Greek Footwear and the Dating of Sculpture

Katherine Dohan Morrow's study represents the first comprehensive guide to the history of ancient Greek footwear and the chronology of its development. Her thorough research answers some long-standing questions about the originality, iconography, and identification of various Greek sculptures and provides, through its clear chronology, an indispensable tool for dating Greek sculpture. The result is an authoritative, long overdue work that will serve as an eminently useful handbook for museum curators, classical archaeologists, art historians, and students of costume.

Morrow's research is unusually reliable because it includes only footwear seen on original Greek sculptures dating from ca. 700 to 331 B.C. By consigning often untrustworthy Roman copies and adaptations to an appendix, she is able to present a sound discussion of Greek footwear based on an unadulterated corpus of Greek statuary.

Her resulting findings are impressive. There was, Morrow reveals, a well-defined, limited repertoire of footwear styles used in each specific phase of Greek sculpture. Consequently, she argues, particular sandal styles can help date Greek sculptures. Demonstrating the utility of this system and the far-reaching impact of her study--one that is likely to affect our knowledge of ancient Greek art for years to come--she herself redates statues, settles several chronological controversies, and solves some nagging cases of mistaken attribution.