Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

The Delphic Omphalos i8i
A votive relief in fine yellowish nnarble, found at Sparta but
clearly Attic in style and probably carved in the last quarter of the
fifth century B.C., has Artemis with a prochoos filling the phidle of
Apollon :
between
them is seen a plain ompJialos set on a plinth,
which supports two eagles with reverted heads (fig. 124)'. A very
similar relief, found at Athens, decorates a pre-Euclidean decree,
which confers upon a certain exegete—apparently one of those
known as PythocJirestoi—a throne in the Prytaneion and a seat
Fig. 124.
1 P. Wolteis in the Ath. Mitth. 1887 xii. 378 ff. pi. 12, J. H. Middleton in ihe/ourit.
Hell. Stud. 1888 ix. 295 f. (wrongly takes Artemis to be Nike), Overbeck Gr. Kimstmyth.
Apollon pp. 3645., 523, F. Studniczka in Hermes 1902 xxxvii. 267 fig. 6 (suggests that
the omphalos was originally painted with an agreiidn), G. Karo in Darembevg—Saglio
Diet. Ant. iv. 199 fig. 5403, M. N. Tod and A. J. B. Wace A Catalogue of the Sparta
Museitm Oxford 1906 p. 181 no. 468 fig. 59, cp. ib. p. 125 f. (where the relief is dated as
late as j-. iii B.C.), J.
N. Svoronps in (^^ Journ. Intern, d'Arch. Num. 191 1 xiii. 308 f-
fig. 2, W. H. Roscher Omphalos Leipzig 1913 p. 84 pi. 7, 4. Height o'46'", breadth o'57"'.