Glykera stele (Kassel)

The Kassel grave stele for Glykera is a field stele of the so-called Glykera group from the middle of the 4th century BC. It comes from the Kerameikos area in Athens , has been in the Collection of Antiquities in Kassel since 1968 and bears the inventory number ALg 4.

history

The stele was found on March 31, 1871 at the corner of Piraeus Street and Ludwigsplatz in Athens. The site was buried again in 1874. The property then belonged to V. Nikopoulos. The grave monument ended up in the Loverdo Collection in Athens; In 1968 it was acquired in the Cologne art trade and then on loan from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Collection , Aachen , to Kassel. At that time the stele had already been broken in the middle and put back together again. 1975 exhibit was cleaned and treated with a suspension in 1986 it was cleaned again and ent sinters ; at that time the paint residues were also preserved. At the time the stele was found in 1871, the remains of paint, which were still clearly recognizable and described, were largely lost.

description

The Attic field stele - the less elaborate version of the sculptural commemoration of the dead compared to grave reliefs and Naïskos steles - was built around 360/350 BC. Created. It consists of white, finely crystalline marble with vertical gray stripes and still shows traces of painting on the foot of one of the figures. The stele is 123.5 cm high, 35.6 cm wide and 7.8 cm deep at the strongest point. The field of view with the four figures is 23.2 cm high and 25.6 cm wide. It was originally attached to a base block made of reddish hymetto stone , which has now been lost. The stele itself is relatively well preserved; Whether a crowning palmette was present can no longer be determined with certainty. The right volute tendril and the tips of the acanthus leaves at the top are damaged.

The front and narrow sides of the stele were smoothed and machined with a toothed iron. The back was slightly fluted with pointed and flat iron . At the bottom of the board-shaped stele is a rectangular peg that was used to insert into the base.

The rectangular relief image in the upper half is located under two rosettes or paterae, each of which consists of two convex discs and an omphalos-like, centrally pierced elevation in the middle. A protruding cornice closes off the stele at the front and sides. The upper end is adorned with a chalice from which an anthemion with acanthus leaves grows. It is flanked by volute tendrils.

The stele bears three inscriptions. Above the two rosettes, the names ΟΝΗΣΙΜΟΣ and ΑΝΘΗΔΩΝ can be read without any separation, directly above the seated female figure in the relief is the inscription ΓΛΥΚΕΡΑ.

In the picture field, in the upper corners of which two capitals are indicated, a scene of farewell is evidently shown. The central pair is made up of Onesimos and Glykera shaking hands. Onesimos is standing at the left edge of the picture with his head slightly tilted to the right. He is dressed in a cloak with a triangular flap and his right arm is bare. The bearded man's weight rests on his left leg, while the right leg is slightly bent as a free leg. Glykera sits across from him on a chair with elegantly curved legs; their feet rest on a box or stool. The seated woman's head is almost at the same height as that of her husband. A child's figure hugs her knees up her sleeve, chiton , whose head is under the hands of the parting couple and who may be holding a bird in one hand. At the right edge of the picture, behind Glykera, there is another figure, presumably a servant, with a box on her arm and a chiton with apoptygma . Glykera herself wears a coat with a half-length sleeve chiton, and a hair band can be seen in her hair.

Interpretations

Clairmont suspected in 1993 that the Glykera inscription could have been inserted after the two upper inscriptions; But there is also the theory that the two bereaved Onesimos and Anthedon were immortalized by inscription on the stele only after their own death. In general, the scene is interpreted in such a way that the seated Glykera represents the wife and mother in the family, Onesimos her husband, who commissioned the stele. “Anthedon” could either mean the name of the town Onesimos came from or the name of the child depicted. Perhaps it should be a city name, so would rather the Boeotian as the Palestinian Anthedon in question. Onesimos would not have been a full citizen in Athens. On the website of the Kassel museum collection there is the comment: “Viewed in this way, the Glykera stele would be a further example of the imagery of the bourgeois-late classical understanding of the polis, developed in Athens and effective beyond Athens, such as the attesting Aristodica grave relief from Crete [...]. The ideal-typical images with individual name inscriptions in the sepulcral area are also understood as an expression of a collective experience of the considerably increased importance of the family community (Oikos) as the core and most important, nevertheless oppressed component in the late classical poleis . "

The acanthusanthemion is likely to represent a symbol of the life-giving power of the earth. Whether the acanthus had a special meaning in the cult of the dead is disputed. The rosette pair is mostly seen as a pair of amulets.

Glykera Group

The so-called Glykera group comprises a total of 14 steles, which stylistically correspond to the Kassel Glykera stele and are typical examples of the Attic relief work around 350 BC. Represent. Time and genre-specific are both the structure of the garments with the accentuated heaviness of the fabrics and the arrangement of the figures, which is somewhat stiff. The robes are shown with long and rather wide folds. Six steles from the Glykera group show men whose coats, like that of Onesimos, are turned down under their chests, so that a triangular flap that falls on their stomachs results. The figure of the standing man, treated almost identically, can be found on the side of four steles in the group. Andreas Scholl suspects that these steles could have come from the same workshop as two marble lekyths in relief .

Representations of Athena on Attic document reliefs from the same period are also comparable.

literature

Peter Gercke and Nina Zimmermann-Elseify , Antique Sculptures. Antikensammlung Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel , Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3781-6 , p. 320 ff.

Individual evidence

↑ Janet Grossman: Funerary Sculpture . American School of Classical Studies at Athens, January 31, 2014, ISBN 978-1-62139-014-5 , p. 123.
↑ Archaeological newspaper ... . G. Reimer, 1872, p. 93.
↑ ^a ^b ^c grave relief for Glykera, Onesimos Anthedon on antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de
↑ Christoph W. Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones III , 1993, p. 519 f., Quoted on antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de
^ John Boardman : Antique works of art from the Ludwig collection . Archäologischer Verlag, 1990, ISBN 978-3-8053-1072-7 , p. 228.
^ Andreas Scholl, The Attic picture field steles of the 4th century. v. Chr. , Athener Mitteilungen, Beiheft 17, 1996, p. 67 f., Quoted from antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de

[Grossman2014-1] Janet Grossman: Funerary Sculpture . American School of Classical Studies at Athens, January 31, 2014, ISBN 978-1-62139-014-5 , p. 123.

[2] Archaeological newspaper ... . G. Reimer, 1872, p. 93.

[kas-3] rave relief for Glykera, Onesimos Anthedon on antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de

[4] Christoph W. Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones III , 1993, p. 519 f., Quoted on antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de

[Boardman1990-5] John Boardman : Antique works of art from the Ludwig collection . Archäologischer Verlag, 1990, ISBN 978-3-8053-1072-7 , p. 228.

[6] Andreas Scholl, The Attic picture field steles of the 4th century. v. Chr. , Athener Mitteilungen, Beiheft 17, 1996, p. 67 f., Quoted from antikeskulptur.museum-kassel.de