Bignor Park

Modern Publication(s): CIG 2158 (editio princeps); Conze pp. 113-114; IG XII 8. 188; Winbolt no. 3; Fraser Appendix IV; IMT Kyz Kapu Dağ 1568; Dimitrova no. 56; SEG LVII 1267

Brief description: Pedimental stele with relief.

Attributes

Inscription Type:

Object Type: Pedimental stele with relief.

Material: ‘Thasian’ Marble (Dimitrova)

Original Location: ‘It was found in Palaiopolis.’ (Dimitrova)

Provenance: Samothrace

Date: 2nd - 1st century BC? (Dimitrova)

Dimensions: Height 0.79; width 0.33-37; thickness ?; letter height 0.017-020 (Fraser).

Layout: ‘Fourteen lines [of text] and the beginning of the fifteenth of which survive.’ (Winbolt)

Writing: Inscribed. According to Roux, the inscription was carved on top of an older text.

Condition: ‘The stone has … deteriorated so much from exposure and wear that a better text cannot now be established … very much worn, especially at the bottom … only a few words here and there are now distinguishable.’ (Winbolt). Fraser was informed of further rapid deterioration of the stone’s surface from 1930, and in August 1945 J. M. R. Cormack reported that hardly any trace of the inscription survived (Robert and Robert BE 1964). Lines 16-24 are now missing (Dimitrova).

Decoration: ‘The top half has a conventional representation of a temple front and door, on either side of which is a burning torch; the lower half has a Greek inscription (in capitals)…’ (Winbolt). In the nineteenth century, Conze recorded that the rectangular space beneath the pedimental crown contained at least one figure, which he believed to be Kybele; all intelligible trace of the figure has now disappeared (Lehmann and Lehmann).

Collection

Location: Bignor Park: ‘built into the walls of a garden house.’ (Winbolt)

Collector(s): ‘Almost certainly brought over to England by Mr. John Hawkins.’ (Winbolt)

Date collected: Not known: Lord Aberdeen first saw the inscription at the Athenian house of Fauvel in 1803, as recorded by him in his unpublished journal and later referred to in Walpole's Travels, 602; the passage quoted by Walpole, however, is not thought to have appeared in Fauvel’s journal (Fraser). Fraser notes that the stone was regarded as lost in the years following its initial sighting and its rediscovery at Bignor Park by S. E. Winbolt in 1926. Winbolt noted that ‘the marble slab was brought from Samothrace to the Hellespont by a British merchant named Willis. Thence almost certainly it was brought … by Hawkins.’ Winbolt assumed that the inscription reached Bignor Park when Mr. John Hawkins settled down there in 1806.

Accession or catalogue number: Not known.

Translation

In the kingship of Dion son of Apollonides, when Herm… son of Agathokles (?) was clerk of the market, in accordance with the Kyzikines, when Hetairion son of Eumnestos was hipparch. Nikis son of Mnesistratos, the pious initiate admitted to the highest grade of the mysteries, but born Asklepiades son of Attalos the Kyzikine, as master-builder, sent out from the Kyzikines in accordance with the embassy of the people of Samothrake for the sake of temple construction and sacred hermae… ONOS…AS son of Askleipiades, MN… Thrason (?)… OU, Bakchios…

Bibliography

S. G. Cole, Theoi Megaloi: The Cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace(Leiden: 1984) 45-46.

S. G. Cole, ‘The mysteries of Samothrace during the Roman period’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 18.2, pp. 1564-1598.

A. Conze, Archäologische Untersuchungen auf Samothrake (Band 2) (Vienna 1880).

N. M. Dimitrova, Theoroi and Initiates in Samothrace: The epigraphical evidence, Hesperia, Suppl. 37 (Princeton, New Jersey 2008) no. 56.

P. M. Fraser, Samothrace. Excavations conducted by the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. Volume 2, Part I: The Inscriptions on Stone (Nueva York 1960) Appendix IV.

P. W. Lehmann and K. Lehmann, Samothracian Reflections: Aspects of the Revival of the Antique (Princeton, New Jersey 1973) 30-47.

L. Robert, Collection Froehner: I, Inscriptions Grecques (Paris 1936) (60 n. 4).

L. Robert, 'Samothrace. Vol. 2 part 1: The inscriptions on stone” by Karl Lehmann, P. M. Fraser’, Gnomon 35. Bd., H. 1 (Mar., 1963), pp. 50-79 (67-69).

J. Robert and L. Robert, ‘Bulletin épigraphique’, Revue des Études Grecques, tome 71, fascicule 334-338, Janvier-décembre 1958: 169-363 (270).

J. Robert and L. Robert, ‘Bulletin épigraphique’, Revue des Études Grecques, tome 77, fascicule 364-365, Janvier-juin 1964: 127-259 (no. 392).

P. Roussel ‘Bulletin épigraphique’, Revue des Études Grecques, tome 42, fascicule 195-196, Avril-juin 1929: 181-204 (183).

G. Roux, Samothrace, 7. The Rotunda of Arsinoe (Princeton, 1992).

C. C. Vermeule, ‘Notes on a new edition of Michaelis: Ancient marbles in Great Britain’, AJA 59 No. 2 (1955), 129-150 (130 s.v. Bignor Park).

R. Walpole, Travels in Various Countries of the East: Being a Continuation of Memoirs Relating to European and Asiatic Turkey, &c. (London 1820) 602.

S. E. Winbolt, ‘Ancient sculptured marbles at Bignor Park, Sussex’, JHS 48 No. 2 (1928) 178-182, no. 3.

Web Links

Greek text, from PHI

Image(s)

Winbolt, Figure 3, No. 3. Fraser (Plate XXIII, stele and squeeze). Lehmann and Lehmann figure 25 (p. 35).