The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

econstructed as five consecutive friezes (Fig. 21). 382 Barber refers to the decorative
elements of the cloth as “resist-painted” and provides a succinct explanation of their
technical process, citing Dora Gerzinger, who equates it with what is today known as hot
batik. 383 The latter refers to the process of decorating a woven cloth by “using a [molten]
wax compound to cover those parts of the cloth which are to resist a particular color
during the dyeing process,” and is widely used today in Indonesia and South-East Asia. 384
Worth mentioning, only because it brings immediately to mind Herodotus’ e0ggra&fein, is
that the word batik originates from the Javanese work ambatik, which carries the
meanings of “painting,” “drawing,” and “writing.” 385
The surviving textiles from Kertch place the decoration of clothes by means of
resist-dyeing in the vicinity of the geographical area mentioned by Herodotus. Ranging
from waves, meanders, and checkers to horses, chariots, and human beings with their
names inscribed, the decorative elements on these textiles provide a visual example of
what Herodotus might have had in mind when mentioning zw|~a. It is impossible to
determine, however, whether his zw|~a refer to all these elements in general, or to a
specific kind of them. In view of this evidence, the modern definitions of zw|~a as
“figures” “designs,” “figures of animals,” or simply “animals” and “creatures” can be
neither dismissed nor substantiated. If one is to use the etymology of zw|~on—in its most
general sense of a living being—as a guide here, then the closest one can come to the
382 Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 206-207, fig. 7.11, and 379, fig. 16.15.
383 Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 207, where the caption of fig. 7.11 refers to the reconstructed cloth as
“resist-painted”; also, 206 for citation of D. Gerziger, “Eine Decke aus dem sechsten Grab der ‘Sieben
Brüder,’ AK 18 (1975) 51, who identifies the process of decoration as hot batik.
384 S. Fraser-Lu, Indonesian Batik. Process, Patterns and Places (Oxford and New York, 1986) 1, and 6-11
for a description of the application of molten wax to clothes as part of the process of decoration.
385 Fraser-Lu, Indonesian Batik 1.
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