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Bringing goat to sacrifice, overview. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Bringing Goat to Sacrifice
- Date
- 1st C. BC, Hellenistic
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- S63.038
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Sculpture
- Sculpture Type
- Votive Relief, Animal
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- Syn
- Trench
- Syn 63
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E113 / N35 ca *99.00
- Findspot
- Syn. High rubble N of Syn Fc.
- Description
At the l. is a goat standing on his hind legs toward the r., but with his head turned back over his shoulder; his forelegs are bent upwards and lean against the leg of a nude man or satyr walking or dancing toward the r. The male figure is preserved as high as his chest, which is turned slightly toward the viewer. His belly is paunchy, his back arched slightly. With his r. arm he holds the horns of the goat behind him. Traces of the goat’s beard and eye can be seen. At the broken r. edge is the lower part of a tree trunk or altar, which the satyr is approaching. At the l. and bottom is a raised border of the relief.
The workmanship is summary but lively. This is probably an example of the late phase of neo-Attic workmanship of the Hellenistic period, or 1st C. B.C.
- Condition
Local Anatolian white marble, large-grained. Yellowish weathering.
The lower l. corner of a relief, and bottom edges are original, r. and top edges broken off.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.16; W. 0.135; Th. 0.075; H. of border at bottom of relief 0.025.
- Comments
- See Also
- Bibliography
- For a goat in this position, see Robert Turcan, sarcophages romains, pl. 1b; for Dionysiac figures on sarcophagi in the same position, see ibid., pl. 3b. For Dionysiac figures dancing and holding such animals, see Fuchs, Vorbilder, pls. 15-19.
- Author
- NHR