The Phrygian cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward, associated in antiquity with the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia. The Phrygian cap identifies Trojans such as Paris in vase-paintings and sculpture, and it is worn by the syncretic saviour god Mithras and by the Anatolian god Attis who were later adopted by Romans and Hellenic cultures. The Macedonian, Thracian, Dacian and 12th-century Norman military helmets had a forward peaked top resembling the Phrygian cap called Phrygian type helmets. In the western provinces of the Roman Empire it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty, perhaps through a confusion with the pileus, the felt cap of manumitted (emancipated) slaves of ancient Rome. Accordingly, the Phrygian cap is sometimes called a liberty cap; in artistic representations it signifies freedom and the pursuit of liberty. The pileus was worn in Illyria, Epirus and Ancient Greece and later copied by Ancient Rome. It was associated with the manumission of slaves. who wore it upon their liberation, and became emblematic of liberty and freedom from bondage. During the classic revival of the 18th and 19th centuries it was widely confused with the Phrygian cap which, in turn, appeared frequently on statuary and heraldic devices as a "liberty cap." Stephane Hessel, the concentration camp survivor who inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement, had a Phrygian cap, an icon of the French Revolution, on him when he spoked at a rally of Solidarite-Palestine in Paris, January 18 2011. In 2011, one of the names given to the 2011 Spanish protests against corruption and bipartisan politics was Los Indignados (The Outraged), taken from the title of the book’s translation there (¡Indignaos!). The Spanish protests later inspired other protests all around the world, including Greece, Israel and Occupy Wall Street in the United States. According to Hessel his runaway best-seller “Indignez-Vous” (Be Indignant!) is a call to action to protect human rights and combat the yawning gap between rich and poor.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 08:33:45 +0000
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