A catalogue of sculpture in the Department of ... - Warburg Institute

VOTIVE RELIEFS. 371relief is inscribed 'AvOovar] ^ajwuvirov viroa-TaTpta.'Yttoo-to.-Tpia probably denotes some minister of inferior rank in thetemple of the goddess to whom the tablet was dedicated.The explanation of the word crraTpia given by Hesychius(ifjLTrXeKTpia), makes itvTrooTTaTpta here mentioned was togoddess.probable that the functiun of thedress the image of theThis and the tablet No. 812 were fuimd by theEarl of Aberdeen built into a ruined Byzantine church atSlavochori in Laconia, a place which is believed to be thesite of the ancient Amyclae. The combination of pomegianates and eai's of corn, the symbols of Persephone andDemeter, with ivy-berries and fir-cones, the symbols ofDiunysos, makes it probable that in the temple in whichthese tablets were dedicated, these deities had a jointworship.Pausanias (iii., 20, 4) mentions a town near Amyclaecalled Bryseae, where was a temple of Dionysos which nonebut women were permitted to enter, and where womenonly performed the sacrifices. It is not improbable, asLord Aberdeen conjectured, that these votive tablets wereoriginally dedicated in this temple, and thence brought toSlavochori.It was a common custom among the Greeks todedicate articles of female attire and toilet in the templesof goddesses. (See Greek Inscriptions in Brit. Mus., No.xxxiv.) BrougJd from Greece hy George, fourth Earl ofAberdeen ;presented hy George, fifth Earl of Aberdeen,1861.Marble; height, 3 feet; width, 2 feet 9J inches. This sculpture,with the following, was first published, in a strangely pervertedform, by Caylus {liecueil d'Aiiti']., II., pi. 51), from drawings byFourmont. Lord Aberdeen published them, with an engravingin Walpole's Memoirs relatiruj to Turkcij, London, 1817, 1., p. 446.See also C.I.G., 1467; Leake, Travels in the jl/om', I., p. 188,Greeh Inscrij)tiom in IJrit. Mus.,and Peloponnesiacit, pp. 163-165 ;CXLI. ; Wolters, No. 1852 ; Guide tc Graeco-Roman SculpturesPart IL, No. 11 ; Mansell, No. 728.