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Part III. A Votive Stele

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

Extract

In 1950 a fragment of a votive relief, said to have been found at the Pezoulia (which is the general name given locally to the area round the Cyclopean Terrace Building), was brought to Professor Wace, who included it with his Mycenae material and gave it the inventory number 50–512. It is now preserved in the museum at Nauplia. It consists of the upper right-hand portion of a pedimental stele of poor-quality white marble; the pediment with its acroteria is carved in relief upon a larger field of corresponding shape. There is a wide cornice below the pediment, underneath which a dedicatory inscription was carved in three lines. Below the inscription, the body of the stele contained a votive relief. The original right side of the fragment is preserved, although this is chipped and battered, obscuring some of the details at the edge. Elsewhere the stone is broken away, and the surface is so badly worn as to render the detail of the relief impossible to describe with any certainty. The preservation of the crowning central acroterion of the pediment indicates that a little over half of the total width of the stele survives, and the whole monument at its widest part (the base of the pediment) was some 35 cm. broad. The measurements of the fragment now preserved are: height 0·35 m.; width 0·2 m.; thickness 0·13 m.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1957

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References

1 BSA xlix (1954) 267–91.

2 Neither Professor Wace nor I were in doubt that this was a male figure, but the squeeze gives it from some points of view a female appearance. However, apart from the fact that Nymphs and Graces are generally portrayed in a group, usually of three, the gesture and the object carried in the left hand seem more appropriate to the dedicator, depicting him in an act of gratitude and worship.

3 See Lawrence, A. W., Later Greek Sculpture pl. 58bGoogle Scholar; Winter, F., Kuntsgeschichte in Bildern: Hellenistische Skulptur 365, figs, 1, 2, 5, 6Google Scholar; 366, figs. 2, 3, 4; 371, fig. 5; M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age figs. 646–50, 652, 656, 658–9. I am grateful to Professor J. M. C. Toynbee for advice on the artistic aspects of this relief.