Title
Small stele with banquet hero scene
Content
I.D. no: 21166
Dimensions: Max. H. 17 cm; H. of bottom peg 1.5 cm; Max. W. 22 cm; Max. Th. 5 cm.
Material: Coarse-grain white marble
Provenance: Unknown
Current location: National Museum of Archaeology, Reserve Collection
Condition:
Relatively major breaks on upper left raised border and at lower bottom right corner. All surfaces are extensively worn, including old chippings. But the scene is, on the whole, easily decipherable. The blank surface at the back of the slab is very rough and irregular.
Description:
The rectangular slab carries a figured scene in relief framed by a plain border all around and equipped with a central peg projecting beyond the bottom border, probably intended for insertion in the ground. On the left side, the scene seems to have originally shown three standing adult figures the third one of which (the one closest to the left border) appears to have been worn away beyond recognition; but it was partly covered by a barely perceptible shorter figure, probably a girl, facing left, rather than right. The two surviving adult figures are seen in profile advancing towards two figures of significantly larger size set on a slightly higher level behind a simple low table loaded with food. The one on the left, a fully draped female figure, sits frontally with her right arm reaching down to the top of the draped table. She partly hides the lower body of a bearded and bare-chested male figure reclining on a couch and performing the same gesture. A large vase with handles can just be identified on the side of the table in the lower right hand corner.
Discussion:
While the left part of the scene represents ordinary humans in procession, the motif on the right of the relief is the so-called Totenmahl (or ‘banquet of the dead’). Totenmahl scenes portray the deceased (usually a man) reclining on a couch, probably in the afterlife. He is generally drinking wine and food is laid on a table before him, while he is typically attended by a servant and often by a seated female relative.
The ‘funerary banquet’ scene is thought to be originally derived from the ‘hero cult banquet’ through a process by which the demigod hero became the heroized ‘dead mortal’.[1] Stelae of this kind have been retrieved from Athenian sanctuaries, such as the Asclepieion,[2] and elsewhere.[3]
These relief scenes, which have their origin in Classical Greek funerary art, are comparatively rare in Rome and Italy, It seems to have originated and developed in funerary reliefs first in Attica in the 5th-4th centuries BC and diffused from there to the central Aegean islands (especially Delos), and beyond to the various urban centres of the eastern Mediterranean world of the Hellenistic age.
With the incorporation of the latter in the Roman empire, the theme became popular in the Roman provinces, sparing Rome and Italy itself. However, given the little circumstantial evidence that we have for modern provenance of this group of funerary stelae it is probably safe to derive this particular item to the Aegean world.
An almost identical stele from early 20th century excavations at Ephesos, now housed in the Kunst Historisches Museum, Vienna, reproduces the same format together with the extended peg at the bottom. It has some minor iconograhic alterations, such as the number of approaching humans , and the shiftng of the krater to the centre. Stylistically, it is of much better quality and is much better preserved (dated to the 3rd -2nd century BC).
The widely diffused nature of the subject does not help to establish the provenance, almost certainly foreign, of this stele. Judging by the quality of the marble it is likely to have been imported in modern times from one of the Aegean islands, possibly Rheneia. Furthermore, the summary quality of the carving impedes a more precise date of production, but comparison with other similar stelae points to a late 4th or 3rd century date.[4]
The heavily eroded stele belongs to inferior quality production.
Bibliography: (previous publications of item): Unpublished
[1] See Dentzer 1970; 1971. Dentzer traced their origin in the East. For the Greek prototypes see Hausmann 1960: 25-31, figs 12-16.
[2] Svoronos 1908-1936: nos 1500-1539, pls 81-94.
[3] For example, Samos (Jantzen & Megone 1977: 189, pl. 88,1, with bibliography); Cos (Laurenzi 1955=1956, 152-55, nos 233-40). Also on the shipwreck at Mahdia (Fuchs 1963: 43-44, no 60, pl. 67).
[4] Laurenzi 1955-1956:152, no 233 (& bibl.); Budde & Nicholls 1964: 16-17, no 36; Blümel 1969: 69-70, nos 80-81, figs 114-16, 83, nos 98-99, figs 132, 134; Horn 1972: 167, no 144b (dated to the 1st century BC; considered ‘too late’ by Jantzen & Megow 1977.