124

SCULPTURES FROM IK ARIA.

XXIII. —Portrait-head <if Graeco-Roman period. Height, 0.30 m.

XXIV. —Marble slab hollowed out on one side and pyramidal on
the other. "Width, 1.04 m,. ; length, as far as preserved, 1.00 m., but
originally about 1.24 m., as calculated from the pyramidal side.
Found just outside of wall ae of D, 0.80 m. below top of wall. Along
the edge of the side which is hollowed out are five objects which it is
difficult to describe, but of which Figure 11 will afford some idea.
Last year, there Mas found a corner-piece having upon it a similar
object, but somewhat larger. This, however, from its dimensions,

cannot be one of the missing
corner-pieces of the slab found
this year, but must have be-
longed to another similar slab.
Along one edge of the slab runs
a well-cut moulding. Innu-
merable suggestions have been
put forward as to the nature of
thestrange objects ranged along
the edge of the hollowed side.
Animals' feet, birds' tails, etc.,
must be counted out, owing to
the circumstance that one of the
objects is intact, and so must be
explained, not as a fragment,
but as complete. I have at-
tempted to explain the slab
as a table for offering sacred
cakes to the god, and the
mysterious ornaments as rep-
resenting cakes made with a
pine-cone mould. I was led to this by comparing a painting found
at Pompeii,51 in which there is represented, in the midst of woodland
and mountain scenery, a statue of Dionysos holding the thyrsos in
his left hand and the kantharos in his right; while upon a rough
rock-altar is seen a large copper dish within which is a smaller
wooden dish containing fruits of various kinds, and beside this wooden
dish an object which has the appearance of a pine-cone standing on its
base, but which is explained as a cake made in the form of the pine-

51 Museo Borbonico, vol. VII, pi. xvi; Botticher, BaumkuUus der Ilellenen, fig. 24.

Fig. 12 (xxv).