that the complete work
7104-640: The pentacosiomedimni – were the only people eligible to become treasurer, and possibly archon. He set up the Council of the Four Hundred , responsible for discussing motions which were to come before the Assembly . Finally, Solon substantially reduced the powers of the archon by giving citizens the right of appeal; their case was judged by the Assembly. A second wave of constitutional reform in Athens
7252-516: The 8th century entirely unrecognizable from its beginning. According to Anthony Snodgrass , the archaic period was bounded by two revolutions in the Greek world. It began with a "structural revolution" that "drew the political map of the Greek world" and established the poleis , the distinctively Greek city-states, and it ended with the intellectual revolution of the Classical period. The archaic period saw developments in Greek politics, economics, international relations, warfare and culture. It laid
7400-471: The Brothers Poem has been lost is unknown. An overlap between P. Oxy. 2289 and P. Sapph. Obbink, the apparent alphabetic arrangement in the Alexandrian edition of her works, and the implausibility of any poem beginning with the word ἀλλά (meaning "but" or "and yet"), suggest that at least one opening stanza is missing. Bär has argued against this position, noting that the overlap between
7548-456: The Brothers Poem is a deliberate reworking of the Homeric story, focusing on the fraternal relationship between Sappho and Charaxos in contrast to the conjugal one between Odysseus and Penelope. According to Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, this should be seen in the context of an archaic Greek tradition of domestic – and specifically sisterly – discourses. Along with stories of Odysseus' homecoming in
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#17327758949917696-435: The Brothers Poem is missing at least one, and perhaps as many as three stanzas. Gauthier Liberman suggests that it was originally seven stanzas long; Kurke argues it is likely that only one stanza is missing. There are a variety of theories around the content of the missing stanzas. Mueller suggests that they may have revealed the identity of the addressee. Joel Lidov proposes that the latterly passive addressee actually speaks in
7844-497: The Brothers Poem to show that at least one stanza preceded the well-preserved portion. Soon after the discovery of P. Sapph. Obbink was made public in January 2014, scholars began to raise questions about the provenance . The initial version of Obbink's article announcing the discovery said that the papyrus was in a private collection, but contained no discussion of its origin or ownership history, as would be usual when reporting on
7992-480: The Brothers Poem, fragments 5, 15, and 17 focus on homecomings; fragments 5 and 15 are both likely to be about Charaxos, and Bierl suggests that fragment 17, a cultic hymn referring to Menelaus ' visit to Lesbos on his way home from Troy, may be a prayer for a safe journey for Charaxos. Four other surviving fragments of Sappho, 3 , 7 , 9 , and 20 , may all have been connected with the story of Charaxos and Doricha. The Brothers Poem follows shortly after fragment 5 in
8140-625: The Brothers Poem. The relationship in the poem between the speaker, Charaxos, and Larichos parallels that of Penelope , Odysseus , and Telemachus in Homer: in the Brothers Poem, the speaker awaits Charaxos' return from overseas and Larichos' coming-of-age; in the Odyssey , Penelope awaits Odysseus' return and Telemachus' coming-of-age. Additionally, Anton Bierl suggests that the context of Charaxos' being away in Egypt – according to Herodotus, in love with
8288-471: The Classical period during the eighth century BC. By the classical period, Spartan tradition attributed this constitution to Lycurgus of Sparta , who according to Thucydides lived a little over four centuries before the end of the Peloponnesian War , around the end of the ninth century. The First Messenian War , probably taking place from approximately 740 to 720 BC, saw the strengthening of
8436-517: The Collection of Ambassador Trevor Traina - a former U.S. ambassador to Austria and founder of the web3 wallet provider Kresus . Eight days later on October 10, Christie's New York auctioned Ascend , a digital work created by Ryan Koopmans and Alice Wexell, marking the first time a piece inscribed on Bitcoin's Ordinals protocol had been sold in a live auction at Christie’s. Christie's sees this "integration of physical and digital ownership" as
8584-562: The Greek word archaios , meaning 'old', and refers to the period in ancient Greek history before the classical period. The archaic period is generally considered to have lasted from the beginning of the 8th century BC until the beginning of the 5th century BC, with the foundation of the Olympic Games in 776 BC and the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC forming notional starting and ending dates. The archaic period
8732-641: The London gallery Spink & Son , which specialised in Oriental art and British paintings; the gallery was run as a separate entity. The company bought Leger Gallery for $ 3.3M in 1996, and merged it with Spink to become Spink-Leger. Spink-Leger closed in 2002. To make itself competitive with Sotheby's in the property market, Christie's bought Great Estates in 1995, then the largest network of independent estate agents in North America, changing its name to Christie's Great Estates Inc. In December 1997, under
8880-616: The Mycenaean period. Life-size human sculpture in hard stone began in Greece in the archaic period. This was inspired in part by ancient Egyptian stone sculpture : the proportions of the New York Kouros exactly correspond to Egyptian rules about the proportion of human figures. In Greece, these sculptures best survive as religious dedications and grave markers, but the same techniques would have also been used to make cult images. The best-known types of archaic sculpture are
9028-526: The Near East. At the beginning of the seventh century BC, vase painters in Corinth began to develop the black-figure style . At the same time, potters began to use incisions in the clay of vases in order to draw outlines and interior detailing. This adoption of incision, probably taken from eastern metalwork, allowed potters to show fine details of their decorations. Christie%27s Christie's
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#17327758949919176-524: The Oxyrhynchus and Obbink papyri is sufficiently small (only six characters) as not to be conclusive. He argues that there are other known exceptions to the alphabetical ordering of the first Alexandrian edition of Sappho's works, thematic reasons why the Brothers Poem might have been placed out of order to follow closely after fragment 5, and parallels elsewhere in Greek literature for an inceptive ἀλλά. Despite Bär's arguments, most authors conclude that
9324-773: The South Kensington saleroom in July 2017 as part of their restructuring plans announced in March 2017. The closure was due in part to a considerable decrease in sales between 2015 and 2016 in addition to the company expanding its online sales presence. In early 2017, Christie's also announced plans to scale back its operation in Amsterdam. In 1977, led by then Chairman Stephen Lash , the company opened its first international branch on Park Avenue in New York City in
9472-650: The United Kingdom and stored without incurring import duties and VAT . Christie's Fine Art Storage Services, or CFASS, is a wholly owned subsidiary that runs Christie's storage operation. In September 2008, Christie's signed a 50-year lease on an early 1900s warehouse of the historic N.Y.D. Company in Red Hook, Brooklyn , and subsequently spent $ 30M converting it into a six-storey, 250,000 square feet art-storage facility. The facility opened in 2010 and features high-tech security and climate controls that maintain
9620-590: The United States as a longtime employee of Christie's confessed and cooperated with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation . Numerous members of Sotheby's senior management were fired soon thereafter, and A. Alfred Taubman , the largest shareholder of Sotheby's at the time, took most of the blame; he and Dede Brooks (the CEO) were given jail sentences, and Christie's, Sotheby's and their owners also paid
9768-567: The United States in 1977. Christie's growth was slow but steady since 1989, when it had 42% of the auction market. In 1990, the company reversed a long-standing policy and guaranteed a minimum price for a collection of artworks in its May auctions. In 1996, sales exceeded those of Sotheby's for the first time since 1954. However, profits did not grow at the same pace; from 1993 through 1997, Christie's annual pretax profits were about $ 60M , whereas Sotheby's annual pretax profits were about $ 265M for those years. In 1993, Christie's paid $ 10.9M for
9916-417: The Younger (1773–1831) took over the business. Christie's was a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange , from 1973 to 1999. In 1974, Jo Floyd was appointed chairman of Christie's. He served as chairman of Christie's International plc from 1976 to 1988, until handing over to Lord Carrington , and later was a non-executive director until 1992. Christie's International Inc. held its first sale in
10064-532: The addressee is a male relative of Sappho. Lardinois also believes that the addressee is a man: he argues that Sappho's mother could have gone to pray to Hera herself, and therefore it does not make sense for her to send Sappho on her behalf. In contrast, Mueller and Leslie Kurke both argue that the addressee is probably meant to be female, based on Sappho's use of the word θρυλέω ("chattering" or "babbling") to describe their speech. The word has negative connotations that would make Sappho unlikely to use it to address
10212-401: The addressee is some concerned friend or relative of Charaxos. Many (including Martin L. West , Franco Ferrari, Camillo Neri, and Leslie Kurke) select Sappho's mother as the most likely option. Giambattista d'Alessio draws parallels with other fragments of Sappho which mention a mother, particularly fragment 9, which also appears to mention a mother in association with religious ritual. This
10360-464: The aftermath of the murder of George Floyd , Christie's noted that there was a lack of racial diversity in the art world, and admitted that Christie's degree programs only exacerbated these inequities. However, Christie's continue to offer non-degree programmes in London, New York, Hong Kong and Amsterdam as well as online. In addition they offer an Art Business Masterclass Certificate and the Luxury Masterclass Certificate. With Bonhams , Christie's
10508-439: The announcement of the discovery in January 2014. In an article in the Sunday Times , Bettany Hughes reported that the papyrus was originally owned by a German officer, while Obbink wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that it was found in mummy cartonnage. Obbink later claimed that the German officer mentioned by Hughes was an "imaginative fantasy", and that the original belief that the papyrus had come from mummy cartonnage
10656-486: The archaic period include epigraphical evidence, including parts of law codes, inscriptions on votive offerings and epigrams inscribed on tombs. However, none of that evidence is in the quantity for which it survives from the classical period. What is lacking in written evidence is made up for in the rich archaeological evidence from the archaic Greek world. Indeed, although much knowledge of Classical Greek art comes from later Roman copies, all surviving archaic Greek art
10804-419: The archaic period, and in the north and west of the country it did not become dominant until some way into the Classical period. The urbanisation process in archaic Greece known as " synoecism " – the amalgamation of several small settlements into a single urban centre – took place in much of Greece in the eighth century BC. Both Athens and Argos , for instance, began to coalesce into single settlements around
10952-418: The archaic period. Farms appear to have been small, cohesive units, concentrated near settlements. They were highly diversified, growing a wide variety of crops simultaneously, in order to make consistent use of human resources throughout the year and to ensure that the failure of any one crop was not too much of a disaster. Crop rotation was practiced, with fields left fallow every other year. Though wheat
11100-517: The area. By the end of the eighth century BC, Greek settlements in southern Italy were also well established. In the seventh century, Greek colonists expanded the areas that they settled. In the west, colonies were founded as far afield as Marseilles . In the east, the north Aegean, the Sea of Marmara, and the Black Sea all saw colonies founded. The dominant coloniser in these parts was Miletus . At
11248-538: The auction house without any provenance in London in April 2005. Christie's had offered the Hauser heirs 50 per cent of the sale price; the heirs refused the offer and took the case to court. In 2018, Christie's began offering "digital passports" stored on the blockchain to a select number of private collectors purchasing art. These "certificates of ownership" gave the buyer a clear and transparent provenance record of
11396-426: The average house size remained constant around 45–50 m , but the number of very large and very small houses increased, indicating increasing economic inequality. From the end of the seventh century, this trend reversed, with houses clustering closely around a growing average, and by the end of the archaic period the average house size had risen to about 125 m . Not all arable land in Greece was yet under cultivation in
11544-443: The beginning of the archaic period, coinage had not yet been invented. The Greeks measured the value of objects or fines using certain valuable objects, such as oxen, tripods, and metal spits, as units of account . As in the Near East, precious metal bullion was used as a medium of exchange , principally gold at first, but mainly silver by the beginning of the sixth century. The weight of this bullion (often known as hacksilber )
11692-403: The chairmanship of Lord Hindlip , Christie's put itself on the auction block, but after two months of negotiations with the consortium-led investment firm SBC Warburg Dillon Read it did not attract a bid high enough to accept. In May 1998, François Pinault 's holding company, Groupe Artémis S.A., first bought 29.1 per cent of the company for $ 243.2M, and subsequently purchased the rest of it in
11840-458: The company employed 2,100 people worldwide, though an unspecified number of staff and consultants were soon to be cut due to a worldwide downturn in the art market; later news reports said that 300 jobs would be cut. With sales for premier Impressionist, Modern, and contemporary artworks tallying only US$ 248.8M in comparison to US$ 739M just a year before, a second round of job cuts began after May 2009. In 2012, Impressionist works, which dominated
11988-417: The course of the archaic period is not supported by the archaeological or literary evidence. No technological innovations in agriculture appear to have occurred, except possibly the increased use of iron tools and more intensive use of manure . The main source for the practice of agriculture in the period is Hesiod 's Works and Days , which gives the impression of very small subsistence holdings in which
12136-547: The courtesan Rhodopis – parallels Odysseus' entrapment by Calypso and Circe . A specific parallel to the Odyssean homecoming narrative is found in line 9 [13]. Sappho uses the adjective ἀρτεμής ("safe"), which occurs only once in the Odyssey , at 13.43, where Odysseus hopes that he will return to Ithaca to find his family safe – just as the speaker hopes in the third stanza of the Brothers Poem that Charaxos will return to Lesbos to find his family safe. Mueller suggests that
12284-461: The courtesan Rhodopis; Strabo and Athenaeus say that he was a wine trader. The earliest mention of Larichos comes from Athenaeus, who says that in his youth he was a wine-pourer in the prytaneion (town hall) in Mytilene . Modern scholars are uncertain whether either was Sappho's actual brother. For instance, Lardinois sees Charaxos and Larichos as fictional characters: he draws comparisons to
12432-608: The craft supply company Hobby Lobby , who purchased material for loan or donation to The Museum of the Bible , filed a diversity action on the auction house regarding the sale and purchase of the Gilgamesh tablet by private sale agreement on 14 July 2014, allegedly while knowing the Iraqi-origin cuneiform object had a fake provenance. In June 2020, they were forced to withdraw four Greek and Roman antiquities from sale after it
12580-542: The development of the polis (or city-state) as the predominant unit of political organisation. Many cities throughout Greece came under the rule of autocratic leaders, called " tyrants ". It also saw the development of law and systems of communal decision-making, with the earliest evidence for law codes and constitutional structures dating to the period. By the end of the archaic period, both the Athenian and Spartan constitutions seem to have developed into their classical forms. The archaic period saw significant urbanisation and
12728-509: The development of the concept of the polis as it was used in Classical Greece. By Solon 's time, if not before, the word polis had acquired its classical meaning, and though the emergence of the polis as a political community was still in progress at this point, the polis as an urban centre was a product of the eighth century. However, the polis did not become the dominant form of socio-political organisation throughout Greece in
12876-496: The district attorney said: "For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artefacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe. In February 2023 a French court ordered Christie's to unconditionally restitute Dutch painting The Penitent Magdalene , signed Adriaen van der Werff (1707), looted in 1942 from Lionel Hauser in Paris and last sold by
13024-401: The earliest red-figure vases . The early part of the archaic period saw distinctive orientalizing influences, both in pottery and in sculpture. At the beginning of the archaic period, Greek sculpture mostly consisted of small bronze works, particularly of horses. Bronze human figures were also produced, and both horse and human figures are primarily found in religious sanctuaries. Towards
13172-427: The early part of the ninth century BC, but did not become common on mainland Greek pottery until the middle of the eighth century BC. The eighth century saw the development of the orientalizing style , which signalled a shift away from the earlier geometric style and the accumulation of influences derived from Phoenicia and Syria . This orientalizing influence seems to have come from goods imported to Greece from
13320-462: The east as early as the first half of the eighth century, and the earliest pottery from the Greek islands found at Al Mina in modern Syria is from Euboea. By the sixth century, Greece was part of a trade network spanning the entire Mediterranean. Sixth century Laconian pottery has been found as far afield as Marseilles and Carthage to the west, Crete to the south and Sardis to the East. At
13468-400: The edition of Sappho preserved by P. Sapph. Obbink, with probably only one column of text between them. Silvio Bär argues that the poem was deliberately positioned here because it was seen as a sort of continuation of that fragment by the editor of the Alexandrian edition of Sappho's poetry. He suggests that it acts to correct the views put forward in fragment 5: there, Sappho prays to
13616-471: The eighth century as the growth of the population increased the number of workers available, and intensified in the seventh century with the development of legally enforced debts and the status of the labourers increasingly becoming a source of social strife. By the late eighth century BC, the archaic Greek world had become involved in an active trade network around the Aegean. It was this trade network that
13764-636: The elites of society in Lesbos . The first two extant stanzas detail Charaxos' arrival. In the first, the speaker reproaches the addressee for repeatedly saying that Charaxos will return "with his ship full", that only gods can know such things, and that the addressee should send her to pray to Hera for Charaxos' safe return. The third and fourth stanzas develop into a more general examination of human dependence on gods. The speaker asserts that while human fortunes are changeable ("fair winds swiftly follow harsh gales") Zeus gives good fortune to those he favours. In
13912-470: The end of that century. In some settlements, this physical unification was marked by the construction of defensive city walls, as was the case in Smyrna by the middle of the eighth century BC, and Corinth by the middle of the seventh century BC. It seems that the evolution of the polis as a socio-political structure, rather than a simply geographical one, can be attributed to this urbanisation, as well as
14060-425: The end of the archaic period brought in Athenian democracy as it was during the Classical period. In Sparta , many of the institutions credited to the reforms of Lycurgus were introduced during the archaic period, the region of Messenia was brought under Spartan control, helotage was introduced and the Peloponnesian League was founded and made Sparta a dominant power in Greece. The word archaic derives from
14208-403: The end of the eighth century, horse figurines became much less common, disappearing "almost completely" by 700 BC. In the seventh century, Greek sculpture saw a strong Eastern influence, with mythical creatures such as griffins and sirens becoming much more popular. Also in the seventh century BC, Greek sculpture began to directly represent gods, a practice which had disappeared after the end of
14356-410: The epic tradition, the Brothers Poem has similarities to several other genres of archaic Greek poetry. Joel Lidov sees it as being in the tradition of prayers for safe returns; Richard Martin identifies structural similarities to Archilochus' Cologne Epode (fr.196a), a piece of iambic invective ; and Peter O'Connell suggests parallels with songs of welcome, in particular Archilochus fr.24. How much of
14504-410: The final stanza, the speaker hopes that Larichos will "[lift] his head high" and "become an ἄνηρ [man] in all senses", as Obbink puts it, and release the family from its troubles. When Obbink published the poem in 2014, he attributed it to Sappho based on its metre, dialect ( Aeolic ), and mentions of Charaxos and Larichos, both of whom are identified in other sources as her brothers. It is possible that
14652-484: The first $ 50,000; 20 per cent on the amount between $ 50,001 and $ 1M, and 12 per cent on the rest. From 2013, it charged 25 per cent for the first $ 75,000; 20 per cent on the next $ 75,001 to $ 1.5M and 12 per cent on the rest. As of 2023, Christie's commission (buyer's premium) is 26 per cent of the hammer price of each lot up to £800,000/US$ 1,000,000, plus 21 per cent of the hammer price from £800,001/US$ 1,000,001 up to and including £4,500,000/US$ 6,000,000, and 15 per cent on
14800-476: The fragments of Sappho's work which do survive are insufficient to conclude that she composed a series telling the story of Charaxos' relationship with Doricha. Sappho portrays Charaxos as irresponsible, with Larichos as his more respectable foil. Unlike in the versions of this trope in Homer and Hesiod , Sappho inserts a third, female, figure into the relationship. In this scheme, the figure with moral authority
14948-405: The future of art auctioning, and the most efficient way for buyers to know they've purchased a work with as accurate and secure a provenance as possible. Christie's first ventured into storage services for outside clients in 1984, when it opened a 100,000 square feet brick warehouse in London that was granted "Exempted Status" by HM Revenue and Customs , meaning that property may be imported into
15096-477: The groundwork for the Classical period, both politically and culturally. It was in the archaic period that the Greek alphabet developed, the earliest surviving Greek literature was composed, monumental sculpture and red-figure pottery began in Greece and the hoplite became the core of Greek armies. In Athens , the earliest institutions of democracy were implemented under Solon , and the reforms of Cleisthenes at
15244-687: The hurricane damaged art collected by late cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and his wife Jacqueline Rebecca Louise de Rothschild . Later that year, StarNet Insurance Co., the insurer for the LeRoy Neiman Foundation and the artist's estate, also filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court claiming that the storage company's negligence caused more than $ 10M in damages to Neiman's art. Christie's Education previously offered master's degree programs in London and New York, but they were planned to be phased out in 2019. In 2020, in
15392-411: The market during the 1980s boom, were replaced by contemporary art as Christie's top category. Asian art was the third most lucrative area. With income from classic auctioneering falling, treaty sales made £413.4 million ($ 665M) in the first half of 2012, an increase of 53% on the same period last year; they now represent more than 18% of turnover. The company has since promoted curated events, centred on
15540-399: The membership of the citizen body more generally) and to somewhat determine their own judicial arrangements. These reforms gave the citizen body a sense of responsibility for what happened in the community for the first time. Between the reforms of Solon and Cleisthenes, the Athenian constitution had become identifiably democratic . Sparta's constitution took on the form it would have in
15688-512: The mid-fifth century BC. Archaic Greece from the mid-seventh century BC has sometimes been called an "Age of Tyrants". The word τύραννος ( tyrannos , whence the English 'tyrant') first appeared in Greek literature in a poem of Archilochus , to describe the Lydian ruler Gyges . The earliest Greek tyrant was Cypselus , who seized power in Corinth in a coup in 655 BC. He was followed by
15836-434: The missing stanzas. Obbink provides a reconstruction of a single initial stanza of the poem. He argues that the mention of Larichos in the later stanza appears too suddenly, and therefore he had probably been mentioned in earlier, now missing, lines. Athenaeus notes how Sappho often praised Larichos for being a wine-pourer in the prytaneion at Mytilene; this wine-pouring may have been mentioned here. Obbink also suggests that
15984-408: The names "Charaxos" and "Larichos", both described as Sappho's brothers by ancient sources but not in any of her previously known writings. Before the poem was found, scholars had doubted that Sappho ever mentioned Charaxos. Archaic Greece Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from c. 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following
16132-461: The new space, which incorporates a permanent saleroom and galleries, is comparable in size to Christie's London headquarters. In 2000, allegations surfaced of a price-fixing arrangement between Christie's and Sotheby's . Executives from Christie's subsequently alerted the Department of Justice of their suspicions of commission-fixing collusion . Christie's gained immunity from prosecution in
16280-440: The only known mention of their names in Sappho's writings, though they are known from other sources. These references, and aspects of the language and style, have been used to establish her authorship. The poem is structured as an address – possibly by Sappho herself – to an unknown person. The speaker chastises the addressee for saying repeatedly that Charaxos will return (possibly from a trading voyage), maintaining that his safety
16428-453: The opening lines originally contained a mention of the death of Sappho's father when she was young, which was the source of Ovid's anecdote at Heroides 15.61–62. Kurke has argued that the missing stanza discussed Charaxos, giving the complete poem a symmetry of three stanzas discussing each of the brothers. The discovery of the Brothers Poem, along with fragments of eight other poems – the largest discovery of new material by Sappho in almost
16576-441: The owner performed most of the labour personally; close reading reveals that much of the produce is to be sold for profit, much of the work to be performed by slaves ( douloi or dmoes ), and much of the owner's time to be spent away from the farm. Slaves' labour was supplemented by labourers who worked for a wage, as sharecroppers (called hektemoroi at Athens), or to pay off debts; this practice seems to have increased in
16724-450: The papyrus have suggested that this is to hide a questionable origin. Sampson suggests that the accounts given in 2014 and 2015 were fabricated to conceal an undocumented – or "unmentionable" – true origin. Theodore Nash argues that "the convoluted cartonnage narrative was simply a red herring to legitimise a recently looted papyrus". Hyland suggests that the papyri might instead have been smuggled out of Egypt around 2011, during
16872-585: The piece of art they were purchasing, a record that could never be erased or manipulated, and accessible worldwide. Six years later in October 2024, two Christie's auctions exhibited this block-chain technology in the most public events to date. In the first, on October 2, Christie's New York showcased the work of Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman in An Eye Towards the Real: Photographs from
17020-408: The poem is clumsy, displaying signs of hasty composition. Richard Rawles suggested that part of the reason that the poem was initially considered disappointing was because it was not about sexuality or eroticism – a factor that he predicted would make the fragment of greater interest in the future. Some commentators have been more positive. Though Loukas Papadimitropoulos said that his initial impression
17168-444: The poem to music in an attempt to reconstruct what it might have sounded like in antiquity. Brotherhood was a frequent theme of archaic Greek poetry, and the relationship between brothers was often used to explore conceptions of proper behaviour. The Brothers Poem seems to have been one of several about Charaxos and Larichos. Eva Stehle suggests that it may have been part of a "series of 'brothers poems'", though David Gribble notes that
17316-507: The poem's worth in the corpus of Sappho's poetry, as well as its links with Greek epic , particularly the homecoming stories of the Odyssey . Various reconstructions of the missing opening stanzas have been offered. Sappho is thought to have written around 10,000 lines of poetry, of which only around 650 survive. Only one poem, the Ode to Aphrodite , is known to be complete; many preserve only
17464-400: The poetry of Archilochus about Lycambes and his daughters, generally considered to be fictionalised. Sappho's poetry from the first book of the Alexandrian edition appears to have been about either the family and religious or cultic practices, or about passion and love. The Brothers Poem focuses on her family. Its original performance context is uncertain, but most scholars consider that it
17612-413: The population might have been under 18. By contrast, probably less than one in four people were over 40, and only one in 20 over the age of 60. Evidence from human remains shows that the average age at death increased over the archaic period, but there is no clear trend for other measures of health. The size of houses gives some evidence for prosperity within society; in the eighth and seventh centuries,
17760-539: The powers of the Gerousia against the assembly , and the enslavement of the Messenian population as Helots . Around the same time, the ephors gained the power to restrict the actions of the kings of Sparta. Thus by the late seventh century, Sparta's constitution had recognisably taken on its classical form. From around 560 BC, Sparta began to build a series of alliances with other Greek states, which became
17908-442: The presence of the papyrus in the 2011 sale is unverifiable, and in an article with Anna Uhlig for Eidolon , observes that no documentation supporting this account has been produced, and that the evidence for it is "principally Obbink's word". Following the publication of Sampson's 2020 article, in which he concluded that "I doubt [Obbink's 2015 account of the provenance] is true even in part", Anton Bierl and André Lardinois published
18056-550: The rest. As of 2023, Christie's has offices in 46 countries worldwide, with salerooms in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Christie's flagship saleroom is in London on King Street in St. James's , where it has been based since 1823. It had a second London saleroom in South Kensington which opened in 1975 and primarily handled the middle market. Christie's permanently closed
18204-468: The same hand, and have the same line-spacing. P. Sapph. Obbink measures 176 mm × 111 mm. Carbon-dating places it as between the first and third centuries AD, which is consistent with the third century AD handwriting. The roll of which P. Sapph. Obbink was part would have been produced in Alexandria , and likely taken to Fayum . There is evidence that the roll was damaged and repaired; it
18352-484: The same period. The Greek population doubled during the eighth century, resulting in more and larger settlements than previously. The largest settlements, such as Athens and Knossos, might have had populations of 1,500 in 1000 BC; by 700 they might have held as many as 5,000 people. This was part of a wider phenomenon of population growth across the Mediterranean region at this time, which may have been caused by
18500-652: The same time, early colonies such as Syracuse and Megara Hyblaea began to themselves establish colonies. In the west, Sicily and southern Italy were some of the largest recipients of Greek colonisers. So many Greek settlements were founded in southern Italy that it was known in antiquity as Magna Graecia – "Great Greece". In the last quarter of the eighth century, new Greek settlements were founded in Sicily and southern Italy at an average rate of one every other year, and Greek colonists continued to found cities in Italy until
18648-561: The sixth century as the elites who commissioned kouroi declined in influence, and by around 480 kouroi were no longer made. The period saw a shift in the decoration of Greek pottery from abstract to figurative styles. During the Greek Dark Ages , following the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation , Greek pottery decoration had been based around increasingly elaborate geometrical patterns. Human figures first appeared on Greek pots in Crete in
18796-467: The sixth century due to the trade with Asia and Egypt. Of the mainland cities, those on the coast were the biggest recipients of trade from the east, especially Corinth. In the early part of the archaic period, Athens does not seem to have been particularly actively involved in this eastern trade, and very few examples of eastern imports have been found in Athens from the eighth or early seventh centuries. By contrast, nearby Euboea had trade-links with
18944-474: The speaker with the historical Sappho; Bär and Eva Stehle both argue that the speaker is a fictionalised or literary version of Sappho. If the speaker is to be identified as Sappho, Obbink suggests that she is to be read as a young woman: her brother Larichos (who can only be six or so years younger than her, as that is how old she was when her father died, in a biographical tradition preserved in Ovid 's Heroides )
19092-414: The tensions between the rich and poor which were the impetus to Solon's reforms. In 594/3 BC, Solon was appointed " archon and mediator". Exactly what his reforms consisted of is uncertain. He claimed to have taken up the horoi to set the land free, but the exact meaning of horoi is unknown; their removal seems to have been part of the problem of hektemoroi – another word whose meaning
19240-483: The term is still in use. This editor suggests the term Pre-Classical Greece . Much evidence about the Classical period of ancient Greece comes from written histories, such as Thucydides 's History of the Peloponnesian War . By contrast, no such evidence survives from the archaic period. Surviving contemporary written accounts of life in the period are in the form of poetry. Other written sources from
19388-400: The text is an ancient forgery; though the song was included in at least some Hellenistic editions of Sappho (from which P. Sapph. Obbink and P. Oxy. 2289 derive), a classical imitation of Sappho is still possible. Nonetheless, evidence provided by Herodotus indicates that Charaxos was mentioned in poems that were attributed to Sappho during the fifth century BC; therefore it
19536-436: The time that the nobility were becoming increasingly arrogant during the period, modern explanations of seventh century tyranny have tried to find other reasons for unrest among the people. For example, Robert Drews argues that tyrannies were set up by individuals who controlled private armies and that early tyrants did not need the support of the people at all, whilst N.G.L. Hammond suggests that tyrannies were established as
19684-543: The word tyrant, it was synonymous with anax (an archaic Greek word meaning 'king'). Parker dates the first use of the word tyrannos in a negative context to the first half of the sixth century, at least fifty years after Cypselus took power in Corinth. It was not until the time of Thucydides that tyrannos and basileus ('king') were consistently distinguished. Similarly, Greg Anderson has argued that archaic Greek tyrants were not considered illegitimate rulers, and cannot be distinguished from any other rulers of
19832-808: Was a forgery like the Gospel of Jesus' Wife . Douglas Boin in The New York Times criticised the failure to discuss the papyrus' provenance properly as "disturbingly tone deaf to the legal and ethical issues". Following reports in 2019 that Obbink had illicitly sold several fragments of papyrus to Hobby Lobby , which were then donated to the Green Collection , further questions about the provenance were raised. Charlotte Higgins reported in The Guardian that "there are even doubts as to its authenticity. The latest gossip in classical circles
19980-420: Was adopted as an expression of a community's independence and identity, seems to be anachronistic. In the visual arts, the archaic period is characterised by a shift towards representational and naturalistic styles. It was the period in which monumental sculpture was introduced to Greece, and in which Greek pottery styles went through great changes , from the repeating patterns of the late geometric period to
20128-423: Was bought by a collector in London. It was this anonymous owner who gave Obbink, the head of Oxford University's Oxyrhynchus Papyri project, access to the papyrus and permission to publish it. However, Dorothy King observed that Christie's description of the papyri in their 2011 sale did not match up with what is known of P. Sapph. Obbink, and argued that it was not in fact part of the 2011 sale. Sampson notes that
20276-483: Was discovered that they came from "sites linked to convicted antiquities traffickers". The same month, they were criticised for putting up a Benin plaque and two Igbo alusi figures for auction. The plaque was tied to similar plaques taken from Nigeria during the Benin Expedition of 1897 and remained unsold after an auction was held. The alusi figures are alleged to have been taken from Nigeria during
20424-464: Was due to a misidentification. Based on information contained in a brochure for a sale of the papyrus compiled by Christie's in 2015, Sampson identifies the German officer mentioned by Hughes as Ranier Kriedel and argues that this initial story was fabricated to cover for defects in the papyrus' true provenance. In 2015, Dirk Obbink presented a second account of the provenance in a paper delivered to
20572-495: Was in what historians refer to as emporia ; trading posts which were occupied by both Greeks and non-Greeks and which were primarily concerned with the manufacture and sale of goods. Examples of this latter type of settlement are found at Al Mina in the east and Pithekoussai in the west. The earliest Greek colonies were on Sicily . Many of these were founded by people from Chalcis , but other Greek states, such as Corinth and Megara were also responsible for early colonies in
20720-402: Was instituted by Cleisthenes towards the end of the sixth century. Cleisthenes apparently redivided the Athenian population, which had previously been grouped into four tribes, into ten new tribes . A new Council of 500 was instituted, with members from each deme represented. Demes were also given the power to determine their own members (which, in turn, provided them with influence over
20868-409: Was intended for monodic performance – that is, by a single singer, rather than a chorus . As with all of Sappho's poetry the melody that would have accompanied the poem does not survive. Aristoxenus reports that Sappho used the mixolydian mode , and in antiquity she was associated with the barbitos (a stringed instrument similar to the lyre); based on this information, Armand D'Angour has set
21016-530: Was later reused as cartonnage – a material similar to papier-mâché made with linen and papyrus – which Obbink suggests was used as a book cover. P. Sapph. Obbink preserves 20 lines of the Brothers Poem, followed by 9 lines of another work by Sappho, the Kypris Poem . It is, according to author and scholar James Romm, the best-preserved extant Sappho papyrus. A second papyrus, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2289 , published by Edgar Lobel in 1951, preserves enough of
21164-511: Was long considered to have been less important and historically interesting than the classical period and was studied primarily as a precursor to it. More recently, archaic Greece has come to be studied for its own achievements. With this reassessment of the significance of the archaic period, some scholars have objected to the term archaic because of its connotations in English of being primitive and outdated. No term which has been suggested to replace it has gained widespread currency, however, and
21312-578: Was measured using standard units, named for their value in terms of metal spits ( obeloi ) and handfuls ( drachmai ) of metal spits; these terms would later be used as names for Greek coin denominations. Coinage was invented in Lydia around 650 BC. It was quickly adopted by Greek communities in western Asia Minor, although the older system of bullion remained in use as well. The island of Aegina began to issue its distinctive "turtle" coins before 550 BC, and from there coinage spread to Athens, Corinth and
21460-602: Was preferred, in some parts of Greece barley was the staple grain; where wheat was grown it was durum rather than bread wheat. Alongside these, farmers cultivated pulses, vines, olives, fruit, and vegetables. Olives and grapes, which could be turned into oil and wine respectively, served as cash crops ; farmers who cultivated land near population centres could also sell soft fruits and leafy vegetables at market. Livestock were of secondary importance. Sheep and goats, in particular, were kept for meat, milk, wool, and fertiliser, but they were difficult to sustain and large herds were
21608-482: Was probably between one and three stanzas longer. It lies within the genre of homecoming prayers; others of Sappho's works on this theme include fragments 5, 15 and 17. The narrative consists of an address to an unnamed listener, structured in two parallel sections, concerning two of Sappho's brothers, Charaxos and Larichos. The speaker hopes that Charaxos will return successfully from a trading voyage, and that Larichos will grow into manhood, and take up his position among
21756-412: Was that it was simplistic, he concluded that the meaning of the poem was "perhaps the most profound in all of Sappho's extant work", and that the poem turns the "simple [...] into something highly significant". Despite scholars' disappointment over its quality, the Brothers Poem is valuable for the historical and biographical information it contains. It is the first fragment of Sappho discovered to mention
21904-499: Was the source of the orientalizing influence on Greek art in the early part of the archaic period. Meanwhile, to the west, trade between Corinth and Magna Graecia in Southern Italy and Sicily was booming. The eastern trade mainly involved the Greek islands, with Aegina , for instance, acting as an intermediary between the east and the Greek mainland. East Greek states would go on to become extremely prosperous through
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