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Byzantine Architectural Members from the Tripoli Archaeological Museum

Articles

• Fundić, Leonela
• FUNDIĆ, Leonela

A he Tripoli Archaeological Museum houses a number ofunpublished Byzantine sculptures retrieved from the surrounding area, amongst which are six marble sculptedpieces that belonged to three different arched slabs. Theseare mentioned by Ch. Bouras and L. Boura, who locatedthem in the Tegea Archaeological Museum, where theywere kept after 1975, and who state that they belonged totemplon proskynetaria.Four pieces belong to the first arched slab, which is thebest preserved and can be completely restored (Fig. 4).The arch is decorated with a triple guilloche and a concentric astragal (Figs 1-3). The tympanum was adorned with alion (Fig. 1), of which the larger part of the body is still preserved (only the head is missing). The dimensions of thefragments rule out the possibility that they belonged to atemplon proskynetarion. The fragments in question mostprobably formed part of the arch of a ciborium of a funerary monument or an altar.A small fragment survives of the second arched slab (Fig.5). The tympanum of this slab could not be completelyrestored, because only part of the left arch has been preserved. The slab is of marble and appears to have had lavish floral decoration. The surface of the arch is defined bya relief rope on the interior. The arch is adorned with aperforated motif of tendrils and symmetrically placed palmettes. On the basis of this decoration, the fragment maybe associated with the border of the north proskynetarionfrom Zoodochos Pigi at Samari and the south from AyiosDimitrios at Mystras; the fragment could thus have formedpart of a proskynetarion templon. Both its dimensions andits decoration are consist with this conclusion.Of the third arched slab, a large fragment from the centralpart of the tympanum has been preserved (Figs 6 and 7).The arch and the tympanum bore floral decoration. Theoriginal position of this slab is unknown. Its dimensions,however, and the similarities between it and other, similarsculptures suggest that it may have come from a window orhave been part of an arched border of an arcosolium.The exceptional art of all the preserved sculptures should benoted. The similarity of workmanship and decoration withcorresponding motifs in sculptures dated to the 12th centuryenable us to date the three slabs from the Tegea Archaeological Museum to the same century. The sculptures of thefirst and second arched slab, however, could also be assignedto the same artistic current, associated with the Samarinasculpture workshop, which produced some outstandingexamples of sculpture in central and south Greece duringthe second half of the 12th and first half of the 13th century.

• Arts
• History and Archaeology

• Arts and religion
• Architecture

• http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/4379
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/dchae.644