Between Gods and Mortals: Tracing the Expression of Ancient Greek Myths Through Artefacts and Data

written by Victor Russo

During Session 1 of 2025, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to work with Greta Hawes and my fellow students on the MANTO project. As a university student who has a great interest in ancient Greek mythology, I couldn’t have imagined a more fitting PACE internship than the one I’ve completed at MANTO. During the semester recess, we as a team worked on entering a collection of bronze shieldbands from Olympia into the MANTO database. After the successful integration of these shieldbands into the database, I then turned my attention towards exploring mythic narratives in ancient coinage. 

Whilst I had a great interest in Greek mythology, at first I was a bit hesitant with working with Linked Open Data (LOD). I had no idea about what LOD even was when I began, but it didn’t take long for me to become quite well acquainted with it. The main goal of my internship was to utilise the shieldband data from the Gdańsk Decorated Armour Database and compare it with information held elsewhere, such as in LIMC, Digital LIMC, and the volumes of Olympische Forschungen. These uniquely decorated hoplite shieldbands were something I had never seen before and was keen to begin working with them. 

Two other PACE interns, Chris and Archie, working on organising the online spreadsheet of bronze shieldbands from Olympia.

Image: V. Russo.

What I found so fascinating not only about these bronze shieldbands from Olympia but the coinage as well, was the great range in the metopes which each shieldband had. The abundance of rich imagery that are on these artefacts highlights the beauty of Greek art during the Archaic period. Much of this imagery was drawn from the world of Greek mythology. Some of the most repeated representations were the Labours of Heracles, namely the Nemean Lion, Zeus fighting Typhon, Theseus fighting the Minotaur, and the birth of Athena to name a few. Scenes from the Trojan War also appeared quite frequently. Depictions of the abduction of Helen, the rape of Cassandra, Ajax’s suicide, and Achilles killing Troilos dominate the imagery of these pieces of armour. Despite the deciphering of these metopes to be challenging in some circumstances, I found the overall process to be extremely enjoyable. The task of investigating each shieldband and comparing information was extremely rewarding. Working as a team alongside Chris, Maxim, Ruby, and Archie allowed for our work to flow effectively and the ability to bounce ideas off each other made the entire investigation not only easier, but more fun. 

Silver Didrachm of Fenserni from Campania, Italy, ca. 395-390 BCE. Historia Nummorum Italy 538. Obverse: Head of Hera wearing a diadem. Reverse: Bellerophon fights the Chimaira with the help of Pegasos. 

Image: Gallica. Used in accordance with Creative Commons license.

In a similar fashion to the shieldbands, ancient Greek and Roman coinage are also adorned with beautiful imagery of Greek mythology. Whilst the smaller size limits how much can be depicted on the coins, a great variety of mintages from both ancient Greece and Rome reveal representations of Greek mythological narratives. Some of the most common depictions on these coins include the Labours of Heracles, Bellerophon killing the Chimaira, and scenes of Perseus. I found this part of my internship to be considerably more challenging than the shieldbands. The online databases for coins were difficult to navigate and the limited number of coins that actually illustrated a mythic narrative resulted in my spending lots of time sorting through coins that had no relation to the project. Despite this, the coins were still enjoyable to research and made me appreciate the ability of ancient civilisations to create art in such a small format. 

Why are these artefacts important and what do they communicate to us about the people in the ancient world? What these artefacts communicated to me throughout this project was how Greek myths were used as a form of self-expression in the ancient world. The great range of scenes might suggest that individuals had some choice in choosing which images to have on their shieldbands, providing us insight into personal lives of these warriors. On the other hand, these mythic scenes represented on coins give us unprecedented insight into the religious beliefs, communal identity, and historical associations of cities and provinces.

Ultimately, what was the goal of this whole internship? Our goal was to contribute to developing this continuously-growing database and allow people to easily access resources regarding Greek mythology from anywhere in the world. Not only were we successful in achieving this, but this project also allowed me to develop my own personal skills and knowledge about databases and historical investigations, making my internship at MANTO extremely worthwhile.

I would like to thank Greta Hawes and Anika Campbell for all their help throughout the duration of my PACE internship at MANTO. I’m honoured to have been able to contribute in expanding such an incredible database and be a part of this project. 

 This is the first in a series of blog posts from students at Macquarie University who are participating in this semester’s PACE internship.