How a tiny stone from a warrior’s tomb is shaking up ancient Greek art at Getty Villa

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 10th September 2025

Ancient art history. Roman sculpture had its foundations in the Classical Greek (480 BCE onward) and Hellenistic (331 BCE onward) eras. That aesthetic focused on the ideal male form, harmonious proportions and expressive movement. A recent excavation in Greece has yielded a stone carving of a naturalistic male coming from the much older Bronze Age cultures of Minoa or Mycenae. Whatever the carving’s origins “long-settled art history has gotten a jolt”. A backgrounder is here.