Cist grave with painted decoration from Pella

[system1988]

Hey all

I posted a new album here:

http://s1246.photobucket.com/albums/gg6 ... m%20Pella/

This is a poor and laconic description of the photos that depict the tomb taken from the book of M. Lilibaki-Akamati "Cist grave with painted decoration from Pella"

In 2001 in the modern town of Pella the grave in question was brought into light. Its length is 5.50 meters and its width is 3.50 meters. The grave seems to have suffered damage from ancient looters who managed to break into with their third attemt by digging a 14- meter tunnel. The tunnel also had oval niches probably for lamps they used to see in the dark.

The robbers left very little behind them but these few pieces of evidence give us a date for the grave itself (late 4th or early 3rd century BC).
Bones were found scattered all over by the robbers and they belong to three individuals: a man of 45- 50 years of a ge, a woman of 29- 34 and a child of 6. They also left 3 golden objects among which was the 16- beamed star of Macedonia.

The grave has a mural decoration with frescoes. The frieze, a colorful band of floral decoration running around the walls of the tomb is one element. Its principal elements are twining tendrils, lily flowers and acanthus leaves. The decoration has a wide range od colours, dark and light brown, white, yellow, red, green, violet, blue.

The band with the human figures is the second element. Altogether, 7 men were depicted. The figures that remain are:

West wall--> The potrait of a young man standing with his body turned to the north and his arms resting on the thigh and his bent knee of the raised left leg, which treads on a low knowll, a position familiar from the sculpture and panited pottery decoration of the Classical period. The young man is wearing a himation, which is draped over his left shoulder and covers his lower body.

His head is crowned with a wreath of leaves perhaps myrtle or laurel which seem to be moving in the wind. In his right he is hoilding a long slender dark brown wooden rod, with which he is touching an open coffer in front of him. Protruping from the coffer are two objects: the one on the right whose blue paint is flaking away, is round (a sphere) while the one on the left is rectangular (maybe the sphere's base).


North wall--> A bearded man seated on a rock dressed in a violet chiton closed at the neck and a yellow- brown himation which is poulled up over the back of the head. Beyond this figure are parts of two cylindrical yellow objects which are papyrus scrolls. On the same wall are also traces if a seated figure. This figure wears a blue chiton and a reddish- brown himation.


South wall--> Another seated male figure with with chin resting on his right hand in a very naturalistic position. He is wearing a himation that covers his entire body excpet for the lower legs. Yet another figure of a young man comfortably seated on a rock, face in profile. Much of the body is missing. He has short brown-black hair anbd is wearing a wreath, woven of a few vividly green leaves which seem to be steering in the breeze.

East wall--> There is the low part of a figure seated on a rock. The hair and the beard is preserved fragmentarily.

The band with the horsemen--> Running around the walls of the chamber above the band with the human figures is a narrower strip. There a pair offunerary mounds with steles erected above are derpicted. There is also an image of a rider on a horse galloping.

Interpreting the painted decoration of the monument--> The deceased man is depicted on the west wall and the bearded figures display the familiar features characteristic of representations of intellectual men in antiquity. The male figure indentified with the deceased seems to be pointing to the deep blue sphere.

The sphere is an object that is found in many representations of sages who studied astronomy , one of the basic elements of humanist education in Ancient Greece. Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Aratus and Hipparchus are just some of the figures who are portrayed by artists of later ages with spheres, seated on them, holding them or pointing to them. Apart from these individual figures with spheres ther are also compositions containing 2 or more figures, in which the sphere is an element of the composition , reflecting the introduction of astronomical theories, particularly in and after the 4th century BC. These theoriers aspiredto explain the movement of the heavenly bodies using geometric models, starting with Eudoxus and his model of concentric shperes, and continuing with Calippus and Aristotle, who improved and expanded his theoretical system.

Examples of shperes in ancient art are in a mosaic in Trier and on two mosaic floor from the Torre Annunziata in the National Museum in Naples and from Sarsina the Villa Albani respectively that represents seven sages with a sphere.

A sphere also appears in the midst of seven seated figures on the stone from a ring in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Thus the painter of the Pella Tomb must have been familiar with a n important compositiom depicting this subject, painted in some important place. It is highly probable tha thtere was such a composition in Athens, the most important centre of philosophy in the 4th century Bcl but there may well have been such a work in Pella,ornamenting someimportant building in the Macedonian capital ,which would have been frequented Bby the thinkers and writers who beganto flockto the court of the MacedonianKings from the beginning of that century,playing their part in the cultural blossoming of the Macedonian kingdom.It isin all likedlihood then the figures from this composition that areportrayed on this tomb,which must have been the grave of some important resident of Pella, perhaps a philosopher but certainly someone with an active interst in philosophy and a particurlar interest in astronomy since the painter chise the figure of the astronomer as a counterpoint to the figure of the deceased.

It is hypothesized that the figure with the papyrus scroll on the north wall bears facial resemblence to Aristotle (comparison with the sculptures).

Best regards

[Paralus]

I must say that I do enjoy your postings. The post on the Aghios Athanasios tomb was worth the price of a trip back to Greece.

More my good fellow, more. Especially if you can unlock those secreted Greek archaeological reports...