Grave stele of Hegeso

Hegeso's grave stele in the National Archaeological Museum.

The grave stele of Hegeso is an ancient Greek relief of the high classical from Athens . The artifact from the end of the 5th century BC Was found in the burial area of Koroibos on the Kerameikos . It is considered one of the most famous and outstanding pieces of its kind. Today it is in the Athens National Archaeological Museum .

The grave stele has the shape of a naïskos , which is formed from two side pilasters and a pediment . The pediment is a central Akroter - Palmette decorated, which marks the highest point of the relief. Two more floral acroter figures are attached to the sides. The central motif is the depiction of the deceased Hegeso, sitting relaxed on a Klismos . Her feet are in sandals with painted straps and rest on a footstool. Hegeso wears a chiton and a thin himation . On her head she wears a transparent headdress made of three ribbons, the wavy curls are gathered at the back, pulled up and covered by a hairnet. Between the fingers of her left and right hand, she is holding a chain or ribbon that was previously painted on but is no longer preserved today. Opposite Hegeso, on the left side of the picture, there is a servant who is shown smaller than Hegeso . She wears a "barbaric" sleeve garment and can therefore be addressed as a slave. With her right hand she gives her mistress a square jewelry box from which Hegeso has just taken the object between her fingers, and helps her mistress with the jewelry selection. The servant's hair is completely under a hood, her shoes are closed.

Former installation of the original statue on the Kerameikos.

Today's installation of the copy in the Koroibos tomb.

The relief is considered an outstanding masterpiece. The inner perspective, the spirituality, is worked out just as sensitively as the outer artistry, which can be seen, for example, in the fine elaboration of the folds of the garment or the arching of the chair. The relief is attributed to an outstanding master of his craft, probably the work of the sculptor Callimachos or one of his students. Nothing in work is reminiscent of death. What is shown, however, is a typical domestic scene, the intimate togetherness of mistress and servant. The furnishings on display testify to the wealth of the family, the modest, norm-compliant habitus shows the expected behavior of an Attic housewife from a good family. Another interpretation assumes that the picture shows, in a figurative sense, the visit to the grave where gifts were brought to the deceased. The grave monument probably also represents the other deceased women of the family who were buried there. The relief has been preserved with almost no damage, there are only several light bumps on the edges and the head of the Hegeso shows some slight damage. Only the plinth shows major damage.

On the architrave of the gable is an inscription ( IG I², 1079) in ancient Greek : ΗΓΗΣΩΠΡΟΞΕΝΟ - Hegeso [wife or daughter of] Proxenos . Should the inscription be interpreted as the daughter of Proxenus, as is generally assumed for Hegeso, then Hegeso, daughter of Proxenos from Acharnai , has married into the family of the grave owner Koroibos. Both the pre-Euclidean genitive of the inscription and the design of the letters suggest that it was dated to the end of the 5th century BC. BC This fits the stylistic dating of the relief. It can therefore be assumed that the Hegeso grave relief was the last of the three grave monuments in the grave district in the last decade, i.e. between 410 and 400 BC. Was created and set up. Around 20 years earlier, the custom of richly decorating graves, which was already common in archaic times, began again .

The relief found to the left of the palmette stele of the tomb owner of the Koroibos burial area was made of Pentelic marble . Like the other two reliefs in the burial area, it was found in situ during the excavations carried out by the Archaeological Society in 1870 under the direction of Athanasios S. Rhousopoulos . The association in which the three grave monuments stood has probably not been changed since the first installation. The grave stele has a height of 1.56 meters and a width of 0.97 meters. The original is exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (inventory number 3624, exhibition room 18). Today, in the Kerameikos grounds, there is a modern copy that was embedded in the original limestone base. In the base, to the left of the relief, there is still space for a marble vessel, which has not been preserved, but for which an opening has been preserved in the base. Martha Weber assumes that the missing vessel is a marble lekythos that is now also kept in the National Archaeological Museum (inventory number 1044). A Loutrophoros it excludes also because the handle would not fit the distance from the palmettos Tele. It is sometimes assumed that there was a donation container at the point.

The sadness in the face of the Hegeso, the grace and the excellent preservation made the relief extremely well known after it was found in the 19th century. Marcel Proust wrote about the relief in a form that required his readers' knowledge of the relief. Kostis Palamas wrote a personal interpretation of the work of art in verse form, and Babits Mihály also wrote a poem on the grave relief. To this day, many copies of the stele can be found in archaeological teaching collections around the world.

literature

Albert Winslow Barker: The costume of the servant on the grave-relief of Hegeso. American Journal of Archeology. 28 (1924), pp. 290-292.
Martha Weber: Koroibos, an architect of Pericles and the tomb area XVIII of his family in Kerameikos. In: Thetis 8, 2001, p. 77ff.
Nikolaos Kaltsas : Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens , The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2002 ISBN 0-89236-686-9 , pp. 156–157.
Martha Weber: Koroibos (II) . In: Rainer Vollkommer (Hrsg.): Künstlerlexikon der Antike . Volume 2: L-Z. Addendum A – K. Saur, Munich / Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-598-11414-1 , pp. 424-425.
Martha Weber: The Lekythos in Athens NM 1044 on the base with the Hegesostele NM 3624 in District XVIII of the Kerameikos. In: Thetis 18, 2011, pp. 69-75. Digitized
Jutta Stroszeck : The Kerameikos in Athens. History, buildings and monuments in the archaeological park. Bibliopolis, Athens 2014, ISBN 978-3-943741-04-9 , pp. 213-215.