The perfect ancient classical Greek statues by Praxiteles and others, the ancient classical Greek vase-paintings, the ancient classical frieze bas-reliefs, all depicting a physical type not or scarcely ever seen today in the Aegean, having the kind of face everyone knows about, where the bridge of the nose didn't go in at the forehead but instead went straight down, etc., etc., etc. -- were physiognomies such as those divine Praxitelean ones imaginary idealized ones, or was there a race populating Ancient Greece that looked like that, which later disappeared or mixed?

Many of course claim that mixture with Turks physically changed Greeks from the way they looked in antiquity, when they supposedly looked more like the ancient statues. That's something Dienekes.com has debunked by means of modern genetic evidence tending to demonstrate the continuity of ancient Greeks with the ones of today. Furthermore, when one looks at the many mosaics of the Byzantines during all the centuries preceding Turk hegemony, one also fails to find faces of the Praxitelean type. (And, as has already been pointed out on the Poe Forum, a conquering nation doesn't necessarily send significant numbers of its nationals into the conquered territory with the effect of changing the race or ethnicity there. The British Raj didn't change the Subcontinentals [I don't use "South Asians"] into Brits, any more than the Belgian hegemony changed the Belgian Congolese into Flemings, Walloons, and Germans, or the U.S. occupation of the Philippines changed the race there into the American race that prevailed here from 1898 to 1946, or the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 sent significant numbers of Jap ethnics into that peninsula changing them into something more like Japs [no significant numbers of Japs went].)

Also, when Dienekes posts faces of Greek models of today in order to represent the way a certain ethnicity of today typically looks, I admit I am almost never able to see what he's trying to point out -- to me, these models look much the same as ones from ethnicities of today other than Greek. Yes, often they have certain dark features such as hair and eyes (though often enough they are fair, with fair hair, as every site regular knows) -- but apart from dark features such as hair and eyes, or even considering that, they look like they could be Germans, English, or French for example.

The one posted in the present blog entry certainly looks as if she could be.

I might understand better what Dienekes is trying to show if he posted, say, a model representing some other white-Euro ethnicity alongside the Greek one, specifically pointing out the differences in facial features between the two, and/or if he posted faces which were not necessarily those of fashion models or actresses (faces which could nevertheless be beautiful or very esthetically pleasing ones), since fashion-model and actress faces have so many features that conform to sort of a universal model/actress ideal of today's world that it can be hard to pick out distinctive ethnic traits -- hard for me, at any rate (distinctive ones apart from the obvious hair color and fairness of skin and eyes, that is).

In my comment above, in this sentence: "I might understand better what Dienekes is trying to show if he posted, say, a model representing some other white-Euro ethnicity alongside the Greek one ... ," change "white-Euro" there to just "white," so that white Near-Easterners, Middle Easterners, etc., be potentially included.

You seriously think that a German could ever look like this?

Accord to J. Lawerence Angel, forehead-nasal continuity was not frequent in ancient Greece and represented an ideal type. In other words there was never a "pure race" that looked like that. Incidentally, that type can be found today in Greece.

Dienekes is right -- she couldn't be German.

Let me first say what I am, ethnically. I'm a dark-skinned white American of European parents, half-German (father's side), half-Russian (mother's), and my Russian grandmother and German (actually, Austrian) grandmother were Jewish. I was born and raised in New York City and lived over a decade in Europe, mostly in the corner where Belgium (Liège), Holland (Maastricht), and Germany (Aix-la-Chapelle), and also to some extent the Grand Duchy, meet, and for a brief time also in Germany, where part of my family comes from (I lived in Cologne; my German family has always lived in Trier). I've spent lots of time in Germany. I know German faces.

Dienekes, in his reply to my post, is right. I've just looked at the picture again, a long time. That woman cannot be German with the face she has.

All I can say is I have very little idea of what Greeks look like; this web-site is instructive; and I appreciate the opportunity to learn, though I don't see yet explicitly what the nuances are. That is, although after staring a long time at her face and seeing finally that she couldn't be a German, I don't know exactly why yet. I've gotta stare some more -- luckily she's easy to stare at (though my Walloon wife happens to be a billion times better looking).

Unadorned- intresting post.Some of my comments.

,-when they supposedly looked more like the ancient statues.

Lets not forget those statues were to represent images similar to todays Hollywood Stars.The vast majority women in America do not look like the Girls of Baywatch though most American Males including myself wished they did.At one point of course Marilyn Monroe was a prototype but obviously not the norm of the population.

-any mosaics of the Byzantines during all the centuries preceding

The Byzantine Empire contained much territory outside of Greece (though the identity of the Empire was Greek Eastern Roman) and mosiacs frequently portrayed peoples of that Empire outside of Greece.

-hen Dienekes posts faces of Greek models of today in order to represent the way a certain ethnicity of today typically looks

Those models represent different types of Greeks
there is not a standard Greek look.

-hey look like they could be Germans, English, or French for example.

Why should that be a surprise? As I stated in my posts with documentation,Greeks since neolithic times were a blend of a central and southern europid type.So it would not be that uncommon at all for a Alpine type Greek to look similar to a Alpine type South Germanic.

-ften they have certain dark features such as hair and eyes (though often enough they are fair, with fair hair, as every site regular knows)

Greece has had light and darker types since prehistory .Most of this can be explained from micro evolution.Greek types evolving in cooler mountainous areas generally were broad skulled and relitively light (by Mediterabean not Scandinavian standards) and more robust.Those who lived on the mediteranean basin where a darker more gracile diolchephalic mediteranean type.Though speculated migrations from the Steppes of Russia added some Nordic Elements that
in itself would have a limited impact and would not explain the lighter elements of the Greek world.(note at one time I beleived that theory and attributed both lighter and robust features fairly common in my family to be the results of nordics comming from the north until I did more comprehensive reasearch).In fact most Greeks have both lighter and darker types in there extended family.Most light Greeks have a distictive Balkan look that differs from the Scandinavian type skelitally.

Most fair skinned Greeks tend to broad skulled while nordic types are diochephalic.They tend to be stocky while nordics tend to be slim.They evolved in the Mountainous areas of central and northern Greece.BTW I belong to this stocky lighter Epiroti type.Note -Phillip and Alexander
are also good examples of this type wide skulled and very stocky ect.

These types can be seen thoughout Greece for a simple reason.The Greek speaking tribes such as Ionians and Dorians ect originating those areas(cental and northern Greece) began to spread trough out throughout Greece begining with the Mycenean civilization (Ionian) and ending with the Dorian movements.Most Greeks are a mix of the larger robust Alpine types known as Epirotes and the more mediteranean Ageans with the Epiroti types dominating in the inland areas and the Ageans along the eastern agean coasts and islands.But this is not ABSOLUTE I have seen quite a few Epiroti types from the Agean islands and darker mediteranean Northern Greeks.

Also the other theory that light Greeks are associated with later Frank invasions and Slavic settlors is pure bull shit.Example-The Skafia area of Crete shows a high degree of fair skin and light features and these people were never affected by Slavic settlors or Frankish invasions.They were isolated.

Also Dienekes stated that this model was a example of a Agean (mediteranean) type .Thus,she is a specific type of Greek women common in the Agean basin.Dienekes did not say she represented the Hellenic ideal or was the most common type throughout Greece.

Actually your post was well written and your questions were fair.And your observations about Greeks being common to various types of Europids is accurate and consistent with the evidence that Greeks were a mix of various Europid types since recorded history.

In conclusion lighter and darker Greeks and those
in between have been native to Greece since pre -history.

I await your response.

she looks a lot like movie actress Rose McGowan to me:
here

Rose McGowan is too pale, has small eyes and is more round-faced.

I scoped out Razib's photo -- there may be sort of a similarity in the mouth, but that other woman's face looks worlds different from this one's.

dienekes is correct about the differences, but if i could find a picture that has the same facial size & angle, they would look a lot more similar-and yes, it is especially in the mouth that is saw the similarity-my first thought was "rose mcgowan lost some weight and got a tan."

Well, as a German man I can assure you all that the young woman in the picture looks nothing like a typical German. Much too dark, for one. Maybe Turkish (an exceedingly pretty Turkish woman, though; haven't seen many of those in Germany, at least).

Since living in Canada I've come in contact with many Greeks, and most Greek women don't have such fine facial features. On the contrary, the vast majority has oversized facial features. Kind of like Francis Copolla's (spelling?) daughter in Godfather III.

>> Well, as a German man I can assure you all that the young woman in the picture looks nothing like a typical German. Much too dark, for one. Maybe Turkish (an exceedingly pretty Turkish woman, though; haven't seen many of those in Germany, at least).

Helmut Kohl's son married a Turkish women. Turkish women, unless they are of the villager type, are very attractive. It's a shame that they're Muslim.

>> Since living in Canada I've come in contact with many Greeks, and most Greek women don't have such fine facial features.

Most women don't fall in the very attractive category. It is in the best examples that the beauty of a race is to be found. Each race has its own standard of beauty; this does not however imply that the races are necessarily equal in beauty.

Doric Greek, thank you very much indeed for your extremely informative and very gracious post. It taught me a lot (as has, of course, this entire web-site).

I have also found your posts on RichardPoe.com informative, although when the discussion gets around to Badarians, Natufians, Basic Whites, and the anthropologist Lawrence Angel, to cite just a few of a great many terms and names that are brand-new for me (I'd not even heard of a single one of these before reading about them and other terms in the "Black Spark, White Fire" thread over at the Poe Forum) I admit I am completely in a learning phase, having no knowledge of these subjects whatsoever.

Your comments over there, together with Richard Poe's, Thought's, Mr. Rouhi's, Dienekes', and those of the other participants, are opening new windows of knowledge for me.

(Richard Poe, by the way, is a philhellene of long standing. It always makes me wince to see someone accuse him of any feeling other than fervent pro-Greekness. I've not yet read his book, but this is true regardless of anything that might be in that book. However, I don't mean to get into the subject of that book here, of course, and this little bit is all I wish to say on that matter here.)

D: "Helmut Kohl's son married a Turkish women. Turkish women, unless they are of the villager type, are very attractive. It's a shame that they're Muslim."

Have you seen her? She's a bloody Buick! (But then again, he's no prize either...)

I haven't seen any attractive Turkish women, although they probably exist. Most Turks in Germany tend to be religious and traditional, hence it's very difficult to have a look at their women (they don't work outside the home and wear conservative clothing, etc.).

>> I haven't seen any attractive Turkish women, although they probably exist.

Some. Warning for some sexually explicit ads.

Since the "Mediterranean race" is a myth invented by Sergi as a reaction to "indo-germanism" (e.g. Nordicism), I don't see how this woman is representative of a non-existant "race."

Pontikos' comments on Turks are revealing, since all Greeks that I know of don't have anything good to say about their hereditary enemy.

Are you really Greek?

"I don't see how this woman is representative of a non-existant 'race.' "

Non-existant race? Rienzi, are there people inhabiting Greece? Well then, whatever inborn characteristics they possess define the race dwelling in that country.

I take you to be a French-speaker (you used "ethnie," a French word, in another post). Is there a French race (or a French-Swiss race, or a Belgian Walloon race, or a Québec race, whichever one of these you happen to be)?

>> Since the "Mediterranean race" is a myth invented by Sergi as a reaction to "indo-germanism" (e.g. Nordicism), I don't see how this woman is representative of a non-existant "race."

She sure isn't a member of the recently concocted Orientsudlatin - Sudeuropid- Europid race of LE-speak.

>> Pontikos' comments on Turks are revealing, since all Greeks that I know of don't have anything good to say about their hereditary enemy.

Greeks and Turks are traditional enemies both from Byzantine times and in modern times, as Greek independence was won by progressively kicking out the Turks out of Greece and then in 1922, due in part to the actions of our "Europid" brothers, the Asian Greeks were kicked out of Anatolia by Kemal Ataturk. And, of course there is the well-known issue of Cyprus.

All that does not alter the fact that racially speaking, many of the Turks are Islamized Anatolian Greeks. Our problems with the Turks are historical-political-religious, not racial.

you used "ethnie," a French word, in another post

I believe he picked that up from Salter, who in turn picked it up from Pierre Van Den Berghe. Rienzi is Italian.

Beautiful woman...
Mediterranean features are really beatiful...
Research with tourists: Most beautiful peoples:
1-Italian
2-Brazilian
3-French
4-Spanish
5-American
6-Sweden
7-Greek
8-Canadian
9-Norwegean
10-Argentinean

In 10 countries with the most beautiful peoples (choosed by tourists), 8 of them have big mediterranean stocks...

My opinion is that Mediterraneans AND Nordics are the most beautiful people of this world.
But in fact these are all countries were the women look more to be beautiful. Thats not just a question of physical features, but also of style and behaviour.
Secondly these are some of the touristic hotspots of the western world.

About turks I would say that there are very huge difference from the west to the east of Anatolia.
The west is more european style both in race an culture. More Mediterranean, more culturally European, less religious and traditional, less primitive farmers and herders. In the east its the contrary sociological and there are much more people of the Armenid and even Eurasian, lets say Turanid type.
Its a pity that the most turks which came to Germany, Austria etc are from the East.

By the way, I am studying in Vienna, and I know a girl from a seminar which looks quite similar to some extend to the picture above.
Just color her hairs from brown to black and ... she would be the lost twin.

I am of Irish stock but am often told I look like a Greek statue (my forehead is a straight line to my nose)...I have never heard of the various components of the modern Irish people having any Mediterranean blood so as you say, it may have just been a facial type that was fashionble in ancient Greece - i.e. it can crop up anywhere.

Claire you don't know much about the history of Ireland do you? The "little people" were not strange, mythic men who had pots of gold at the base of rainbows, but small statured farmers originally from the Eastern Mediterranean who built those stone subterranean houses found all over Ireland long before the "Britons" or "Kelts" left the European mainland. In a sense, they were the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland and were there thousand of years before your stock immigrated there. As for your profile, there are plastic surgeons who can fix that deformity.

Dorian Greek,
Id like to assume that your typing is careless- in case its not, the area that you mean is Sfakia, not Skafia. ( My family originates from there )

Concerning the greek type: There is no greek type. I am greek, and most greeks treat me as a tourist. I am blond, My eye colour is light green-blue, my skin is fair,although I tan heavily. My body type is tall / thin boned / and my facial features are quite thin. I can assure you I look nothing like Evelina Papoulia, or Dimitra Matsouka. Having said that, I am seriously considering commencing a PhD in photography ( I am a photographer ) that will deal with the physical differences of the Greeks.
I am unable to post my photographic research so far, out of respect for my subjects.

But I can tell you this much: I have travelled quite extensivelly and lived in multinational countries, and Greece is a very interesting mixture of features, speaking of colour variation to facial features, to body type.
At this present moment I cant count at least over 25 completely different looking women that I know, all very striking looking in their own manner

One thing is for sure : The stereotypical image of the greek woman being short fat dark and hairy, is way out of line.
thank you

>> Concerning the greek type: There is no greek type. I am greek, and most greeks treat me as a tourist.

I agree that there is no single Greek type. What does exist is a set of subtle and not-so-subtle phenotypical clues, many of which can't be quantified in the manner of traditional physical anthropology, but which allow people to guess whether someone is Greek or not with some probability. Different phenotypes have a higher or lower chance of being correctly classified as Greek, depending on (i) how much they depart from the average, and (ii) the familiarity of the observer with many different kinds of Greeks, esp. from different regions of the country.