ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that Herder's lines immediately recall the origins of modern Hellenism, the dream of ancient Greece that has proved to be so crucial to European culture over the last two and a half centuries. His words aptly capture the longing innate in the modern pursuit of Classical Greece, the tension between an unattainable ideal and the desire for ownership of ancient Greek material culture which has long driven Classics' peculiar combination of literary and archaeological pursuits. Greek painted vases have indeed become some of the admired and precious monuments of the ancient Greeks. Ancient painted vases poignantly embody Modern Greek archaeology's practices and ambiguities. Today vases are being turned back into pots, and monuments into documents. There is a new interest in contexts of discovery and in iconography for the sake of its social context, not just as text illustration.