Sunday, October 11, 2009

Bibleartist.com update!

Bible CarpenterI've just updated Bibleartist.com with some new photos under the post title 'Carpenters and Shepherds'.
After much thought, I have decided to change the focus of Bibleartist.com from being a blog that contains picture references of everything Bible related, to a blog that contains purely Bible costume and figure reference. My reason for this is that there are already a number of good websites that contain a large collection of picture references relating to Bible times buildings, animals, plants, tools etc, (see right hand column), but not many that contain good costume or figure references.
The new photos were taken by a relative of Bible artist Graeme Hewitson while visiting the 'Nazareth Village Project'. Many thanks again Graeme!

Graeme Hewitson has recently set up Eikon Bible Art in conjunction with Ritchie Christian Media, so we wish him all the best with this new venture!

3 comments:

Patrick said...

That's very nice! I hope that it would indeed be a very good reference for all Bible artists out there. :)

As an aside, I was also fascinated by the stripes on the clothing, and after a bit of research, I think I have the answer:

I think they were based on the fragments of clothing and footwear found by Yigael Yadin on the Cave of Letters dating from circa 100-135 AD, around the time of the Bar Kochba rebellion (the only material remains of clothing worn by Jews of the period! Sadly it seems that pictures of the finds are not yet on the internet) as well as some possible references to it in the Talmud (as the 'imrah).

Most of the tunics found in the Cave of Letters had strips of narrow- to medium-width cloth woven on the shoulders. This conforms with one characteristic Roman-period tunics: they had two (sometimes dyed) strips called clavi. In fact, these are the colored stripes one commonly sees on Roman tunics in art.

Bible artist said...

Good work Patrick! Thanks for that.

Patrick said...

You're welcome!

I'm still looking for actual pictures, though. The only pictures I know related to the clothing of the period (as of now ) are sandals and tefillin cases. :(

Tefillin of the period look like flattish, rectangular leather pouches with compartments, ranging from one to four (examples found in Qumran: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/images/phylcase.jpg; more informastion here: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/art2.html); rather different from the cube box-like form we are all familiar with today!