Lamassu In Ancient Greek Art

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The Lamassu is a mythological winged human-headed bull that guards the Assyrian palace of Sargon II in Khorsabad, Iraq around 721 to 705 BCE. There are theories that they were sculpted at the palace gates to ward off evil and fend off invasions. Archaeologists theorized that the Lamassu had influenced other winged animal and human hybrids throughout the ages from Ancient Mesopotamia to Ancient Greece and to the Romanesque and Asia Minor. One, for example, is the Chimera of Arezzo, Italy from the Etruscans Late Classical period of the 4th century BCE. There were some debates about the origins of the Lamassu - where and what period the statuette was made and how much influence did it impacted other mythological winged hybrids.
Emeline Richardson researched and learned that many Etruscan sculptures and artifacts, like the Chimera from Arezzo, were made of bronze and other materials and artifacts imported from the Eastern regions – Northern Syria or Anatolia, Phoenicia, and Egypt. These imported materials “supplied the motifs that characterize the Orientalizing styles” in Ancient Greece, including winged monster hybrid figures. For example, the Ivory Sphinx from Cerveteri has it’s …show more content…

Outstanding works of noticeably Greek bent, when found in Etruria, always raise questions about if they were, in fact, not of Greek origin.” However, the Chimera from Arezzo has classification with Greek art that was invited into the Etruscan civilization and art, and Brendel researched that Etruria had very limited supply of bronze or of similar material worth to

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