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Painted Funerary Plaques and some Remarks on Prothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

John Boardman
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Extract

Throughout the history of figure-decorated pottery in Attica the artists also painted flat clay plaques for use as dedications. In addition, for a limited period of a little over a century we find from their workshops similar objects designed specifically for the decoration of tombs: it is with these that this article is concerned, and a catalogue of the surviving examples known to me is appended. All are painted in the black-figure technique and all figure the prothesis, the laying-out of the dead with the accompanying dirge, and many also the assembling of guests and preparation for the procession to the tomb, the ekphora. The plaques themselves have been found in the cemeteries of Athens as well as in outlying villages in Attica, though never in position on a tomb.

Zschietzschmann, in his study of prothesis scenes in Greek art, commented on the fact that these funerary plaques may be divided into those that form part of a series and those complete in themselves, without, however, distinguishing them in his list. We shall see that this division is not a meaningless convenience, for it reflects also their chronology, scale, and ultimate setting. For this reason I have distinguished between the plaque series and the single plaques in the catalogue below, and will deal with each class separately, detailed remarks about individual pieces being reserved for inclusion with their description in the catalogue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 50 , November 1955 , pp. 51 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1955

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References

I am deeply indebted to Mme J. Serpieri for permission to publish photographs of plaques from the collection made by her father M. Vlasto. Also to Mme S. Karouzou, Prof. H. A. Thompson, and Prof. E. Vanderpool of the Agora Excavations, Miss D. K. Hill of the Walters Art Gallery, Miss H. Palmer and the Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Drs. Auer and Noll of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, Mlle Verhoogen, Dr. H. Cahn, and Dr. D. von Bothmer of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, for photographs and permission to publish other plaques and fragments. Prof. Sir John Beazley has indicated to me several unpublished pieces, and I have greatly profited from his comments. Plates 4, 6 and 8, 20 and 34 are museum photographs, Plate 3, 13 by Miss Alison Frantz, and Plate 2 from German Institute negatives.

1 On votive plaques see my article in BSA XLIX. W. Zschietzschmann discussed and collected the references to the prothesis scenes which appear on plaques and vases in his article AM LIII (1928), 17–47 with Beil. 8–18. I refer to this work and its illustrations with the abbreviation Zsch., and to his catalogue of scenes (Ibid. 37–47) thus—Zsch. no. 10. Further discussion, mainly of the literary evidence, is to be found in Reiner, Die rituelle Totenklage der Griechen. CVA references below are to museum fascicule and national plate numbers.

2 Reference to which is made here by their number alone. If more than one plaque is involved they are distinguished further by small Roman numerals thus—11 (ii).

3 The following have recorded provenances: Athenian Kerameikos 9, 10, 11, 13 (or that area), 18, 19, 26; Kalyvia 6; Cape Kolias 28; Koropi 30; Olympos 1; Spata 7.

4 See 3 in the catalogue below.

5 I do not know all dimensions of all pieces in the catalogue.

6 In the longest series preserved, the Berlin Exekias plaques (9), each is an independent unit which could not have been designed to fit a frieze: see below p. 64.

7 On such tombs see Kübler, , MdI II 10 f., 13 f.Google Scholar I call these structures ‘tombs’, although ‘tomb monuments’ might be more accurate. There is no very clear description of the burials associated with them.

8 Richter, MetrMusBull I (1942), 80 n. 5.Google Scholar

9 Kübler, op. cit., pll. 2, 3.

10 7, 9, 11, 12, and 14 were all 37·0 cm. high or a fraction more and the Sophilos plaques (6) only a little taller. Being fixed by members projecting above and below them from a mud-brick wall, their height was determined by the number of whole mud-bricks behind them. The assumed depth of an Attic brick is one-quarter of an Attic foot, that is 8·2 cm. (Caskey, , AJA XIV 303 f.Google Scholar, Noack, Eleusis 70 f., Dinsmoor, Architecture of Ancient Greece 54 n. 4). At Eleusis the bricks measure about 9·0 cm., plus up to 1 cm. of mortar, as Mr. Travlos kindly informs me. The wall bricks in the rectangular tomb in the Kerameikos (MdI II, pll. 2, 3) measure about 8·0 cm., with little if any mortar in addition. This suggests that the plaques occupied four courses of the mortar-laid mud-brick tomb wall. The earlier relief plaque (1) would have needed five, and 3 perhaps six, allowing for mortar and the use of the same standard. There is not yet enough evidence about brick dimensions in sixth-century Attica, and the above remarks can only point out what are the limiting factors. Stone reliefs are thought to have formed part of the decoration of similar tombs (AM XXXII 543 ff., pl. 22, 1, Lippold, Griechische Plastik 84 n. 17): they are much larger.

11 Kübler, op. cit. 14.

12 CVA Cab. Méd. II, pl. 457, 2, 4, 6–9; 458; 459, 1–3 (Technau, , RM LIII 126Google Scholar, Beazley Raccolta Guglielmi 53, Development 113).

13 Archaic Attic Gravestones 90 ff., AJA XLIX 152, Mélanges Picard (RA 1948), 871, JHS LXXII 155, Young, , Hesp XX 132.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Hignett, History of the Athenian Constitution 130, 305.

15 At the bottom it changed direction centrally.

16 The schema might suggest that BSA XLIX, pl. 16, 6 could be a funerary plaque, but its thickness and date mean that it should only then be of a plaque series, on which such a minor frieze, appropriate to a vase or smaller single plaque, would be out of place.

17 BSA XLIX 191.

18 Ibid. 192.

19 Ibid. 192 f.

20 Miss Richter suggests (à propos relief plaques) that two holes close together at the top are for nailing rather than suspension because they are not exactly central (Handbook (1953), 80), but, even assuming a ‘drawing-room finesse’ in picture hanging in this period, points of suspension do not entirely determine angle of suspension, as anyone disturbed by the sight of a crooked picture will agree: moreover, we know the size of some nails so employed from those preserved in 20 (Plate 8).

21 Boeotian geometric is Zsch. no. 17; Samian geometric: below n. 23; Late Corinthian Zsch. no. 90; Sparta, ivory plaque, AO pl. 102, 2; perhaps not Attic Zsch. no. 89 (compare on Chiusine cippi the women's gestures with their hands, e.g. SE XII, pl. 8, and the turned, not rectangular, bier legs common on those monuments, ibid., pll. 21, 22, 24, 25, 2–3); the Etruscan Tomba del Morto (MonIned II, pl. 2, Weege, Etruskische Malerei, pl. 46, Messerschmidt Beiträge 54 ff., 60) and the Etruscan hydria London B 63 (Beazley, EVP, pl. 3, 1). In stone, see Benndorf Griechische und sizilische Vasenbilder 7 (Conze, no. 1174 is not prothesis: Kastriotes, , AE 1917, 227 ff.)Google Scholar; the Egyptianised Zsch. no. 94; the Chiusine cippi on which I have more to say below; the Xanthos frieze in the British Museum, Pryce, Catalogue I 1, 143 f. (B 310), pl. 29 (Lippold, Griechische Plastik 123; Tritsch, , JHS LXII 44 f., fig. 3Google Scholar, where the right-hand figure is taken as male, which is unlikely in view of the subject); the metope in Paestum, , Heraion II 266 ff.Google Scholar (if such it be). Compare, too, the unique fragment of an East Greek relief sarcophagus in Chios, (ADelt I 71, fig. 5).Google Scholar

22 On ‘Toteneier’ Zsch. no. 88, cf. his no. 93 and Lullies, , JdI LX/LXI63 ff.Google Scholar; phormiskoi Zsch. nos. 85, 87 and Lullies op. cit. 65, cf. the mourners on CVA Brussels III, pl. 121, 3 (Beazley, , JHS LXX 88)Google Scholar; tripod pyxis Zsch. no. 84, Lullies, op. cit., pl. 15, 52 (Akr 2203, Graef-Langlotz, pl. 93 is a marriage scene); amphoriskos (?) Zsch. no. 86; krater Bonn 346, AA 1935, 488 ff., figs. 64, 65; cup, AM LIX, pll. 1–3, Beil. 1; Lekythoi, , BSA XLVII, pl. 13Google Scholar, 11 and many white-ground examples (e.g. Zsch. nos. 118–137). Funeral scenes on the skyphos Akr. 1321, lebes gamikos, Lullies, op. cit., pl. 23, 78–9, kyathoi (above, n. 12).

23 To add to Zsch. are some vases and fragments; Vlasto Collection (Cook, , BSA XXXV 168Google Scholar), Benaki Museum (BSA XLII, pl. 19), Agora P 4990 (Young, Hesp Supplement II 55 ff. fig. 37, Cook, , BCH LXX 98Google Scholar), New York 34.11.2 (MetrMusBull XXIX 169 ff., fig. 3), Louvre, (CVA XI, pll. 780, 787–8, 790Google Scholar, Kunze, AE 1953/1954, pl. 2, 2Google Scholar), Kerameikos inv. 1371 (Kerameikos V 1, pl. 39), Eleusis, (JHS LXXIV 150)Google Scholar, a Samian fragment (Technau, , AM LIV 15 f., pl. 2Google Scholar), Athens NM 18062, 18474, 802 and another krater fragment, Sydney (Nicholson Museum Handbook 2 244–6); Zsch. no. 2 is Athens NM 812, and for his no. 5 see Kunze in Festschrift Schweitzer, pll. 5, 6; other new illustrations of the Dipylon vases appeared in JdI LVIII 9, 13, 21, 29. The additions afford no new information. See also Hahland in Corolla Curtius 123 ff. and Wiesner, Grab und Jenseits 124 f. I suspect from the gestures of the men on the Phaleron fragments (Kübler, Altattische Malerei 35, figs. 1–3) that the full scene may have represented an ekphora.

24 Buschor, Griechische Vasen 16, fig. 15.

25 And apparently the bier is not carried, cf. Zsch. Beil. 15,92. The head is muffled on our 19, exposed on the Boeotian geometric vase Zsch. Beil. 9, 17, and on some geometric representations the shroud is entirely omitted. The best argument against the shroud interpretation is the presence of the small figures which can hardly have crept under it (cf. JdI LVIII 29, Richter, Ancient Furniture, fig. 171). The geometric manner is Homeric, cf. Iliad XVIII 352 f.

26 Kübler, op. cit. 51 f., figs. 35, 36; 61 ff., figs. 53–5.

27 Zschietzschmann saw the end of the geometric manner in prothesis in the ranks of mourners on the mid-sixth-century Oxford loutrophoros (his no. 71, Beil. 12, 13), which is more a product of the painter's love of massed identical figures than evidence for a well-attended funeral.

28 Sondhaus, De Solonis Legibus 36 ff. collects the texts. The most recent full discussion on prothesis in general and Solon's legislation is in Reiner, op. cit. 31, 35–46, 54–7, which should be consulted for detailed references. The disputed date of the legislation (Hignett, op. cit. 316 ff.) does not affect the issue here. It is, of course, debatable how likely it is that the law quoted by Demosthenes is Solonian (ibid. 17–27), but it is the tradition of such semi-religious legislation which most probably did survive intact.

29 Reiner, op. cit. 36 f.

30 Cf. Hesychius s.v. ‘διὲκ θυρῶν’· τοὺς νεκροὺς . . . ἔξω τοὺς πόδας ἔχοντας πρὸς τὰς αὐλίους θύρας (ed. Latte), Eustathius 1180, 23 . . . ὡς ἐπὶ ἐξόδῳ τοῦ βίου γεγονότας.

31 A single column at the left on a white-ground lekythos Zsch. no. 127; in a neutral position under loutrophoros-hydria handles, e.g. Zsch. no. 47 (CVA Athens I, pl. 17, 1–2); perhaps two columns on the red-figure loutrophoroi Zsch. nos. 114 and 99. (Beil. 17); two on the black-figure phormiskos, Lullies, op. cit., pl. 13, 44. Cf. the Chiusine cippus, SE XII, pl. 21. The projecting upper edge of some single plagues, naiskos-wise, could possibly be interpreted as eaves.

32 Or possibly under-eave decoration, see 5 in the catalogue below.

33 Cf. the black-figure fragments in Bonn, AA 1935, 458Google Scholar, fig. 34 and loutrophoros Zsch. no. 71, and white-ground lekythoi Zsch. nos. 125, 127, 128.

34 Richter and Hall, pl. 143, 139. Achilles mourns Patroclus, but the architectural setting is contemporary and Athenian, not a pavilion at Troy.

35 His restrictions on funerals are summarised by Pernice in Gercke-Norden II 1, 68 f.

36 Zsch. 35 f., Reiner, op. cit. 41; the need for a formal dirge is hardly likely to be the raison d'être for the display of the corpse. The reasons given by Pollux (VIII 65): ὡς δρω̨̃το ὁ νεκρὸς μή τι Βιαίως πέπονθε, Photius (op. cit.), or Plato (Leg. XII 959a), that certainty of the man's death was desirable, may be nearer the original purpose.

37 As on 20, 28, and 34 (Plate 8).

38 On 19 and 30 (Plate 7); seated on 16 (cf. Zsch. no. 75); two men on 35 (Plate 8); four on 21 (Plate 7).

39 Single plaques 21, 33, 35 (Plates 7, 8); plaque series 6, 7, 11.

40 Seated on 23 (Plate 4) and 33, cf. the black-figure loutrophoroi Zsch. nos. 69, 74 and Benaki Museum (AA 1936, 120)Google Scholar; unoccupied stools on 28, 35 and 36. Cf. Feytmans, , AntClass XVII 191 f.Google Scholar, Zsch. nos. 47, 54, JdI LX/LXI, pl. 14, 45 and the Xanthos frieze (above n. 21).

41 On 1, 5, 14, and 18. The kyathos Zsch. no. 89 is unusual in this as in other respects.

42 Zsch. 26, Reiner, op. cit. 31.

43 But see 19 and 24. Never as intimate as on many non-Attic prothesis scenes. And compare Andromache, in Iliad XXIV 724Google Scholar, Ἓκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο κάρη μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχουσα.

44 Richter, Ancient Furniture 58 ff., figs. 158–66.

45 Thus on 9; cf. 30 (Plate 7).

46 Zsch. Beil. 8, 6 (cf. CVA Brussels II, pl. 54, 1: the mourners on the other side are similarly raised) and 13; a single woman on a stool at the head of the bier on the Agora vase Hesp Supplement II 56, fig. 37. Compare also 30 (Plate 7).

47 Except in the Tomba del Morto painting, MonIned II, pl. 2.

48 Exaggeratedly so on the mid-seventh-century vase in the Kerameikos, Kübler, op. cit. 62, fig. 54.

49 Wolters, , AM XXI 367 ff.Google Scholar, on plaque 20 (Plate 8), New York 27.228 (MetrMusBull XXIII 56, fig. 3), and the black-figure krater Bonn, AA 1935, 490, figs. 64, 65.Google Scholar See Zsch. 22 f. (Zsch. no. 109 is ARV 122 no. 20).

50 Cf. Zsch. no. 44 (CVA Athens I, pl. 16, 1–2; 17, 3: Painter, Sappho, Haspels, , ABL 115, 229 no. 59Google Scholar). Possibly funeral games, see Malten, , RM XXXVIII/XXXIX314 ff.Google Scholar, RE s.v. ‘Leichenagon’.

51 Zsch. 25, Reiner, op. cit. 44 f. An early example may be that on the Phaleron fragments of soon after 700 (Kübler, op. cit. 35 figs. 1–3). Reiner, op. cit. 42 f. (κοπετός).

52 Listed by Paribeni, in SE XII 57–139, pll. 6–37Google Scholar (referred to below by the author's name only) and discussed by him in SE XIII 179–202.

53 Rumpf, Katalog der etruskischen Skulpturen, Berlin 14, Riis, Tyrrhenika 118 f.

54 It is not so easy to explain how the scenes came to be copied, as Attic representations occur on vases or plaques not found outside Attica. The phormiskos in Bologna (Zsch. no. 87, CVA II, pl 323) is from Athens.

55 Reiner, op. cit. 67 f. Figured in the ekphora (Zsch. nos. 91 and 92, above n. 12), and cf. Zsch. 26 f. On the Corinthian hydria, Zsch. no. 90, a lyre is carried by a mourner beside the bier.

56 Paribeni nos. 75, 78, 76 (pll. 20, 22 and Giglioli, L'Arie Etrusca pll. 143; 144, 1).

57 Paribeni no. 77 (pl. 21), cf. his no. 88.

58 Paribeni nos. 9 and 86 (pll. 8; 24, 1).

59 Paribeni no. 89 (pl. 25, 1).

60 Paribeni no. 82 (pl. 23).

61 Paribeni nos. 11, 76, 78, 86, 182 (pll. 22; 24, 1; 32, 2 and Giglioli, op. cit., pll. 143, 144, 2).

62 Paribeni no. 86 (pl. 24, 1).

63 Paribeni no. 80 (Pryce, , British Museum Catalogue I 2, 178 ff.Google Scholar, figs. 31–4); note the use of a palm leaf as a fan in the convivium scene on another side of the cippus. The ‘cup’ held by the woman by the bier is more probably, from its shape, a thymiaterion.

64 Reiner, op. cit. 35, Mayer, Das Öl in Kultus 25 f., 28.

65 Homer, , Iliad XIX 24–33.Google Scholar

66 Zsch. no. 131.

67 Zsch. no. 17 Beil. 9.

68 Zsch. 20 and nos. 2, 4, 8, 10, 11, Hesp Supplement II 56, fig. 37, cf. Cook, , BCH LXX 100 n. 5.Google Scholar

69 I have expressed my doubts about the funerary character of the New York lion plaque in BSA XLIX 200 f.

70 The inscription on 11 is not over the central plaque, but it does not directly refer to the figures below it, and it may have continued on over the centre piece.

71 Compare contemporary and earlier Eretrian figures, BSA XLVII, pll. 5–7.

72 No doubt to bring out the outlines of the figures, which on this scale and on the red Attic clay might get lost in the background. It is used on some large Attic vases (Karouzou, in BCH LXIII 287Google Scholar) and may have been suggested by the appearance of Corinthian vases and metopes.

73 Wiegand, Die archaische Poros-Architektur 27 ff., pl. 3.

74 As on many archaic reliefs and metopes.

75 Χαριταῖος, the known name of a contemporary potter, has been restored (Hoppin, Black Figured Vases 74).

76 The formula σῆμα τόδ᾿ ἑστί does not appear in the early funerary epigrams in Friedländer and Hoffleit, Epigrammata. See also above, p. 52.

77 Technau, , RM LIII 94 f.Google Scholar attributed them, with Munich 1381, to the Painter of London B 197, whose work is

78 Cf. 9 (iii), Zsch. no. 54, and tearful departure scenes as CVA Villa Giulia I, pl. 8, 5, Brit. Mus. III, pl. 151, 1, 4; IV, pl. 212, 2, but the gesture cannot be thought one of sorrow only, cf. Würzburg 391, Langlotz, pl. 109.

79 This illustrates the hard brittle state of the clay before firing. I know two votive plaques which were chipped and the broken surface painted over again before firing, North Slope A–P 1952, Hesp IX 233, no. 246, fig. 45 and Akr 2530. Graef-Langlotz, pl. 104.

80 Richter, , MetrMusBull XXIII (1928), 54 ff., figs. 1–3Google Scholar, Handbook (1953), 61, pl. 43 b, Cook, , Zeus III, pl. 35Google Scholar, Lane, Greek Pottery, pl. 51.

81 Compare his broad figures and the drapery on his Panathenaics, e.g. CVA Louvre V, pll. 359, 1; 360, 2, Madrid I, pl. 45, 1.

82 The head of the mattress and the top of the kline leg are missing on this vase, so a close comparison with the other biers which are so alike is excluded; the Louvre horsemen keep their heels back while they canter. A black-figure loutrophoros in the Benaki Museum is close to the painter's style in this and in other respects.

83 Also on the Bonn, krater AA 1935, 490 figs. 64, 65Google Scholar, fragments in Florence, (CVA I, pl. 388, 215Google Scholar, Beazley, Campana Fragments 20), and the vase in Athens, CVA II, pl. 80, 3Google Scholar; cf. the loosened band on Tübingen E 100, Watzinger pl. 29. See also note 49 and Ohly, Griechische Goldbleche 68–72.

84 We may perhaps ignore the position of the long stroke of the nu and restore νιννίον (Miller, , JHS LXXIII 47Google Scholar), and make it a relationship, or perhaps a name. The position is one for aunts, as on 28, where the same painter writes θηθίς, but the longer stroke of the nu suggests orthograde, and νό[θος, or rather νό[θη referring to the small girl would make sense, albeit surprising.

85 In Festschrift Overbeck 1 ff. and pl. 1 after a preliminary discussion in AD II 4–7 with pll. 9–11. See also Rumpf, , Gnomon I 334Google Scholar, MuZ 47, Beazley, Development 71 f.

86 Exekias, pll. 14–18.

87 Ibid., pl. 18, 9, 10, bottom left and the fragment to the right and above it.

88 Op. cit. 22, pl. 19 a, b, following a suggestion of Rumpf in Gnomon I 334.

89 In AE 1888, 183 ff., his no. 1 = NM 2410, 2 = 2412, 3 = 2413, 4 = 2414, etc. He grouped the fragments on the basis of their reported find-places and their technique. The Areios series (11) have coarse clay bodies with a heavy surface layer of refined clay. The Exekias fragments (10) and the series 12 have a thin surface of refined clay over the uniformly good clay which forms the body of the plaques, cf. Fig. Kraiker, (AM LIX 4)Google Scholar cites NM 2412–2416 as all by Exekias.

90 Collignon's statement that they were found in a woman's tomb (GazArch XII (1888), 225 ff.) seems unfounded and his discussion of the fragments is superficial.

91 Cf. Judeich, Topographie von Athen Plan I D 2 (Waisenhaus), C 3 (Triada), C 2 (Odos Plataion = Elaiotribeion). This seems the safest conclusion. Sceptics may find places for NM 2415 (Technau, op. cit., pl. 19 b), 2416 and 2417 (Plate 2) on my 9 (vi)–(viii), and NM 2414 (ibid., pl. 19 a) with its inscription demands another plaque beside (iv).

92 Technau, op. cit., pl. 17, 4; a mourning man moving right and the edge of the plaque preserved.

93 See above n. 12.

94 Of 14, if there are only three plaques in all, the harnessing scene must come to the right of the prothesis.

95 E.g. Technau, op. cit., pl. 2 and on Louvre F 53 (ibid. 24, Neutsch, , Marburg Jb XV 52, fig. 11).Google Scholar

96 RE s.v. ‘Sime’.

97 London B 336, CVA VI, pl. 349, 4.

98 Unlike, apparently, 11, unless the αρειος is adjectival, not a name (above, n. 8).

99 Technau, op cit., pl. 18 top centre and left centre. But, as Miss Jeffery points out to me, the same hand may incise and paint the same letters in different ways, as, for example, the form of theta on the Francois Vase.

100 Hirschfeld ignores the letter lost in the break. Furtwängler, Beschreibung 316 f. reads I before the final break: it is not quite clear on the photograph.

101 So far as I know, the name does not occur elsewhere, but this is not a serious objection to the restoration.