• 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