The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

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Zebedee
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

This is kind of what I'd be thinking of if they're centaurs.

Image

(Sardonyx cameo of Dionysos on his chariot, c.1st century BC, Alexandria, currently at the Hermitage)

But obviously no chariot visible whatsoever etc. So very aware this is not an exemplar. I'm not 100% certain it is a female centaur either. But best I can do if they're centaurs which is in vague ballpark. The 'belt' could be harness. It may just be a 'band' of horse skin which some centaurs seem to be portrayed as having there. The white patch below would be the lower abdomen. The 'crescent' could be a part of the harness, or it could just be the start of the horse coat colour.

-----

Thanks Gepd. So above where the proposed secondary altar would have been within the mosaic effectively? Won't push that too far but there's possibly going to be some reason for that.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by gepd »

http://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2016/0 ... is-part-2/

(That is a very confusing article to say the least, just few pieces of useful information in there, as a first impression)
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by amyntoros »

Quick note to say I now know why witnesses to the same crime often give different reports!! From the very beginning I have "seen" the centaur on the right as being female. Am not saying that my perception is the truth, just that until this moment I had not questioned the gender! Funny. :lol:

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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

:D I'm sure there are examples, I just am under the impression they're not very common, and I'm not sure on the gender of the right one whatsoever. The point you made on topless dancing for a female would certainly seem to rule out a female dancer at the very least.

----

The picture of Lefantzis' attempted reconstruction is nice and complete. Haven't a clue what's going in the vast majority of it, but it's there to be wondered at. Genuinely pleased to see it released in full like that.

And Corso now has Hephaestion as the cremation, the woman "thrown onto the kline" (inside the grave) as his own original pet theory Phyllis, with Rhesos and Orpheus and Phyllis' son making up the rest of the collection. :lol:

Whatever relevant points he's making (and there does seem to be a few - such as the styles and dating) are lost for me once I read that.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Xenophon »

Zebedee wrote:
Not sure that's quite right to be honest. Typically they're labelled as 'priestesses', but there are a number of examples I can think of where women are involved in elements of ritual around a bull - whether placing garlands on necks, or making a libation, or generally being involved in or around what appears to be a bull being led to sacrifice. Could be misunderstanding what you mean? It's certainly not a sacrificial scene here in the sense that the bull is being sacrificed in the scene, but it could be a bull being led to sacrifice if all the relevant elements are there. And of course it won't be if they're not.
Taphoi wrote:
Nikes are associated with the Great Gods (see stele depicting the Great Gods below) and the Nike of Samothrace stood in the sanctuary of the Great Gods and some of its buildings were built in the 4th century BC. Females will not have excluded themselves from participating in Bull sacrifice ceremonies just because Xenophon would now like to think they did. In the vase depiction below both participants are female and there are plenty of other vases, if Xenophon still doesn’t get the picture.
Yes, I meant that women did not participate in the actual sacrifice for obvious reasons. In depictions the actual sacrifice is always carried out by a male priest, and the attendants who lead the bull and hold it steady are also invariably male. I was not suggesting women were excluded, because as Zebedee says, away from the sacrificial process and before the procession begins, they make and place garlands on the bull, and were certainly not excluded as spectators, nor were children, and perhaps as musicians and suchlike. What we have here is a bull solely attended by two women, apparently. Not all depictions of bulls infer sacrifice, and bull worship was common enough in Greece. Nor is it safe to assume that a depiction necessarily is associated with “sacrifice” For example the vase Taphoi posted, showing a Maenad ( who were often depicted with wings) pouring a drink for a bull ( which was one of Dionysios’ aspects) could just as easily be depicting a ritual involving a sacred bull, and not necessarily anything to do with sacrifice. Similarly, the tomb painting shows a bull ( and I don’t see anything which looks like a garland) attended solely by what is apparently two women ( I don’t see centaurs either) who are clearly not ‘leading’ the bull, with nothing whatever to indicate a“sacrifice” scene. The “relevant elements” don’t seem to be there, other than in the eye of the beholder.

Taphoi wrote:
When reconstructing an ancient vase from shattered and incomplete fragments, the way that you know that you are right is that the scene that you have reconstructed is self consistent. That is why it is part of the evidence here that a Samothracian initiate is a strong candidate for the owner of the Amphipolis Tomb. But no single fragment of the vase is going to confirm the reconstruction in isolation. That is why I am showing that there are multiple closely interlinked reasons why the frieze is depicting the bull sacrifice from the Mysteries of Samothrace.
To quote Taphoi himself, this is just so much “tosh”. Nothing about that scene says ‘Samothrace’, or necessarily ‘sacrifice’. It won’t do to simply make up a scenario to fit your hypothesis, and then ‘interpret’ evidence in an equally imaginative way to fit, by creating fictional ‘closely interlinked reasons’.....

Agesilaos wrote:
The Neorion at Samothrace was built by Antigonos Gonatas to celebrate his victory at Kos, it would seem,
I very much doubt the Nike of Samothrace is associated with that naval battle, for the battle of Kos occurred c.261 BC, more than 50 years before the Nike was erected. Moreover, Antigonos dedicated a ship in a neorion on Delos to Apollo. A neorion at Samothrace was apparently built by Demetrios c.306 BC, and some believe that Antigonus Gonatas re-used it and placed a ship there, as well as the one at Delos. But a dedication of a ship is nothing to do with the Nike of Samothrace monument anyway.

Given c. 200 BC date of the Nike, the sculptor possibly being the same as that of the famous Pergamene frieze, and the connections to Rhodes - the marble, and the word “Rhodios” inscribed on the monument, a more plausible battle commemoration is that of Chios in 201 BC, when a combined Pergamene/Rhodian fleet heavily defeated Philip V’s Macedonian fleet.

Taphoi wrote:
The reconciliation is easy: there was an earlier Nike on a ship's prow at Samothrace - the one depicted on the tetradrachms of Demetrios Poliorketes minted in 300-295BC blowing a trumpet and holding a naval standard. That would put that original Nike back in the time period of the last quarter of the 4th century BC. So I see no problem.
More “tosh”, I'm afraid. There isn’t the slightest scintilla of evidence that there was any earlier Nike monument on Samothrace. Agesilaos is right – one simply can’t “make up” so-called corroborative evidence.......

Taphoi wrote:
I think you've lost the plot. Firstly, I already mentioned the hand of the Louvre Nike and that she did not hold a trumpet in a post above. Secondly, the Nike on a prow blowing a trumpet and holding a naval standard on the coins of Demetrios from 300-295BC is exactly the same Nike as we have now found in the Amphipolis Tomb frieze. So Demetrios did not invent it for his coins. It was a pre-existing statue before 300BC, when he adopted it. The Nike on a prow from 200BC found in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace shows us exactly where the Nike on a prow blowing a trumpet will have been: in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace, of course, where Nike was an associate of the Great Gods and where they were all associated with the Sanctuary's ship cult. Added to that, the new frieze shows that this statue stood where bull sacrifices took place with initiates wearing crimson belts during nocturnal ceremonies lit by huge braziers - all of which also fits what we know of the Mysteries of Samothrace. This in turn suggests that the ship monument was created by Demetrios Poliorketes to commemorate his victory at Salamis, because he put this cult statue onto his coins at roughly the same time to symbolise his famous victory.
If anyone has ‘ lost the plot’, it ought to be someone who continually makes up ‘fictional evidence.’As has been shown here, a Nike on a ship’s prow as a symbol of a naval victory was quite a common symbol, as the Italian example posted here demonstrates, and it certainly existed prior to 300BC or Demetrios’ time, so wasn’t unique to him, nor to Samothrace! (e.g. Seleucus I Nikator issued similar coins)
‘...all associated with the Sanctuary’s ship cult’? Whence comes this? I know of no evidence of any “ship cult”. No evidence of any earlier Nike monument, and certainly no evidence that bull sacrifices took place where the Nike stood, at the pinnacle of the site,overlooking the theatre, or at all at this time.
"During the Roman era, towards 200 AD, the entrance to the Hiéron building was modified to permit the entrance of live sacrificial offerings. A parapet was constructed in the interior to protect the spectators and a crypt was fitted into the apse. These modifications permitted the celebration of the Kriobolia and the Taurobolia of the Anatolian Magna Mater, which were introduced at this time. ( previously sacrifices were predominately sheep, goats and pigs). The new rites saw the initiate or possibly only the priest by proxy, descend into a pit in the apse. The blood of the sacrificial animals then flowed over him or her in the fashion of a baptismal rite".

..... notoriously depicted on the big screen. But note that this bull sacrifice was a late innovation in Roman times!!Once again Taphoi is making the same mistake of making false similarities, and thereby creating ‘fictional history’. Does he think the Italian examples ( there were more than one) are somehow associated with Demetrios too? Taphoi’s arguments are similar to, and about as plausible as those of Eric Von Daniken.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Corso puts forward Dionysos in his bull form as one of his two interpretations, and that's where I'd be looking towards as well - even should the associated figures be 'dancers'. Just the context of the overall decoration of the tomb kind of pushes one towards Orphic ideas (in particular the Persephone story in the mosaic). To steal a phrase, "Wherefore the tripod is proper to Apollo because of its prophetic truth, while to Dionysus it is proper because of the truth of wine." (Which incidentally makes Corso's assertion that tripods can't be explained outside of his interpretation rather puzzling!).

I don't think one needs to then try and rope in the Mysteries to explain things either, although there a number of cult sites where useful parallels are possible just in terms of portrayals of cult ritual.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

The woman on the right side of the bull is as shown in the images below. Note the huge hips - not appropriate for a man, unless an Amarna king! She is not facing towards us, but away from us and her face is three-quarters averted and glancing slightly towards the bull. She is not scantily clad, but wears a full length, fairly tight fitting whitish dress with a kind of chiton or peplos in yellow over the torso and hips. There is a red belt (so she is the counterpart of the man on the left side of the bull, who is facing towards us) and a diagonal ribbon of cloth, much as seen on the line of priestesses from Samothrace or the Caryatids from the Amphipolis Tomb. She has long reddish hair but it is piled up onto the top of her head. It is she rather than the bull that is at the centre of the frieze. This is not an accident. Instead it should mean that she is a depiction of the principal occupant of the tomb participating in the bull sacrifice on Samothrace. She is also moving towards the chamber containing her grave, because of the situation of the frieze above its portal.

The bull is not Dionysus nor any god (if it were a god, it would be Poseidon, since this scene is clearly connected with the sea). The reason is that it would be impious to depict a god garlanded for sacrifice and even Corso agrees that the bull is garlanded now.

Corso now says that the frieze includes a part of the sea, which is an extra reason that this is the Sanctuary of the Great Gods at Samothrace (as well as the Nikes on ship's prows, the bull sacrifice, the red belts, the nocturnal nature of the ceremony, the fit with a possible occupant... Tomb friezes of Macedonian royals showed scenes from their life at this time: Alexander IV riding in his chariot, Philip II out on a lion hunt... Corso now also says that the Caryatids are the same as the priestesses from the sculpture from Samothrace (and that Olympias commissioned them between 323BC and 320BC for the tomb of Hephaistion, whom she complained against in life and apparently she did this whilst Antipater ruled Macedon and she was living in Epirus, which is a bit questionable.)
Best wishes,
Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Taphoi wrote: The bull is not Dionysus nor any god (if it were a god, it would be Poseidon, since this scene is clearly connected with the sea). The reason is that it would be impious to depict a god garlanded for sacrifice and even Corso agrees that the bull is garlanded now.
Look at bulls in clear sacrificial scenes Andrew - like the one being sacrificed to Dionysos (if your's was the one from British Museum) in your example earlier . Then look at the proposed 'garland' on this bull. One of those things is not like the others.

edit: posting pics of dancer in flares just highlights the shape immediately behind it and the curious hooflike shapes at the end of its legs! :D But you are right, it's not a male human is it? And the hips are like that because it's a horse body. That's what centaurs look like from the front. Hence no need to explain why a woman's leg is being portrayed as bending in the middle of her thigh :)
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote:
Taphoi wrote: The bull is not Dionysus nor any god (if it were a god, it would be Poseidon, since this scene is clearly connected with the sea). The reason is that it would be impious to depict a god garlanded for sacrifice and even Corso agrees that the bull is garlanded now.
Look at bulls in clear sacrificial scenes Andrew - like the one being sacrificed to Dionysos (if your's was the one from British Museum) in your example earlier . Then look at the proposed 'garland' on this bull. One of those things is not like the others.

edit: posting pics of dancer in flares just highlights the shape immediately behind it and the curious hooflike shapes at the end of its legs! :D But you are right, it's not a male human is it? And the hips are like that because it's a horse body. That's what centaurs look like from the front. Hence no need to explain why a woman's leg is being portrayed as bending in the middle of her thigh :)
It is not the actual sacrifice it is the run up. There is nothing unusual about this garlanded bull in the range of garlanded bulls. The archaeologists appear to agree that it is a sacrificial bull. Your idea that this bull is a god-sacrifice won't wash.

You are exactly right that the archaeologists appear to have interpreted the bottom edges of the folds of a long dress as hooves. They are artistically wrong as hooves because they are disproportionately small (you can tell whether a reconstruction makes sense by whether the result is artistically good, because this is the work of a good artist.) If they were hooves, the "centaur" would appear to be crossing its legs, which is an intriguing pose.

Best wishes,

Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Taphoi wrote: It is not the actual sacrifice it is the run up. There is nothing unusual about this garlanded bull in the range of garlanded bulls. The archaeologists appear to agree that it is a sacrificial bull. Your idea that this bull is a god-sacrifice won't wash.

You are exactly right that the archaeologists appear to have interpreted the bottom edges of the folds of a long dress as hooves. They are artistically wrong as hooves because they are disproportionately small (you can tell whether a reconstruction makes sense by whether the result is artistically good, because this is the work of a good artist.) If they were hooves, the "centaur" would appear to be crossing its legs, which is an intriguing pose.

Best wishes,

Andrew
Could you find me a bull with a similar garland then, if it's not unusual? Because it's the darndest stemma I've seen hanging like a big crescent on a bull's chest, perspective free and without going over head, horns nor shoulders. And you've certainly shown me to be absolutely correct in the examples you yourself have chosen so far.

Why is the centaur crossing its legs? The left leg is raised and closer to the viewer. Perspective thing again. The centaur is being viewed at a slight angle. Like the bull. You don't think this portrayal is head on do you?

I appreciate the close-up of the figure, but your reconstruction on the right is the most curious depiction of a woman by a 'good artist' that I've ever seen given it's an anatomically impossible portrayal. Absolutely no idea how you can draw the lines on the right hand version without seeing the problems there.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by gepd »

Disregard my earlier comment about the bull being in the center above the door. That was wrong. Sorry for the misleading comment.

It appears they are also uncertain which of the two large pieces of the northern frieze were left or right. Opinion appears to have changed between September 2015 and March 2016, just to illustrate how sketchy some things are.

Image
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote:Could you find me a bull with a similar garland then, if it's not unusual? Because it's the darndest stemma I've seen hanging like a big crescent on a bull's chest, perspective free and without going over head, horns nor shoulders. And you've certainly shown me to be absolutely correct in the examples you yourself have chosen so far.

Why is the centaur crossing its legs? The left leg is raised and closer to the viewer. Perspective thing again. The centaur is being viewed at a slight angle. Like the bull. You don't think this portrayal is head on do you?

I appreciate the close-up of the figure, but your reconstruction on the right is the most curious depiction of a woman by a 'good artist' that I've ever seen given it's an anatomically impossible portrayal. Absolutely no idea how you can draw the lines on the right hand version without seeing the problems there.
I already did show an ancient bull sculpture with a large garland around its neck in a post a few pages above.
You are quite right that some slighter garlands might also be expected and indeed there are indications that something is going on between this bull's horns (though certainly not a Serapis disc.)
I have no idea what you are seeing in looking at my woman, but it sounds as though you are still not seeing her right, since she makes perfect anatomical sense. Remember: she is striding into the wall and in a dance-like posture with her right arm raised and her left arm lowered (ditto therefore her shoulders.) The artist is conveying the fact that she is striding by showing a narrowing of her dress in the leg area as it is stretched forward by the leading left leg. It is a very ambitious and dynamic depiction of a dancing woman with a degree of perspective. It makes total sense, unlike the "centaur" with spindly legs, one minuscule hoof made from dress folds, totally unprecedented gold or bronze crescent bling hanging down its front and completely invisible hindquarters.

The problems here seems to be that people have not realised that the way the woman's behind sticks out means that she is striding away from the viewer into the scene; they have seen patches of shading on the diagonal band she is wearing around her right shoulder and seen a giant nipple; the archaeologists saw a hoof shape in the pleat ends of the bottom rim of her dress and turned both people into centaurs in consequence; and viewers have not noticed that there is considerable evidence of clothing and drapery on and around the woman. I am reminded strongly of the instance where nobody noticed that there was a woman's arm sticking out in the partially uncovered mosaic, despite the fact that assuming it was the man's arm made him a hunchback. There's none so blind as he who will not see :D

Best wishes,

Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Paralus »

Taphoi wrote: There's none so blind as he who will not see :D
Alleieulia Andrew. That you will refuse to acknowledge the pungent irony of your own words is a given. After all, religious devotion precludes such niceties. Pray tell, how does Kassandros' destruction of this monument still fit your (fairy)tale?
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Taphoi wrote: I already did show an ancient bull sculpture with a large garland around its neck in a post a few pages above.
This one?

Image


Do you want me to attribute this for you? This is from Constantine's Baths in Ephesus, correct? Which would put it at 4th century AD I believe, and part of a sequence of bulls heads decorating the wall of a Roman public baths?

But regardless, that is not the garland you want to see on this bull. It cannot be. See how the wreath makes a 'U' shape and just how large it is in relation to the bull's head? See how it is secured behind the bull's neck in substantial fashion (if it is indeed a wreath which ever went near a real bull's head - the ones in the stone version are between the bulls' heads not hanging from them!)? You want a big wreath on a string which looks like a crescent. Try again please.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote:...You want a big wreath on a string which looks like a crescent. Try again please.
No, it is annular - it only looks like a crescent because it goes behind the bull's neck in the image:
Image
Especially interesting, because of the Nike and the tripod brazier:
Image
and combining both types of bull garland:
Image
and modern, but from Lesbos and seemingly echoing ancient practice on the islands:
Image
Best wishes,
Andrew
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