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Inscribed Slab Fragment with Relief (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Slab Fragment with relief: Votive for Hero?
- Date
- Roman Imperial period., Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- NoEx77.016
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Fragment
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
ἥρῳ
- Inscription Translation
- “‘to the hero’ or ‘to the deceased’…Is the slab a votive for a proper hero or a grave stele of an undistinguished mortal?” (Greenewalt).
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- Description
Fragment of a slab of marble; broken on the right side and partly damaged below. Within a framed field is the crude relief of a man in profile with frontal face, holding an unknown object (an axe or pruning knife?, see below) in his hands. To the left of the head is an inscription with red painted letters.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.28, W. 0.33, Th. 0.08, H. of letters 0.02–0.03.
- Comments
I do not exclude that the relief showed a (gladiatorial?) combat scene. If so, the remains of the object held by the man may belong to a leg and foot of his adversary.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- C. H. Greenewalt, jr., BASOR 233 (1979), pp. 27–28, fig. 34 (SEG 29, 1207).
- Author
- GP