The Tomb of the Diver (Italian: Tomba del tuffatore), now in the museum at Paestum, Italy, is a frescoed tomb that dates to around 500 to 475 BCE, and is famous for the mysterious subject matter of the ceiling fresco, a lone diver leaping into a pool of water. The context of the tomb is disputed: there has been scholarly debate about whether the tomb was built by people from the nearby Greek settlement of "Poseidonia", now Paestum, or by an ancient Italic tribe living in the surrounding countryside. The tomb was built with five large stone slabs, each with a fresco attributed to one of two artists. The four walls are decorated with scenes of a symposium which is uncommon for a funerary context.
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
👉 Tomb of the Diver in the context of Aulos
An aulos (plural auloi; Ancient Greek: αὐλός : aulós, plural αὐλοί : auloí) or Latin: tibia was a wind instrument in ancient Greece, often depicted in art and also attested by archaeology.
Though the word aulos is often translated as "flute" or as "double flute", the instrument was usually double-reeded, and its sound—described as "penetrating, insisting and exciting"—was more akin to that of modern woodwind instruments such as oboes or bagpipes with a chanter and (modulated) drone.
In this Dossier
Tomb of the Diver in the context of Symposium
In Ancient Greece, the symposium (Ancient Greek: συμπόσιον, sympósion, from συμπίνειν, sympínein, 'to drink together') was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, or conversation. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems, such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara. Symposia are depicted in Greek and Etruscan art that shows similar scenes.
In modern usage, it has come to mean an academic conference or meeting, such as a scientific conference. The Latin equivalent of a Greek symposium in Roman society is convivium.
Tomb of the Diver in the context of Pederasty in ancient Greece
Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged relationship between an older male (the erastes) and a younger male (the eromenos) usually in his teens.
Some scholars locate its origin in initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus. It has no formal existence in the Homeric epics, and may have developed in the late 7th century BC as an aspect of Greek homosocial culture, which was characterized also by athletic and artistic nudity, delayed marriage for aristocrats, symposia, and the social seclusion of women.