I am so sorry. I know how much this means to my lovely British friends, but here is a black-figure neck amphora from around 500 BCE painted by Plousios, depicting Athenians queuing at a shoe shop and a blacksmith, on either side.
Replies
Yeah, but the Romans perfected it. Hence 'Et queue, Brute?'
aug 24, 2025, 11:57 pm • 6 0 • view
Hot irons and nudity... obviously no workplace safety back then.
aug 24, 2025, 1:56 pm • 1 0 • view
You call that a queue?!
aug 24, 2025, 1:55 pm • 1 0 • view
I call that SERVICE.
aug 24, 2025, 1:56 pm • 1 0 • view
1 person serving during a busy period?...checks out.
aug 24, 2025, 1:57 pm • 1 0 • view
One person who can adjust their rhythm between "quiet" and "busy". Rather than serve at exactly the same hopeless pace whether there is one customer there or twenty. Do NOT get me started.
aug 24, 2025, 2:14 pm • 2 0 • view
The world needs plodders. Sometimes, if only to teach patience.
aug 24, 2025, 3:06 pm • 0 0 • view
😃😃😃
aug 24, 2025, 2:25 pm • 1 0 • view
Parallel evolution?
aug 24, 2025, 1:52 pm • 2 0 • view
How dare you ! 😆
aug 24, 2025, 1:59 pm • 1 0 • view
Hang on, are you the dad in My Great Fat Greek Wedding? 😄
aug 24, 2025, 2:24 pm • 1 0 • view
Although, the fact that Athenians FORGOT how to wait in line shortly thereafter, also deserves a mention.
aug 24, 2025, 1:52 pm • 106 1 • view
Did we nick that as well 😂
aug 24, 2025, 2:15 pm • 1 0 • view
Omg you've just back a 40 (ish) yo memory of me trying to get on a bus (somewhere in greece), queueing politely, and all the yayas elbowing me out of the way - traumatised!! Pretty sure this is related to Canadians "elbows up"
aug 24, 2025, 2:03 pm • 3 0 • view
Didn’t Theophrastus comment on Athenian queuing in his “Characters” ?
aug 25, 2025, 8:45 am • 4 0 • view
Invented the depiction of queuing i think is more precise. Invented the depiction of queuing in the most aesthetically pleasing way is its own timeless achievement.
aug 25, 2025, 9:43 am • 1 0 • view
Just to also add that Greek Pottery is still one of the most beautiful and symbolically efficient form of art ever - compacts so many ideas and practices into such a tiny art space.
aug 25, 2025, 9:51 am • 1 0 • view
So if we want to claim credit, we should... erm... get in line?
aug 25, 2025, 8:49 am • 2 0 • view
Amazing that ancient britons travelled to Greece to teach the locals this in those times 😄
aug 24, 2025, 1:56 pm • 2 0 • view
That's what the sage with the white hair and beard is doing in the shoe shop, directing the queue. He's a Brit
aug 25, 2025, 10:10 am • 2 0 • view
It’s all Greek to me (!)
aug 24, 2025, 1:54 pm • 0 0 • view
That's clearly too disorderly for a proper queue. Maybe the blacksmith paid them to stand around and make the place look popular. Proto marketing.
aug 24, 2025, 5:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Is he queueing or getting aroused watching wheelchair table tennis?
aug 24, 2025, 1:53 pm • 1 0 • view
You can't prove that's queuing! Do I want to know what that blacksmith is doing BTW?
aug 24, 2025, 1:53 pm • 1 0 • view
Mainly LOOKING RIPPED is what he's doing.
aug 24, 2025, 1:55 pm • 3 0 • view
That's nothing compared to the queue from Woodhenge to Stonehenge at the solstice (2500BCE).. 😋
aug 24, 2025, 2:10 pm • 1 0 • view
…we invented queuing, which is why we use a French word for it… Not seeing it myself.
aug 24, 2025, 2:30 pm • 1 0 • view
French words in British English usually come from either the Normans or the Renaissance. Just goes to show how long we've been mastering our art.
aug 24, 2025, 5:45 pm • 0 0 • view
This one comes from WWI. Until 1914 the English just called them lines. It wasn’t until they observed French troops lining up in orderly “tails” - queues - that the name caught on There were other WWI changes too e.g. - “barrage” stopped being pronounced like “porridge”, and receipts became recipes
aug 24, 2025, 6:36 pm • 3 0 • view
Oh yeah, and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Battenberg became Windsor and Mountbatten. 😊
aug 24, 2025, 6:39 pm • 2 0 • view
Disgraceful that this beautiful example of ancient Greek culture should be in a museum in Boston. It should be repatriated back where it belongs, in the British Museum.
aug 24, 2025, 1:58 pm • 4 0 • view
Ok Greece invented the queuing thing & the British Empire stole it. A bit unfair that your blacksmiths were total muscle bound hunks as well, just to rub it in.
aug 24, 2025, 5:26 pm • 2 0 • view
I think you'll find that the Egyptians beat you to it by a few thousand years:-
aug 24, 2025, 2:24 pm • 1 0 • view
It's only a queue if they are waiting FOR something. That looks more like line dancing.
aug 24, 2025, 2:32 pm • 2 0 • view
It’s amazing that you know who actually made it. Fantastic.
aug 24, 2025, 4:36 pm • 1 0 • view
We think they operated like Damien Hirst's studio or Warhol's Factory: The "big name" would handle expensive commissions or prestige public projects, but the mass market stuff was probably thrown and painted by teams of apprentices, based on the master's sketches and under his supervision.
aug 24, 2025, 4:47 pm • 3 0 • view
Just for the meme alone, god I hope that amphora spent some time in the British Museum.
aug 25, 2025, 11:37 am • 1 0 • view
Excellent, 👍 😂🤣😂
aug 24, 2025, 2:01 pm • 1 0 • view