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Three Bases from Halikarnassos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

R. E. Allen
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Extract

The three bases illustrated in the photographs (Plates 1 and 2) and in the drawings (Figs. 1–3) were all seen and studied by me on a visit to Bodrum undertaken in the summer of 1969. They have been known for some time as individual items, but have never been studied as a group. The base identified here as no. 1 is now located in the courtyard of the castle at Bodrum; nos. 2 and 3 are built into the walls of a house standing on the site of the former Byzantine church of Aghia Marina, in the district called Türkkuyusu outside the main town. Other fragments, relating perhaps to similar monuments, have been reported from the same area at various times, and it seems clear to me from my own investigations that there is a strong chance of the existence of further such bases, in whole or in part.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 70 , November 1975 , pp. 1 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1975

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References

1 I am most grateful to Mr. P. M. Fraser for drawing my attention to these bases, and suggesting their publication as a group. My sincere thanks are also due to Mr. Hakki Nalbantoglu of the museum at Bodrum, who devoted the most part of a day to showing me the bases and facilitating my study of them.

2 Newton, C. T., A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus and Branchidae ii 1 (1862) 324–5.Google Scholar

3 The base reported by Newton on p. 270, note e, carrying a shield in relief and a triglyph, is evidently another example, but I could not locate it.

4 Bean, G. E. and Cook, J. M., BSA I (1955) 85–169Google Scholar, at 92 n. 41 plate 13(d).

5 Both holes are 22 cm. from the front of the base, and 21 cm. from the back. They are, from left to right, 5·5 and 5·7 cm. respectively from the edge of the base.

6 The location of the rosettes is visibly asymmetrical. That on the right is 9·5 cm. from the right-hand edge, while that on the left is only 7 cm. from the left-hand edge.

7 See, in general, Harrison, J. E., Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903) 336–32Google Scholar. Nilsson, M. P., Gesch. Gr. Rel. 3 (1967) i 198–9Google Scholar, refers to previous studies. The origin of the association is not clear, but it may be connected with the belief, cited by a number of writers of later antiquity, that the spine of the dead man turned into a snake (see Harrison, op. cit. 331, who cites die relevant passages). I note with interest that the same story is to be found in a verse paradox concerned with such metamorphoses written by Archelaos of Chersonesos, who worked in Alexandria in the generation after Kallimachos (see now Fraser, P. M., Ptolemaic Alexandria (1972) 778–80Google Scholar; the epigram is quoted ii 1087 n. 444). I should also mention the more obscure representation on coins of Pergamon of the regal period, of Asklepios holding a snake which is drinking from a cup: see the good discussion of Ohlemutz, E., Die Kulte und Heiligtümer der Götter in Pergamon (Würzburg 1940; repr. 1968) 126–30.Google Scholar This interesting question could profitably be investigated further.

8 Wide, S., “Grabesspende und Totenschlange’, in Archiv für Religionswiss. xii (1909) 221–3Google Scholar; illustrated also by Nilsson, op. cit. pl. 52, 3.

9 A. Conze, Reise auf der Insel Lesbos pl. iv 5; IG xii 2, 286 (see also 287, of a similar genre).

10 See the studies cited above, nn. 7–8.

11 See, most recently, the stele from Euboia, published in AAA ii (1969) 29.

12 In addition to the base mentioned by Newton (above, n. 3), note that referred to by Cook, and Bean, (BSA I (1955) 92)Google Scholar in the context of the two bases at Türkkuyusu: ‘a fragment with a fillet ornamented with rosettes, perhaps from another such pedestal, is built into a neighbouring house.’ Although I could not locate this particular piece, there were many other fragments in this area which may plausibly have belonged to bases of this type.

13 BCH lxxxiv (1960) 816 fig. 6 (photograph);republished at a later stage of excavation in AAA vi (1973) 116, fig. 3.

14 I do not believe that the form of the Kantharos, which in any case varies considerably from one base to another, is of much help in this respect.