Pottery Face

Pottery Face

Did the Ancient Greeks look like in the face?

I keep getting confused with what to place them.Did they look like the statue of Liberty,because she was based off of a Greek model,or did they look like Hercules and Zena off the TV shows,otherwise regular looking white people,but that confuses me as well,because I really can't imagine a bunch of Blonde Haired Blue eyed people working with Egyptians who are almost black.Would they stand out if you dressed them in modern clothes and stood them in a crowd of white people?Did they really have that flat bridged nose as depicted on the pottery?Did they look like Arabs?I always thought they looked like regular white people,like a German.What did they look like?

There was a big diversity in the appearance of ancient Greeks,there were different Greek tribes(Ionians,Dorians,Aeolians etc).Many references by ancient writers about the appearance of ancient Greeks exist,and we know that they were mostly dark haired(brown/dark brown/black),brown eyed with white/olive skin,although there were blondes,red haired and blue/green eyed too.These information are also confirmed by the ancient paintings of the classical and hellenistic period that represent Greeks with dark hair.

In Aristotle's "Physiognwmika" we read many different descriptions of physical appearances.

Xenophon describes the Persian troops as white compared to the sun-tanned skin of Greek troops.

Homer referred to blonde hair as a rare feature in ancient Greeks.

The tribes who inhabited in northern places of Balkans(Celts,illyrians,Thracians) are described as mostly light haired.

Ancient Greeks had also curly hair according to the statues of real people-not imaginary gods, that is a typical Mediterranean feature.

As for the Hercules, the Greeks’ favorite hero is described as dark (melanan), hook-nosed (grupon) by Dicaearchus (Clement of Alexandria, “Protreptic to the Greeks” 2.30.7).I don't know why they selected Kevin Sorbo for the series.LOL.