Melian reliefs
Melische Reliefs or Melische Clay Reliefs is a genus of thin clay plates that are 11 × 14 cm in size and show a relief on the front that was formed in a die .
About 110 specimens are known to date, most of which were found on the Greek island of Milos . They are therefore named after this island. Other sites range from Sicily to Asia Minor . The reliefs were once painted and date to the 5th century BC. Its former purpose is unclear. They mostly have holes, so they were nailed to other objects. Perhaps they once adorned furniture. Their distribution shows that they were happy to be exported.
They show a wide range of motifs. There are scenes from everyday life and scenes from Greek mythology, with the Olympian deities not playing a major role. Are well documented Bellerophon , Perseus and the Medusa, popular are the Iliad and Odyssey . The reliefs vary greatly in style and quality. They show little plasticity. Their production ended around 420 BC. This can be done with the year 416 BC. Be connected. In that year the entire population of Milos was eliminated by the Athenians in the course of the Peloponnesian War , the men murdered, the rest enslaved.
literature
- Paul Jacobsthal : The melic reliefs. Keller, Berlin-Wilmersdorf 1931
- Werner Ekschmitt : Art and Culture of the Cyclades, Part II: Geometric and Archaic Time , Mainz am Rhein 1986 ( Kulturgeschichte der Antike , Volume 28,2), pp. 248-54, Taf. 61–64 ISBN 3805309007
- Florian Stilp: The Jacobsthal reliefs: contoured clay reliefs from early Classical Greece. Bretschneider, Rome 2006, ISBN 88-7689-211-7
