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An amethyst stone from South Africa. Amethyste or Amethystos (Ancient Greek: Ἀμέθυστη, romanized: Améthustē, lit. 'non-drunk') is supposedly a nymph in Greek mythology who was turned into a precious stone by the goddess Diana/Artemis in order to avoid a worse fate at the hands of the god Dionysus, thus explaining the origin of the semi-precious stone amethyst.
Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz.The name comes from the Koine Greek αμέθυστος amethystos from α - a-, "not" and μεθύσκω (Ancient Greek) methysko / μεθώ metho (Modern Greek), "intoxicate", a reference to the belief that the stone protected its owner from drunkenness. [1]
The Greek name amethystos alludes to the popular belief that amethyst prevented intoxication; as such, drinking vessels were made of amethyst for festivities, and carousers wore amulets made of it to counteract the action of wine. [6] The amethyst is a brilliant transparent stone of a purple color and varies in shade from violet purple to rose.
The Greek tradition emerged in Ancient Greek art under Minoan influence on mainland Helladic culture, and reached an apogee of subtlety and refinement in the Hellenistic period. Pre- Hellenic Ancient Egyptian seals tend to have inscriptions in hieroglyphs rather than images.
Greek art, especially sculpture, continued to enjoy an enormous reputation, and studying and copying it was a large part of the training of artists, until the downfall of Academic art in the late 19th century. During this period, the actual known corpus of Greek art, and to a lesser extent architecture, has greatly expanded.
Meanders are common decorative elements in Greek and Roman art. In ancient Greece they appear in many architectural friezes, and in bands on the pottery of ancient Greece from the Geometric period onward. The design is common to the present-day in classicizing architecture, and is adopted frequently as a decorative motif for borders for many ...
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The association between the owl and the goddess continued through Minerva in Roman mythology, although the latter sometimes simply adopts it as a sacred or favorite bird.. For example, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Corone the crow complains that her spot as the goddess' sacred bird is occupied by the owl, which in that particular story turns out to be Nyctimene, a cursed daughter of Epopeus, king ...