The UCSC Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the President’s Chair in Ancient Studies present a lecture in an ongoing series on “Archaeology and the Ancient World”:

Professor Kathleen Lynch, University of Cincinnati

“Sex Sells, But Who’s Buying? Erotic Imagery on Athenian Vases”

Erotic imagery appears in early Attic black-figure vases but becomes quite popular in red-figure from about 520-475 B.C. The setting of these often-graphic images of heterosexual and homosexual encounters is usually the symposium, the all-male drinking party. Nearly all studies assume that these images are produced for and about Athenians, and thus must represent Athenian views on sexuality and morality. Yet a closer look at the archaeological evidence shows that very few vases with graphic sexual images come from Athens itself; instead, vases with erotic images were sold on the export market, and more specifically to Etruria. Thus we must re-evaluate the use of these images in assessing Athenian values: we find an Athenian pottery industry with an astute marketing sense that distorts Athenian cultural identity to appeal to foreign perceptions of Greek culture.

The lecture will contain vase-painting images of explicit sexual scenes.

Kathleen Lynch is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Cincinnati and a specialist in Greek pottery, particularly vase painting and the social aspects of pottery, and has completed fieldwork in Albania, Greece, and Turkey. She has a book forthcoming from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora.

Free parking for the lecture in Cowell-Stevenson parking lots

Coffee at 1:30 and more refreshments after the talk

For more information, please contact hedrick@ucsc.edu