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The inscribed gravestones of archaic Attica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

L. H. Jeffery
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Extract

This catalogue is offered as a tribute to the great British epigraphist to whom this volume is dedicated. Since it consists chiefly of inscribed bases which have lost their sculpture, it may serve as a kind of appendix to studies of archaic Attic funeral monuments, in particular to the two monumental works by Dr. G. M. A. Richter, Kouroi and Archaic Attic Gravestones. I have listed the inscriptions, where possible, under the area of Attica whence each is known, or thought, to have come, and added brief lists of any archaic sculpture which is certainly or possibly (a) from these areas and (b) funerary. Obviously, many inclusions in both lists may be wrong. Stones stray as far as cats or pigeons do, and have no homing instincts. Some of the sculptures listed may have been dedications. But it seemed advisable to risk including the unlawful rather than excluding the lawful, provided that the uncertainties were made clear. Even after one has allowed for all the probabilities of error, the statistics produced from these combined lists yield some general conclusions that are not without interest. They are discussed at the end of the lists.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 57 , November 1962 , pp. 115 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1962

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References

All measurements are in metres.

* means that the measurement is incomplete, because the stone is broken.

[ ] means that an item in the list is doubtful, because it is (for example) not certainly from that area, or not certainly funerary; the text indicates what the uncertainty is.

In the descriptions of bases and cuttings, ‘right’ and ‘left’ are always from the spectator's point of view. For a base, ‘length’ (L.) means the distance from side to side of the front face (i.e. that face which is seen by the position of the inscription or the cutting to have been the front face, even though it may be narrower than the other); and ‘width’ (W.) means the extent of the side face, by the same rules. For a cutting, L. means always the longer side (or axis). But for a stele, ‘width’ (W.) and ‘thickness’ (Th.) are retained; the lower width (LW.) and the lower thickness (LTh.) only are given, as being the most useful for comparing with the sizes of cuttings.

The following abbreviations are used, as well as those in common use:

AAG 2Richter, G. M. A., The Archaic Gravestones of Attica (1961).Google Scholar

Collignon Collignon, M., Les Statues funéraires dans l'art grec (1911).Google Scholar

Conze Conze, A., Die attischen Grabreliefs i (1890).Google Scholar

DAA Raubitschek, A. E., Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis (1948).Google Scholar

Friedländer Friedländer, P. and Hoffleit, H. B., Epigrammata (1948).Google Scholar

Harrison Harrison, E. B., Hesperia xxv (1956) 24 ff.Google Scholar

Judeich Judeich, W., Topographie von Athen 2 (1931)Google Scholar.

J2 op. cit., Plan I (Alt-Athen auf dem Boden der heutigen Stadt), grid reference.

Karusos i, ii Karusos, Ch., Aristodikos (1961), Katalog i, ii.Google Scholar

Kouroi 2Richter, G. M. A., Kouroi: Archaic Greek Youths (1960).Google Scholar

K.v.A. E. Curtius and J. Kiepert, Karten von Attika.

LSAG Jeffery, L. H., The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (1961).Google Scholar

Peek, AM Peek, W., Athenische Mittheilungen lxvii (1942) 1 ff.Google Scholar

Peek, K iii Peek, W., Kerameikos iii (1941).Google Scholar

Peek i Peek, W., Griechische Vers-Inschriften i (Grab-Epigramme) (1955).Google Scholar

Rangabé i Rangabé, A. R., Antiquités helléniques i (1842).Google Scholar

Travlos Travlos, J., Πολεοδομικὴ ἐξέλιξις τῶν Ἀθηνῶν (1960).Google Scholar

Wilhelm Wilhelm, A., Beiträge zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde (1909).Google Scholar

Acknowledgement is gratefully made for the following illustrations: to the Clarendon Press, Oxford University, for Plates 32 c, 36 b–e, 38 a, c, 41 a, b, and Fig. 14; to the German Institute at Athens for Plates 32 d, 33 b–c, 35 a, c–d, and Fig. 4; to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Director of the Agora excavations for Plates 33 a, 35 b, 36 a, and 38 b; to Dr. M. Mitsos of the Epigraphical Museum at Athens for his kind permission to take all the photographs of stones in that Museum, and to Dr. Ch. Karusos, Director of the National Museum, for permission to take Plate 40 b.

1 It is hardly necessary to point out how much my own lists owe to these two works, especially since their new editions in 1960 and 1961 respectively, the Gravestones with an excellent Appendix by Professor M. Guarducci on the inscriptions there treated. I am also deeply indebted to Miss E. B. Harrison for her stimulating and enlightening observations, both published and unpublished, on early Attic sculpture.

Dr.Karusos, Ch. comprehensive study Aristodikos (1961)Google Scholar appeared while this article was in the press, so that I have been able to make only brief references to it here.

I wish to record here my gratitude to Somerville College, Oxford, for a generous grant from the Leonard Woolley foundation, which enabled me to collect much of this material in Greece in 1954, and has helped greatly to meet the cost of the photographic plates.

2 By this term I mean the rectangular roofed structure of brick or stone erected above the grave, which to some scholars has suggested a model of a dwelling; see Richter, , BullMMNY (N.S.) 1942, 82ff.Google Scholar; Kübler, , AM ii (N.S.) (1949), 10ff.Google Scholar; Boardman, , BSA 1 (1955) 51 ff., esp. 52 f.Google Scholar

3 So Brueckner, , Der Friedhof am Eridanos (1909) 11Google Scholar, citing Lenormant, Fr., Monographie de la Vie Sacrée éleusinienne i (1864) 178.Google Scholar

4 Peek quotes (AM) six examples from IG i2 of such variation within one inscription; but none of these is quite parallel. 408 is incised untidily on a bronze object; in 488, 536, and 631 the variations are slight or non-existent (see DAA nos. 77, 80, 295, not available to Peek when he wrote); in 700 it is only between tailed and tailless rho, and in 1024 (here 52) the variations are between two separate inscriptions, even though they may be cut by the same man.

5 AM no. 134, 3 lines, each c. 24–25 letters: This would give a restored base of c. 1·00 m. long, and a very wide stele (0·82, since the space on each side of the cutting was only 0·09). Peek does not discuss the traces of the cutting.

6 The gravestone of the Samian Aischros is omitted here, as it may belong to the first years of the 5th century: PAE 1953, 71, fig. 8–9 and Karusos ii, A27.

7 Bengtson, (Historia iii (1955) 303 f.)Google Scholar suggested a date shortly after 494 for Tym(nes)' sojourn and death in Athens, arguing that he was a refugee after the failure of the Ionic Revolt, and possibly a son of Skylax of Karyanda. I do not think that the lettering of the base could be as late as this.

Treu (Glotta xxxiv (1954) 67 ff.) would read Tuam (= Τύμνης) ma (= son of?) Skul-. Possibly the last letter, read as lambda by Treu, is in fact vau, which its shape rather suggests; the Carian name might have been something like Skuvlax, which in Ionic Greek would become Σκύλαξ.

8 First explained by Dinsmoor, , AJA xxvii (1923) 23 f. fig. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 e.g. a Peisistratid monument, destroyed after 510/509 (Svoronos ap. Philadelpheus, , BCH 1922, 33Google Scholar; Casson), or an Alkmeonid one, destroyed in the agitation against Kleisthenes in 508/507 (Raubitschek, who first deciphered the inscription).

10 The position does not seem to have been recorded at the time of discovery, and the photograph BCH 1922, 2, fig. 1 does not show clearly which side faced outwards.

11 For such polyandria see Jacoby, , JHS lxiv (1944) 37 ff., esp. 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 This is the report of Dr. Papademetriou's discovery of 6th-century graves at the east end of Markopoulo, including two 6th-century inscribed stelai, as yet unpublished, now in Markopoulo Museum. A fragment of a base in the same museum, found at Merenda, reads -οιεσε in archaic letters (information from Miss E. Harrison).

13 Cf. Ps.-Arist. Oec. ii. 2 (1346b): Lygdamis of Naxos sold the property of exiles, including offerings half-finished in the workshops, letting the new buyer's name be inscribed on each.

14 The nearest in date which shows a like subject would seem to be the ‘Leucothea stele’ in the Villa Albani, a Greek work of the early 5th century (Br. Br. 228). See also n. 19.

15 on Panathenaic amphorae, and from Thebes (LSAG 95, no. 16) and (op. cit. 94, nos. 3a–e).

16 For the belief that this disk is a votive offering, see Karusos, , JHS lxxi (1951) 98Google Scholar; the inscription is against this.

17 See Johansen, K. F., The Attic Grave-reliefs (1951) 65 ff.Google Scholar To the examples from Neandria (Koldewey, , Neandria (1891) 16 f., fig. 30Google Scholar) and elsewhere cited by Johansen, op. cit., we can now add the remarkable fragment from a Geometric cemetery on Kimolos, the true prototype of the sculptured stele (Kontoleon, , Theoria: Festschrift für Schuchhardt (1960) 129 ff., figs. 1–2Google Scholar). It is of normal stele-shape, but the upper part is shaped like a woman's torso (the head is lost), and the lower, probably once painted to represent the skirt, is cut back at the bottom to form a kind of tenon to be thrust into the ground, or into some kind of base.

18 e.g. the famous Magoula relief, Blümel, , Kat. Skulpt. Berlin ii. 1 (1940) A 13, pl. 25.Google Scholar

19 See the excellent discussion by Johansen, op. cit. 137 ff. To the examples there cited of the late sixth and early fifth centuries (Attica (here p. 148, 7), Aigina, Pharsalos, Italy (‘Leucothea stele’)) can now be added stelai from Sinope (Akurgal, , Zwei Grabstelen vorklassischer Zeit aus Sinope (1955) 5 ff.Google Scholar), Thrace (Andronikos, , EA 1956, 199 ff.Google Scholar), and Ostia, (AAG 2 p. 55, fig. 173).Google Scholar See also the discussion in AAG 2 loc. cit., ‘Heroizing reliefs’.

20 Kouroi 2 no. 18 (there set about midway in the group dated c. 615–590). See also Kontoleon, , EA 1939–1941, 1 ff.Google Scholar They were found between the ridge of Prophet Elias and the Sellada, somewhat to the west of the huge archaic cemetery on the Sellada. There is no archaic sanctuary in that spot, so the kouroi are almost certainly from the cemetery.

21 See Johansen, op. cit. 97, n. 2.

21a For a thorough discussion of the archaic Attic grave-statue, see now Karusos, , Aristodikos (1961) 26 ff.Google Scholar

22 e.g. Philippe and Ornithe in the group by Geneleos at Samos: Buschor, , Altsamische Standbilder i (1934) 26 ff.Google Scholar and v (1960) 85.

23 The best recent discussions of bases and foot-plinths in general are by Raubitschek, A. E. (Bull. bulgare xii (1938) 145 ff.)Google Scholar and Dr.Richter, (Kouroi2 13 ff.)Google Scholar.—Addendum to stelai, p. 148: add as 9a Charbonneaux, , Mon. Piot 1946, 63 ff., pl. 7.Google Scholar