Ανάγλυφη επιτύμβια στήλη από το ανατολικό νεκροταφείο της Πέλλας
Part of : Αρχαιολογικόν δελτίον ; Vol.53, 1998, pages 257-266
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257-266
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Relief grave stele from the east cemetery at Pella
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Abstract:
The relief grave stele BE 1999.1 that is the subject of this article was found in 1999 during the excavation of a drainage shaft on the plot of land no. 1341 at Pella, in the area of the east cemetery of the city. The archaeological excavation that ensued in the area where the stele was found, in the east part of the plot, revealed 13 tile-covered graves dating from the late 4th and early 3rd c. BC.The stele, which has a preserved height of 0.945 m. and width of 0.60 m., is made of fine-grained, white marble resembling pentelic. Two female figures are depicted in high relief on the front. The one at the left is seated on a stool with lathe-turned legs. Her head is rendered in profile, her torso turned three- quarters, and her legs almost completely in profile. She wears chiton and himation and her hair is gathered in a hairnet. The other female figure, who is shown standing three-quarters, occupies the right part of the stele. She wears a sleeved chiton and himatio n. Between her breasts and the himation that lies in folds on her abdomen, an infant is rendered in very low relief, wearing swaddling clothes and a cap. The baby was probably carved after the relief on the slab was finished, in accordance with the wishes of the person who commissioned the monument.The posture and ethos of the figures, the modelling of the volumes of the bodies, and the drapery assign the Pella stele to the middle of the first quarter of the 4th c. BC. Both the motifs - deceased mother, relative with child - and the treatment of the figures point to a craftsman profoundly influenced by the art of Attic grave reliefs, though there are also few elements deriving from the art of the islands and Ionia, which exercised a strong influence on the north Aegean from the 6th c. BC. onwards. Attic influence on Macedonia from the late 5th c. BC. can readily be explained in terms of Attic craftsmen travelling to the peripheral areas of the Greek world. Whether this stele was the work of a travelling sculptor from Attica or a local who studied under him cannot be established with any certainty. The limited number of known sculptors active in the Classical period in Pella, and the isolated studies that have been made of them, do not allow us to form a complete picture of the production of the local sculpture workshops in the Macedonian capital.The size and quality of the stele attest to the existence of a prosperous class that spent considerable sums of money on the erection of large funerary monuments. This is also evident from the finds so far from the city cemeteries, amongst which are the fragment of a relief pedimental stele BE 1999.3 and the bearded male head BE 1999.4, which comes from a grave stele in the form of a small temple.The date assigned to stele BE 1999.1 is consistent with its originally having been erected in the cemetery in the Agora area, the earliest graves in which date from the late 5th c. BC; in this case, it will have been brought t o the east cemetery and reused there after the city expanded to the east.
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Το άρθρο περιέχεται στο τεύχος: Μέρος Α'-Μελέτες
