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Not the tomb of Gyges*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

C. Ratté
C. Ratté
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

Describing the approach toward Sardis in the spring of 1699, the British antiquary Edmund Chishull wrote: ‘We continue our journey through a spatious and fertile plain, curiously beset on each side the road with [a] variety of round hillocks, which from their number, figure, and situation, in so level a campaign, appear plainly to be artificial’. The tumuli or burial mounds so described by Chishull still dominate the Hermus river plain opposite Sardis. Their modern name is Bin Tepe, or ‘Thousand Mounds’.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 114 , November 1994 , pp. 157 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1994

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References

1 Chishull, E., Travels in Turkey and back to England (London 1747) 14.Google Scholar

2 Hanfmann, G.M.A., Sardis from prehistoric to Roman times (Cambridge, MA 1983) 53–58Google Scholar; McLauchlin, B., Lydian graves and burial customs (Diss., Berkeley 1985) 13–54Google Scholar; Ratté, C., Lydian masonry and monumental architecture at Sardis (Diss., Berkeley 1989) 7–15, 157–89Google Scholar.

3 See, e.g., Hamilton, W.J., Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia (London 1842) 146Google Scholar; Hanfmann (n. 2) 56. Strabo (xiii 4.7) says that this cemetery contains ‘the tombs of the Lydian kings’.

4 Hdt. i 93.

5 von Olfers, J.F.M., Abhandlungen der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1858) 549–50Google Scholar; Hanfmann (n. 2) 56–57; Greenewalt, C.H. Jr., et al. , BASOR ccxlix (1983) 26–27.Google Scholar

6 Hipponax fr. 7 Degani; Pedley, J., Sardis M2: Ancient literary sources on Sardis (Cambridge, MA 1972) 77 no. 280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Hanfmann, G.M.A., BASOR clxx (1963) 52–3 n. 56.Google Scholar

8 On the chronology of the Lydian kings, Kaletsch, H., Historia vii (1958) 1–47.Google Scholar

9 Hanfmann (n. 2) 57–8.

10 Hanfmann, G.M.A., Letters from Sardis (Cambridge, MA 1972) 155.Google Scholar A geophysical survey of the interior of the mound was begun in 1992; the preliminary results of this survey will be presented in Aasor, in the preliminary report on the campaign of 1992.

11 Hanfmann, G.M.A., BASOR clxxvii (1965) 34.Google Scholar For the Assyrian records, see Pedley (n. 6) 81–2 nos. 292–93, 295.

12 On Attales, Nic. Dam., FGrH 90 F 63. In addition to the commentaries of Degani and Pedley (n. 6) and of McLauchlin (n. 2), see especially Neel Smith, D., Herodotus and the archaeology of Asia Minor (Diss., Berkeley 1987) 258–59Google Scholar, and Masson, O., Les fragments du poète Hipponax (Paris 1962) 129–34.Google Scholar

13 McLauchlin (n. 2) 337 n. 54.

14 The first to understand a reference to the Karabel relief was Th. Bergk (Poetae Lyrici Graeci 4 ii [Leipzig 1882] 467); for discussion, see Masson (n. 12) and Ramsay, W.M., Asianic elements in Greek civilization (New Haven 1929) 156–60.Google Scholar My thanks are due to C.H. Greenewalt, Jr., for drawing my attention to a more recent review of the evidence by Pritchett, W.K. in his Studies in ancient Greek topography iv (Berkeley 1981) 267–81.Google Scholar

15 Smith (n. 12) 258–59 and 261–63 nn. 4–5.

16 Gusmani, R., ‘Die neuen lydischen Funde seit 1964’, Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft und Kulturkunde (Innsbruck 1968) 51Google Scholar; id., Neue epichorische Schriftzeugnisse aus Sardis (Cambridge, MA 1975) 69–70.

17 Smith (n. 12) 259.

18 In this case the monogram might well have the magical significance attributed to it by Gusmani (n. 16), especially if Wallace, R.W. (JHS cviii [1988] 203–207)CrossRefGoogle Scholar is correct in understanding ‘Walwel’ as a form of the Lydian word meaning ‘lion’.

19 Hodge, A.T., AJA lxix (1975) 333–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 See Kaletsch (n. 8) on the dates of the king's reign, and von Olfers, Hanfmann, and Greenewalt (n. 5) on his tomb.

21 Terrace walls near the top of the acropolis: G.M.A. Hanfmann (n. 2) 45–47. Terrace walls near the base of the acropolis: Greenewalt, C.H. Jr., et al. , BASOR suppl. xxv (1987) 72–84Google Scholar; Fortifications: Greenewalt, C.H. Jr., et al. , BASOR ccxlix (1983) 13–15Google Scholar; Greenewalt., C.H. Jr., et al. , BASOR suppl. xxv (1987) 31–33.Google Scholar On all these monuments, see also Ratté (n. 2) 18–24, 218–46.

22 Ephesus: the south cella wall, Hogarth, D.G., Excavations at Ephesus. The archaic Artemisia (London 1908) 256–58, pl. 11Google Scholar; cf. the central basis in the phase considered contemporary with the Croesus-temple, Ibid., 261–63; Bammer, A., JÖAI lviii Beiblatt (1988) 20–21.Google Scholar Older Parthenon, Penrose, F.C., An investigation of the principles of Athenian architecture 2 (London 1888) 18–20, pl. 9.Google Scholar Walls of the Athenian acropolis and Eleusis, Wrede, W., Attische Mauern (Athens 1933) pls. 23–33, 37–39Google Scholar; the vertical bevels on these walls have not to my knowledge been noted—at least in print—before now.

23 Coulton, J.J., Ancient Greek architects at work (Ithaca 1977) 30–50.Google Scholar

24 Ratté, C., ‘Lydian contributions to Archaic East Greek architecture’, in des Courtils, J. and Moretti, J.-C. ed. Les grands ateliers d'architecture dans le monde égéen du Vle siècle av. J.-C. (Paris 1993) 1–12.Google Scholar

25 Hanfmann, G.M.A. and Ramage, N.H., Sardis R2: sculpture from Sardis (Cambridge, MA 1978) 14–18.Google Scholar

26 Pottery from Karniyarik Tepe, Hanfmann (n. 2) 57–58; id., BASOR clxxxii (1966) 27 fig. 23; for the Greek parallels (mostly east Greek), see in general Greenewalt, C.H. Jr., Ritual dinners in early historic Sardis (Berkeley 1978) 11–17Google Scholar; the lamp is similar to Howland, R.H., Agora IV. Greek lamps and their survivals (Princeton 1958) Type 12A.Google Scholar In addition to the ceramic evidence, a radiocarbon date of 610 plus or minus 90 BC was obtained from charcoal included in the same ashy layer (radiocarbon dating by M. Tamers of Beta Analytic Inc.). Pottery from the Persian destruction layer, Greenewalt, C.H. Jr., et al. , BASOR suppl. xxv (1987) 25–31, fig. 12Google Scholar; Ibid., 62–70, fig. 12; Greenewalt, C.H. Jr., et al. , BASOR suppl. xxvi (1990) 143–55.Google Scholar The date of the Persian destruction layer is established by the historical circumstances, and by two Attic black-figure cups included in the layer (Ramage, N.H., AJA xc (1989) 419–24).Google Scholar The simply decorated local Lydian pottery vessels found both in the Persian destruction layer and at Karniyarik Tepe are less independently diagnostic; vessels of these types do not seem to occur in deposits postdating the mid-sixth century, but similar vessels are found in layers which may be as early as the late seventh century—thus the wide range of dates adopted here.

27 Sardis inv. no. P91.9/9857. Diam. 0.230 m., p.H. 0.085 m. Pinkish-red micaceous fabric; decoration in black glaze (shown on the drawing as solid black) on red slip (shown on the drawing as hatched). Cf. the comparanda already noted (n. 26).

28 Whatever its significance, this sign does seem to be associated with specific masons or teams of masons, for it does not occur indiscriminately on the wall, but only in certain areas attributable, on the evidence of the bevels cut in the edges of the blocks, to specific working teams. See Ratté (n. 2) 77–82.

29 Hdt. i 30–32.

30 Hdt. i 34, trans. Rawlinson.

31 Cf. Xen. Cyr. vii 2.20, presumably based on the Herodotean story.

32 See, e.g., Asheri, D. ed. Erodoto. Le Storie I (Milan 1988) 287–88.Google Scholar

33 Hdt. i 45. On the phrase, ώς οίκὸς ἠν, see Powell, J.E., A lexicon to Herodotus (Cambridge 1938)Google Scholar s.v. οἰκα (contra LSJ s.v. ἕοικα, who would take ώς οἰκὸς ἠν to mean ‘it is likely’ and Rawlinson, who translates ‘with such honours as fitted the occasion’; cf. McNeal, R.A. ed. Herodotus, Book 1 [Lanham, MD 1986] 126).Google Scholar

34 This is nor the first attempt to ‘identify’ the tomb of Atys; the words μνῆμα Τωτος in line 4 of Hipponax fr. 7 (Degani) were emended by Schneidewin to μνῆμα τ᾿ Ἅτυος and by Bergk to μνήματ´ Ἅτυος: see Degani ad loc. and Masson (n. 12) 133. Either reading if correct would likely preclude the suggestion proposed here, but as we have seen the difficulties of this text are grave.