See this striking image:
It’s an antefix from an Etruscan temple dating from the 5th century BCE.
Regarding its significance, Sheldon Cheek writes:
Seen in isolation here, the head of the black man once played an integral role in the spiritual functioning of the structure. Current scholarship has interpreted these heads as boundary figures, separating the mundane world from the sacred precinct of the temple. Not merely decorative, they had an inherent purpose to ward off demonic influences that might disturb the veneration of the deity. That the black head served this purpose is demonstrated not only by the archaeological evidence but also by the representation of black people in contemporary art and literature of the Mediterranean world.
At Pyrgi, a port town located not far from where this antefix was found, another temple site has yielded several successive sets of related tile covers. The concept of blackness consistently occurs throughout these groups. For instance, two of the sets of antefixes juxtapose black and white maenads, the female followers of Dionysus, the “good god” of wine and revelry. A subsequent set of these tiles featured black male heads alternating with those of white maenads. The antefix seen here most likely appeared in a similar context of meaning.
The use in a religious context of imagery related to the often rambunctious god of intoxication may at first seem incongruous, but it was quite in keeping with the strong sense of complementarity that ruled the ancient world. Although the gods themselves often behaved capriciously, beyond their usually benign presence lay a vast array of destabilizing forces. Antefixes with heads of the followers of Dionysus probably served an apotropaic function—that is, they were placed along the exterior of the temple to ward off any malign influences that might threaten the harmony of the divine precinct.
According to the ancient Greek author Plutarch, envious looks were diverted by unusual and often disturbing imagery before they could do any harm. Like the followers of Dionysus, the black man represented a foreign presence in the ancient Mediterranean consciousness and therefore was endowed with the ability to protect the community from harm. Thus concretized and focused, the black head became a familiar aspect of otherness among the Etruscans.
I’ve bolded the parts I thought would be of especial interest to my readers, particularly the ones on Twitter.
Nor was this an isolated instance:
Afro-Greeks examines the reception of Classics in the English-speaking Caribbean, from about 1920 to the beginning of the 21st century. Emily Greenwood focuses on the ways in which Greco-Roman antiquity has been put to creative use in Anglophone Caribbean literature, and relates this regional classical tradition to the educational context, specifically the way in which Classics was taught in the colonial school curriculum. Discussions of Caribbean literature tend to assume an antagonistic relationship between Classics, which is treated as a legacy of empire, and Caribbean literature. While acknowledging this imperial and colonial backstory, Greenwood argues that Caribbean writers such as Kamau Brathwaite, C. L. R. James, V. S. Naipaul, and Derek Walcott have successfully appropriated Classics and adapted it to the cultural context of the Caribbean, creating a distinctive, regional tradition.
Then of course there are the Black Greeks of Thrace:
There are not many Greek historians that have dealt with the enigma of the black Greeks of Thrace, since not many people know of them. The exception is Nicholas Xirotiris, Professor of History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, who throws some light on this historical mystery:
“It is known that in Thrace African tribes arrived in the late 18th and early 19th century. Transferred there from Egyptian sultans who wanted laborers and serfs on their land. Like Muhammad Ali [Pasha of Egypt and a native of Kavala], who owned places like Xanthi and Kavala, these Africans were brought mainly from Sudan which was then a colony of Egypt. ”
When Thrace was unified with Greece, these black people were (not being able to return home) living on the mountainous part of Thrace and naturalized as Greeks. “In the ’40s,” explains Mr. Xirotiris, “during the German Occupation, and because of persecution from Bulgarians in the mountains of Xanthi, they descended to the plains. Then, for the first time there were mixed marriages between Africans and Pomaks. ”
So much history we’re never taught in school, or by our grannies.
Gee, I wonder why that is.
