Talk:Prince of the Lilies

Article's name

I think that a more suitable name of the article would be Lily Prince.Axosman (talk) 12:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

You may well think that, but "Prince of the Lilies" is not just the article title, it is what Sir Arthur Evans named it (it is also more dryly called "Priest-king relief"). (We might point out that the reason for the name is that he seems to be wearing a necklace, which the restorers believed to made of lilies. But to my eye, they are too badly eroded to pretend to be able to identify them.) -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 00:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

More emphasis on controversy

I have recently been reading of the controversy about how much Evans' "reconstructions" have confused Minoan archaeology. Although we do have a short section near the end which mentions the fact that this is a reconstruction from small fragments, I don't think we emphasise strongly enough that nearly all of this fresco were created from whole cloth by the modern artist Emile Gilliéron in the 1920s. (There were two Emile Gilliérons, father and son, who worked together; I haven't determined which of them created "Prince of the Lilies".) Features which were wholly invented include the large flowers (arum liles?) beside him, the animal being lead by a rope, the aristocratic face and foppish hairstyle, and the loincloth. Nearly everything, in fact.

Even worse, there is little evidence that the 3 original fragments used in the "reconstruction" came from the same original fresco! It is not even clear that the elaborate "crown", which is attested nowhere else, is actually a headdress! -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 00:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I just discovered this scholarly treatise: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/4302/1/The_Priest_King.pdf

Many useful bits of information are added by it:

• The background is a flat fresco, but the figure (and most of its reconstruction) was a low relief sculpture (hence the alternative name)
• It was Emile Gilliéron the father who did the original reconstruction, but that was then damaged in an earthquake, and reconstructed again by his own son, Emile Gilliéron!
• The reconstruction was controversial right from the start, and several other alternative views have been published in the peer-reviewed literature.
• The lock of hair running across his chest is particularly controversial, because it affects which way we think the figure is facing, and most restorers did not see any hair there. It runs right across one of the fragments that was recovered, and, well, even in the best resolution images I can find, it isn't there. It wasn't even included in Emile Gilliéron's (père) first reconstruction; his son added it in the reconstruction of the reconstruction, apparently purely for artistic effect. The curls of hair peeping under the crown are also inventions of Emile Gilliéron's (fils) that are not just not supported by the evidence, but contradicted by it.
• As with much of Evans' early work, the context was not well recorded, and it is debated as to whether it was found in a corridor or in a room.

--202.63.39.58 (talk) 02:54, 6 March 2011 (UTC)