• latw-35-1
    Marble votive stele showing Artemis and Cybele. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)

Marble Votive Stele Showing Artemis and Cybele

Date
Ca. 400 BC, Late Lydian (Persian)
Museum
Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 3937
Museum Inventory No.
3937
Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
S68.006
Material
Marble, Stone
Object Type
Sculpture
Sculpture Type
Stele, Relief, Human Figure
Site
Sardis
Sector
Syn
Trench
Syn FC 68
Locus
Syn FC Spolia
B-Grid Coordinates
E110.68 - E111.39 / N5.91 - N6.53 *96.51
Description
White marble. Rectangular stele missing top. Raised borders representing the steps, antae, and pediment of a temple or naiskos frame, four figures in relief. Occupying more than two-thirds of the framed space at left and center are two female figures: standing, frontal, draped in long chiton and cloak, wearing poloi. The taller one at left holds a deer; the central one holds a lion. At right and facing them are two profile figures facing left, one in front of the other, the further figure taller and male, the hither figure female, both with raised right forearms, horizontal left forearms. In the space above the two profile figures, a flat oval object. Height 0.99 m, width 0.667 m, thickness at bottom 0.29 m.
Comments
Recovered in the Late Roman Synagogue at Sardis, where it had been reused as building material. Like No. 34, it presumably was made to be a votive offering for the sanctuary of Cybele at Sardis. The figure with the deer is Artemis, the figure with the lion Cybele, the oval object Cybele’s tympanum.
See Also
Greenewalt, “Gods of Lydia”; Cahill, “City of Sardis”. See also: R2 Cat. 20
Bibliography
Hanfmann and Ramage 1978, 58-60, no. 20; Dedeoğlu 2003, 45, fig.
Author
CHG