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

untenable, asXANTHOS. HARPY TOMB. 59the bodies are of the form usually given tobirds in early art (Conze, Arch. ZeiL, 1869, p. 78).(3.) In the third and most recent group of theories, theseated figures are not deities, but heroified personages,buried in the tomb, to whom offerings are made bymembers of their family. (Milchhoefer, Arch. Zeit., 1881,p. 53 ; Wolters, p. 75.) This view is supported by analogiesfound elsewhere (of. p. 299), while it avoids the difficultyof supposing deities to be represented on a tomb. But noparallel has been adduced for such a scene as a youngwarrior giving his arms to the figure of an heroifiedancestor; moreover the dignity and adornments of theenthroned figures seem most appropriate to deities.On the whole it seems best to suppose that we have onthis tomb scenes connected with death, though we cannotattempt, for want of knowledge of Lycian mythology, toassign names to the personages represented. Maidensmake offerings to female deities, and men to male deities.On the east side a boy makes an offering, on the north sidea young warrior gives up his armour, and on thesouthside a man offers a bird. Kindly winged beings bearaway the souls of the dead, and the crouching figureon the north side suggests the grief of the survivors.(Cf. Brunn, Sitzungsber. d. Jc. hayer. ATcad. Phil. hist. CI.,1872, p. 523, who points out the succession of ages amongthe figures, but does not consider the idea of death tobe implied in the centralsouth sides.)Stylegroups of the north, east, andand Period.—In the Harpy Tomb we have a fineexample of the work by the Ionian School of Asia Minor,whose chief characteristic is a certain voluptuous fulnessof form, and languor of expression, contrasted with themuscular vigour of the Doric sculpture, and the delicaterefinement characteristic of a part of the early Attic work(of. Brunn, loc. cit., p. 206, and Rayet, Monuments, No. 13).