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The Game of Morra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Paul F. Perdrizet
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Extract

The Imperial Ottoman Museum has recently acquired a very valuable and interesting gold ring (Fig. 1) which was found in 1894 or 1895 in a tomb at Lampsacus. The Museum authorities subsequently undertook further excavations in the necropolis of which this tomb formed part, and it is a matter for great regret that no detailed report of the results was drawn up; we are therefore forced to content ourselves with the somewhat meagre information given by the late Baltazzi-Bey to M. Salomon Reinach, according to which the necropolis yielded fragments of red-figured pottery and specimens of silver autonomous coins of Lampsacus. Both these details are of importance in fixing the date of the ring; for on the one hand silver coins of this class belong almost exclusively to the fourth century, and on the other, the manufacture of painted vases was not continued after that date. When we add that the evidence of coins and inscriptions proves that this was the most flourishing period in the history of Lampsacus, we have strong a priori reason for assigning the ring to this century, while a consideration of the style of the intaglio may help us to fix the date within narrower limits.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 18 , November 1898 , pp. 129 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1898

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References

page 129 note 1 Revue Archéologique, 1895, ii. p. 363 = Chroniques d'Orient, ii. p. 471.

page 129 note 2 For coins see B.M. Catalogue of Greek Coins, Mysia, Pl. xix. For inscriptions, B.C.H. xx. p. 553 (Proxenia of Epidaurus).

page 129 note 3 Bad zincotype in the Revue Arch. (loc. cit.). Enlarged design in the Chroniques d'Orient, which gives a very inadequate idea of the delicate execution of the design. The drawing in the text is by Mr. F. Anderson, from an impression given to me by M. Mylonas. My thanks are due to H. E. Hamdy-Bey for kind permission to study the original. The dimensions of the bezel are 25 mm. × 21 mm.

page 130 note 1 To Panofka is due the credit of having been the first to recognise that this scene depicts the game of morra. He detected it on a Graeco-Italian hydria in Munich, No. 805 (Bilder ant. Leben, Pl. x. 6), and on the Dzialynski hydria (Arch. Zeit. 1848, pp. 246, 7), published for the first time by Jahn, Otto (Annali, 1866Google Scholar, Tav. d'agg. U). Both vases have been frequently figured, the latest publication being by Schreiber-Anderson, , Atlas of Class. Ant., Pl. lxxix. 7 and 10Google Scholar, with a bibliography of the subject. Heydemann found and published another representation on a cup from Ruvo (Naples Museum), No. 2574 (Arch. Zeitung 1891, Pl. 56, 1), but it is doubtful whether the game is depicted on a Berlin hydria, No. 1953 (Jahn, , Annali, 1866Google Scholar, Tav. d'agg. V and p. 328).

page 131 note 1 No. 826. Ht. 2 ft. 6½ in. Acquired from Piot. Unpublished.

page 132 note 1 Unpublished. Acquired at the sale of Lord Vernon's, antiquities, 1885 (Arch. Anzeiger, 1886, p. 128)Google Scholar.