7 Will You Tell a Story?
Will you tell a story?
What do bedtime, Snapchat, and To Kill a Mockingbird have in common? Stories! Some are comforting. Some are provocative. Many are very personal. In this chapter, we discuss how storytelling and narrative go hand-in-hand with visual arts. Indeed, visual arts are often the most important vehicles for stories because they last longer than generations. As people die, stories may die with them if they are not told to the next generation, written down, or visualized in a permanent medium. The most important stories, and those that are often immortalized in stone, clay, or paint, often relate to how cultures developed, either realistically or mythologically.
Most people educated in European or Euro-American schools are familiar with Greek mythology. Ever heard of Achilles? The term ‘my Achilles heel’ and the biological name of our Achilles tendon derive from the Greek myths about this heroic figure’s exploits during the Trojan War, classic of the Western Canon of literature. A lesser known myth about Achilles inspired the decoration on Black-Figure Amphora (Fig. 7.2). Achilles (left) plunges a spear towards Penthesilea (right), a Queen of the Amazons. Penthesilea deflects the blow with her shield. You can see the gendered differences between the two characters: Achilles’ bearded face and Penthesilea’s long hair and breasts.
The Amazons were described in many Greek myths as a society of women warriors and hunters with the prowess and skill to defeat men (with no relation to the Amazon River in South America except when a conquistador was reminded about the Greek myth through interactions with an indigenous group and gave the river its modern name). While the origins of the Amazons were not clearly described by Greek writers, recent archaeological evidence suggests that the stories featuring Amazons were, at least in part, based on real women warriors of Scythia, Sarmatia, and ancient Siberia, all cultures of Central Asia, within the Eurasian Steppe region (Fig. 7.1).
These cultures are relatively unknown to European and Euro-American audiences, even though they may feature in one of the foundations of Western culture (classical mythology). In addition, scholars have shown that these cultures form part of the ancestry of modern Slavic peoples who now live across Eastern Europe. Art of the Eurasian Steppe, found primarily in burials in southern Russia and Ukraine, is not considered part of the Western tradition until Greeks colonized portions of their lands around 300 BCE (thanks to Alexander the Great).
One of the most remarkable burials from this region was frozen in time, literally. Before Greeks arrived, around 500 BCE, Princess of Ukok of the Pazyryk culture (located east of Scythian lands) was regally buried and then (probably unintentionally) mummified via freezing. The frozen conditions not only preserved her body but most of the burial objects, including those of perishable materials that almost neve