Poll : Do these ancient Greek frescoes look Northern European or Southern European?

[Arch Hades]

Please vote and be objective.

[Agamemnon]

I'm not sure this is the appropriate forum to ask such questions, quite frankly. Either way, they obviously look "Southern European", whatever that's supposed to mean.

[Jean M]

Sorry to be a pedant, but it is not a fresco, it is a mosaic. http://twistedsifter.com/2014/11/220...nt-greek-city/

[evon]

Silly thread, cant make these sorts of claims based on art without knowing what the artistic ideal was...As very few cultures in history have wanted to portray people as they actually looked, it was far more common to have a fixed set of "artistic ideals" that was used over and over again.

[Sammy Andrews]

The faces portrayed in those mosaics could be from anywhere in Europe. IMO, this doesn't matter because we know the Greeks of that time were if anything most similar modern Greeks in genes and phenotype not Northern Europeans. Vast majority of Greek paintings I've seen could never be interpreted as representing someone from Northern Europe.

I'm not sure this is the appropriate forum to ask such questions, quite frankly. Either way, they obviously look "Southern European", whatever that's supposed to mean.

I agree "Southern European" is a generalization. We strive for organization, and so we have to categorize people, and that category's the best we can do unless we want to make things very complex. By the Bronze age people in Southern Europe did end up independently becoming a similar mixture of ancient ancestors. The category does make some sense genetically, even though Spanish and Greeks share hardly any ancestry in the last 5,000 years. It's a similar situation with Russians and Irish.

[Arch Hades]

Sorry to be a pedant, but it is not a fresco, it is a mosaic. http://twistedsifter.com/2014/11/220...nt-greek-city/

Whoops, what's the difference anyway?

[Jean M]

Whoops, what's the difference anyway?

Fresco is painted on wall plaster while the plaster is wet. Mosaic (more usually on floors) is composed of small squares of black, white and/or coloured stone and/or glass.

[anglesqueville]

Interest of this poll? ( not a criticism, a question )

[AnnieD]

My initial assumption from the thread location & title was that it was an ancient art inquiry leading to discussions on variable cultural expressions. However, curious if you are associated with the "Arch Hades Race and Anthropology" blog, hence the possible interest in European phenotypic interpretations? This post from 2015:

https://archhades.blogspot.com/

Myth of the light pigmented "Nordic looking" Proto Indo-Europeans debunked.


"So as it turns out, prehistoric North Pontic Steppe populations buried in Kurgan mounds are overwhelmingly dark pigmented (by modern Eurocentric standards). The populations of this area and time period are the most favored among linguists today to have been the speakers of the Proto Indo-European language (this hypothesis is known as the Kurgan hypothesis)...

Pretty much puts the nail in the coffin for the old idea of the Proto Indo-Europeans being a highly blonde and blue eyed group or phenotypically indistinguishable from present day Northern Europeans. Well, at least for those that support the Kurgan/steppe hypothesis for PIE origins. Of course, there is still the competing Armenian Highland hypothesis and (the now dying) Anatolian hypothesis, but there's no suspicion of predominately light pigmented populations in those prehistoric areas."

[Arch Hades]

My initial assumption from the thread location & title was that it was an ancient art inquiry leading to discussions on variable cultural expressions. However, curious if you are associated with the "Arch Hades Race and Anthropology" blog, hence the possible interest in European phenotypic interpretations? This post from 2010:

https://archhades.blogspot.com/

Myth of the light pigmented "Nordic looking" Proto Indo-Europeans debunked.

[FONT="]
"So as it turns out, prehistoric North Pontic Steppe populations buried in Kurgan mounds are overwhelmingly dark pigmented (by modern Eurocentric standards). The populations of this area and time period are the most favored among linguists today to have been the speakers of the Proto Indo-European language (this hypothesis is known as the Kurgan hypothesis).[/FONT]..

[FONT="]Pretty much puts the nail in the coffin for the old idea of the Proto Indo-Europeans being a highly blonde and blue eyed group or phenotypically indistinguishable from present day Northern Europeans. Well, at least for those that support the Kurgan/steppe hypothesis for PIE origins. Of course, there is still the competing Armenian Highland hypothesis and (the now dying) Anatolian hypothesis, but there's no suspicion of predominately light pigmented populations in those prehistoric areas."
[/FONT]

Well yeah of course that's me. But that's from 2015. But anyway just because the Proto Indo-Europeans didnt look Nordic doesn't mean later Indo-European populations Couldn't have. Though it does hurt the hypothesis regarding historical Southern Europe IMO. In IE speaking Northern Europe populations did become very light pigmented.