 Is it fashion, or does it have a function? Oy, oy, oy, if I can move this a little bit. Okay, assume. Both psychologists and archaeologists, and that affects whatever I do in archaeology. I don't know if you've been to Italy, to Pompeii, many of you have. I assume, I just have to think of when we're not stopping. I'm just showing you here. This is stretching out a little bit. That is the computer, that's not good. This is Italy, that's Pompeii, and Villa on the Mysteries. Some of you have been there, some of you have. It's located a little bit outside Pompeii proper. This is what Villa looks like today. And the fresco is located here. And the fresco covers the whole room of a trichinium, a dining room. And it's probably the most famous perhaps one of the best-preserved frescoes, fresco citos from antiquity. And I think you could feel this room with books and papers being written about it. It is located in this room. This is an old Austrian villa. It was built like that, originally, and then like this. And this is in a very remote, the trichinium is in a very remote area of the house, which could be important for the interpretation. Anyway, this is approximately what it might have looked like in antiquity. It's not a very big room, a trichinium, a trichlinus, of course. And this is a me, just to show you that I've been there. But it's also for size. And I've read some interpretations where it's very evident that the person has only looked at the copies, not at the original things. And there are things about the date that you have to collect it there. As you can see, this is the main entrance. And then there's a little door there to the side. And I will show you, or freshen up your memory of what it looks like. This is the northern wall. Also, northern wall. There's a lot of things going on here. This is the eastern wall. Is this too fast for you? The southern wall. In between there, there's a window, the white stripe. And this is the western wall. And between there, there is a door. It's like that. So you see this little cupid is there and this woman is either there and this is that main entrance. Now, the special thing about this is that it seems to be a cycle. It is something about the same thing. It's not different stories on different walls. I have written a thesis about 550 pages about this. So, you know, I can talk for the rest of the week. I will try not to have too many digressions. That's good. Good. When we come to Wednesday next week we will have lunch. Okay, there are different classes of interpretation. What is religious? Some are non-religious. Then there are mixtures of that. There are a lot of bridal preparations and all that kind of thing. And then there are miscellaneous even almost sexual things. So there are many different interpretations and people use different classes of data to base their interpretations on. Some of them use the composition of the fresco that there are symbolic things in numerous of the persons and so on. Something about Dionysian mythology and rights because Dionysus is definitely there in the middle centre, not the main axis of the room. And then you have parallels to other works of art, but there is no other copy. A lot of Roman propane painting has copies. And then there are contextual factors are there growing wine. So this is about wine production. And then the behaviours, that is difficult because it's very unclear what they are doing. And then objects of the fresco, the mirrors, the palmoseros and various things. But nobody has looked into the textiles until I came along. And the costumes, the clothes, the garments, the costumes, whatever you would like to call it. And I think that is very strange because clothes have a lot of semiotic properties. They tell you who, what, why, where, age, position, role, the function of the person, uniforms, they can be functional or just practical. And then you have symbolic clothes, ceremonial clothes. I mean if you see a priest you can immediately say he's a Catholic priest or a Lutheran priest or he's a Buddhist priest or whatever. It tells you something. So if it is religious, which a lot of people say, what do they hang their arguments on? Well, I think to look at the clothes is a good idea. Of course, because it's my idea. So that's... I think this is my idea. The characteristic of cultic costumes is that they are very often old-fashioned. It tells you the age of the cult. And they are foreign if the religion comes from another country. And symbolic. The colors, the patterns, the accessories, for instance, Christian priests where the different times of year, different colors, that's symbolic. And they are uniformed and standardized. They're all the same. And they are different from the contemporary fashion. Very often. So I have two research questions. Are there signs of the clothes in the fresco being cultic? And if so, what may that mean? The first one is rather easy to really explain. Is it fashion or function if the clothes in the fresco have characteristics of cultic clothes? Then I say, it's possible that the fresco shows or refers to cultic activities. And then religious interpretation is likely. And if so, do we find frescoes? Something that is repetitive and uniform and standardized. And can we then say something about the functions of those persons in the cult? That is a little bit more wishy-washy. The first one is easier to explain. These are my data. I won't bother you with that, but you can see I've been doing a proper job. Are there any foreign fashion clothes? Yes, there are two people here with definite Greek clothes. Many of the Greek clothes were parallel to the Roman clothes. I can't really tell, but some of them are very distinct in Greek. That is a githon which was old-fashioned at the time when it was painted around 40 to 60 BC. Old-fashioned in Greek. And here is a woman with a pet gloss. OK, so we have one sign. It's something old-fashioned. Do we find repeated colors and color combinations? Do I speak too fast, by the way? I hate it when people talk slowly, particularly after because then I fall asleep. So, yes, I say. Up the left here is white with purple. Why is there purple? Why is there purple? Why is there purple? And she wears white, but she has a purple stola over her arm. This is repetitive. Then you have light purple. Very light purple. There are very restrictive colors in this painting, which is very unusual for Roman painting. Usually, they're very colorful. There, they're light purple. Light purple isn't that easy to see because of the representation. It is actually sterile. It's light purple. And then you have some people with only purple and some fur. And also some with only dark dark purple. And purple is special for Dionysos because that's the color of wine. And purple was also the most expensive color. And you have purple borders on yellow. And yellow was also an expensive color. At least the original they made fake yellows and fake purples. But the original yellow of that was saffron. Very expensive colors. So here you have a combination of two of the most expensive colors. And it's purple with yellow. I mean with purple stripe. She's got it. She has got it. She is in the dark setting. The person shows up there. She is dressing up in yellow with purple border and she is dressing it. And you have purple borders also on white. On some very particular persons. I'll tell you more about that. And there are two persons who seem to be about to wear yellow with purple. Because something is happening to her. And here is a cluster of yellow and purple. It might be her next dress. That this is an initiation and after initiation she will be wearing that. And she is dancing it's a bit hard to tell if this is yellow with purple stripe or just the shades. But it looks, at least it is purple in the painting. If you look closely. With a torch. And there are also other textiles in yellow and purple. You can see this woman sitting on a stool with this kind exactly the same kind of thing. And you find yellow and purple in other paintings that are also referring to Dionysus. I think this is in my head. This is a nymph sitting between baby Dionysus purple and yellow. This is more obscure. This is also Dionysus basketball. Paying some homage to Dionysus. And this is a mane of dancing in purple yellow. Also a Dionysus theme. So I think this brings bells. So the colors in combination are four colors. It's yellow, it's purple, it's white and it's clear white in combinations. Purple ball is on yellow. Five persons. Purple on clear white. Three purple and white. Four purple only. Five light purple only. Four yellow only. And now I made a key square just on color combinations to see if they were arbitrary or if there was a pattern. I mean we can think and see and say yes. There seem to be something. There are numbers. So I made a key square here. I won't go too much into the detail. The number is 24 because there are some you can't tell. I made two tests. What is the most conservative when I say I can't only those that are absolutely bang bang clear. It's no question if these combinations are there. And then you get a key square of 12.5. This is the key value. It tells you that it's less than three of the 100 chance that they are arbitrary. It's 98% certain that they are a particular combination that is not coincidental if you mix these colors. And if you use the less conservative you say it's 98%. But you know whatever 97 or 98% is pretty hard hard data. So yes at least the color combinations they are very special. So do we have indications of cultic costumes old fashioned and foreign? Yes at least two costumes. Symbolic and semantic yes probably the colors because you have this purple thing and the combinations they are statistically significant and they seem to be uniform and standardized. Now the question are they related to the function of the wearer? This is more spectacular. We don't know very much about the secret cults of Dionysos. There were various secret cults and initiation cults but we do have an description on this base in Rome. It's later than the painting but still there seem to be I mean there's something about religion that's very conservative. They tend to have the same kind of things going on for a long time. And so she gave me two minutes from this list there seem to be some functions or some symbols that we can see in the fresco as you see it here and I will show you what I mean. The light purple are they teachers or instructors? She seemed to be a teacher of him this is Silenus Silenus he was the teacher of Dionysus this is Dionysus he was the teacher of mankind he taught us culture and how to make wine and she is instructing her on what she can see in the mirror seem to be instructors teachers purple border and yellow could this be initiated persons with priestly functions they are all involved in some kind of ritual behavior here with the palace next to Dionysus and she is part of this kind of sacrifice possibly they are not making food they have one little twig of herbs I mean the Romans didn't paint on the most people making food or preparing cloth which has been suggested this is something else she seemed to be a major person in the fresco overlooking the halls it made her who is finally dressed up in the symbolic colors and then you have white with purple is it some kind of lower initial or somebody who is about to be initiated her for instance here she is one who seems to be kind of scared of what is going on in the center of the fresco what about only purple could that also be some initiated lower official at least you have some of this function somebody who are from this stellar in Rome somebody who is dressed in skins and somebody who is reading and having having a book scroll that could be read from and here is somebody who is also holding a tirsos you can't see the whole thing but she is holding a tirsos and one of the functions of the role is to be a tirsos bearer and person who is holding a torch and so on so we find these names in the role of officials in this cult they seem to be present here so I hope I am within time my conclusion is yes the fresco does contain cultic costumes not fashion thank you for your time and attention