#Himation

[backpackingspace]

In the odyssey, Penelope gave a test to all the travelers and beggers who claimed to carry news of her husband. She asked them everytime to describe his clothes. Because she had clothed him herself the morning he had left.

Odysseus is one of the few who pass it, describing a purple himation and the pin she had used.

Now picture, odysseus refuses to take this himation off. He doesn't care that it's getting increasingly tattered and stained /his wife put this on him/ and he will kill anyone who tries to take it off him. He looses everything he has over and over again. Except for this himation. He manages to hang on to it for the entire war and journey. Only to wake up on calypso's island and it's/gone./

When he begs the goddess for it's return she laughs an angry laugh. Saying "that old thing? I threw that away first. It was ruined beyond repair. You dont need a himation anyway but if you ask me nicely enough I'll make you a new one."

That's the first day odysseus spends all day weeping at the beach. But it certainly won't be the last.

[thesaturniidae]

ATTENTION VEILING PAGANS ESPECIALLY ENBY AND MASC FOLKS WHO WEAR MORE TRADITIONALLY FEMININE VEILS

i love you so much, youre so cool. if you feel up to it, post yourself veiling! we need more representation!

heres me :)

-milo

[passionandmadness]

Me: I’ll just wash my hands and face before prayer.

Aphrodite: No ma’am, today is my day. Skin care and feel-good makeup, stat.

Me: 0.0’ Yes Ma’am!

After my prayers I went out and did a little mini self-love photo shoot. I took my himation-style veil out with me too.

The makeup and photos are dedicated to Lady Aphrodite. Thank you for making me feel more confident in myself.

Χαίρε Αφροδίτη Χαριδώτης!

Also thank you to Jaylee (oak dryad in my yard) for holding my phone for me in your branches.

Banners by @bernardsbendystraws and @raaaaaauhrawr

Sparkly banner creator unknown

[alatismeni-theitsa]

In The Iliad it's mentioned that Helen wears a veil. With "veil" I automatically imagined something similar to what is often used in weddings nowadays (more specifically, translucent ones) but tied back with some accessory instead of covering her face (the translation I read of The Iliad says that Helen has "beautiful braids", so I imagine she had an intricate hairstyle. Considering she is shown having female servants, I imagine they did them for Helen) and probably with a colorful color. I looked up Greek veils to get an idea and it seemed to me that they were more non-translucent cloths that sat on top of the head, some tied to cover the hair and others kind of loose (I saw statues and images of them that showed them kind of long when placed loosely, including). Some seemed to be "fitting" into the dresses, but that could just be me being confused by the images I saw being colorless.

My ask is: do you have any idea what kind of ancient Greek veil Homer was probably referring to?

Hello! It's very unlikely that the Iliad was written by one person, and it's more likely that many Greek artists throughout the centuries added their own parts or embellished some existing lyrics. There are many clear anachronisms in the text. Likely, the geometric era gals did not cover their hair (from the art I've seen) but a singer in the classical era considered it weird to sing a song about a queen with uncovered hair.

It might be that the old text remained next to the new one, that's why you see the braids and also the veil. But it could also be a narrative trick where the reader/listener can know about both the veil and the braids underneath the veil.

Our ancient, medieval, and traditional head coverings were not translucent. Only in the last decades that we gotten rid of them, we wear transparent ones at weddings. The ancient veils (himatia/pepla) I've seen in ancient Greek art are separate from the dress and worn over it, perhaps wrapped around the dress in various ways. Not having color doesn't help the eye much 😅

Like this figure here, the fabrics may appear to be continuous but it's likely there's two of them, seamlessly wrapped.

Ancient Greek Terracotta Veiled female figure. H. 21.5 cm. 4th Century BC.

Limestone statue of a veiled female votary. Cypriot 1st century BCE

Veiled women dancing to a double flute Clay, red-figure, 450-440 BCE

Some more possible styles:

Spartan women also veiled in later centuries, since the hair was considered a means to attract a husband through beauty (according to Plutarch). Unmarried women didn't have to veil but married women should. This tradition has lasted until the last century in Greece - and it's also in the tradition of other nations. But as you can see the degree of veiling could differ.

[jadwiga-abremovic]

Sorry I can't take off my headscarf, it's where I keep my snakes

[haunted-rum-art]

Himations are literally so comfy. I would wear them all day if I was more confident and didn't live with family.

[peterlukeson]

[carsmg]

finally compiling my think tank stuff here....

[bedrock-to-buildheight]

Back on my high effort joke bullshit

[gingermintpepper]

There is almost nothing more important to me than the idea that the gods have seasonal forms. Like, they should all have regional forms too (and in actual art and depictions they do) but the ancient greeks had so many important seasons and festivals for so many things and I wish so hard that there were more modern interpretations of gods in seasonal attire.

[lonestarflight]

"Kevin Petersen, the former director of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center found an April Fool's surprise awaiting him on April 1, 2009: The HiMAT research aircraft was sitting in his parking space when he arrived at work.

Petersen had been a research engineer for the HiMAT project in the 1980s and had announced he would be retiring on April 3, 2009. As a tribute to his 38 years of work at the center, the aircraft was taken out of storage for the April Fool's Day gag."

Posted on NASA History Facebook page: link

[scribl1ta]

Alcibiades chiton look (^з^)-☆

[jadwiga-abremovic]

Remember:

All of the misogynist, ancient Greek philosophers were- at some point or another- proclaiming the uselessness of women to society while wearing glorified bedsheets woven by their mommies.

[haunted-rum-art]

I got my new himation in the mail today. It's so much better than what I was using (probably because it's not a literal bed sheet lol). It's lightweight and comfortable. Not ready to start wearing it all the time, but I'm going to start wearing it around my partner so that I can start getting used to wearing it around people.