IG II(2) 11887: Painted sepulchral stele of Kollion

Modern Publication(s): Michaelis no. 16; IG II 3869; IG II(2) 11887; Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones 0.836; SEG LII 64, 193; SEG LVIII 29

Brief description: Painted sepulchral stele

Attributes

Inscription Type: Funerary

Object Type: Stele with triangular top (Michaelis).

Material: ‘Pentelic’ marble ‘of superior quality.’ (Michaelis)

Original Location:

Provenance: Athens/Attica

Date: 410-400 BC (Posamentir 2006).

Dimensions: H. 0.61. W. 0.255.

Layout:

Writing: : Inscribed. ‘[B]eneath a painted kymation…is an inscription in roughly cut letters of irregular shape ΚΟΛΛΙΩΝ.’ (Michaelis). The text was inscribed over an erasure: Posamentir (2001), through the use of specialist photography, shows that the second line of the earlier text read ΕΡΜΑ[ ]Ο (the patronymic Ἑρμα[ί]ο (SEG LII 64)).

Condition: Broken into two and re-joined; missing only the bottom left corner (Conze).

Decoration: ‘The whole slab is plain, without any part sculptured in relief… The field at first appears to be empty, but on closer inspection [are] the outlines of a very nice composition, the ground around the figures being corroded by the weather. To the right, a youth stands in a gentle attitude; he is naked, except for a small chlamys, which covers like a shawl the left shoulder and arm, and the right arm. The left hand holds a staff which leans slantwise on the upper arm. In the outstretched right hand the youth holds a small bird. He looks down to a small boy sitting on the ground, who leans on his left arm and endeavours to lift his body; he looks upwards and stretches out his right arm, desirous to grasp the bird.’ (Michaelis).

Collection

Location: Broom Hall (Scotland, Fife): along the walls of the spacious hall (Michaelis).

Collector(s): Lord Elgin.

Date collected: Not known. T. S. Hughes, Travels in Sicily, Greece and Albania (p. 267, 269) includes a description of the stele among those items he copied down in Lusieri’s Athenian courtyard. Michaelis noted that ‘as the marble chair [as well as some other marbles] did not form part of Elgin’s collection offered for sale to the nation in 1816, it may have been brought to Scotland at a later time’.

Accession or catalogue number: Not known.

Translation

Kollion

Bibliography

C. Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones: Introduction (Kilchberg, Switzerland 1993) 202.

C. Clairmont, Classical Attic Tombstones vol. 1 (Kilchberg, Switzerland 1993).

A. Conze, Die attischen Grabreliefs (Band II, Text) (Berlin 1900) no. 1049.

A. Conze, Die attischen Grabreliefs (Band II, Tafeln) (Berlin 1900) plate CCVI.

T. S. Hughes, Travels in Sicily, Greece and Albania (London 1820) p. 267, 269.

A. Michaelis, ‘Ancient marbles in Great Britain: Supplement I’, JHS 5 (1884) 143-161 no. 16.

‪R. Posamentir, 'Zur Wiedergewinnung und Bedeutung bemalter Grabstelen im klassischen Athen', Les pierres de l'offrande: autour de l'oeuvre de Christoph W. Clairmont‬ ed. G. Hoffmann and A. Lezzi-Hafter (Paris 2001) 52-65 (62-63). ‬‬‬‬‬‬

R. Posamentir, Bemalte attische Grabstelen klassischer Zeit (Munich 2006) 37-40; no. 21.

B. Schmaltz, Griechische Grabreliefs (Darmstadt 1983) 89; n. 202.

Web Links

Greek text, from PHI.

Image(s)

Conze plate CCVI.

Posamentir (2001) figures 13-15.

Posamentir (2006) figures 21.1-21.9.