DOI article:
Buck, Carl Darling: Discoveries in the Attic Deme of Ikaria, 1888
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8678#0073
58
ARCHITECTURAL REMAINS IN IKARIA.
and the monument of Nikias, which Dr. Dorpfeld has reconstructed
from the fragments found in the Beule gate.'' The monument of Lysi-
krates is an elaborately ornamented circular building, counted among
the earliest surviving examples of Corinthian architecture. Upon the
roof is a large three-branched acroterium disposed as a base for hold-
ing the tripod, and the architrave bears the inscription,3 which has the
regular form of an official choregic memorial. The monument of Thra-
syllos was in the form of a portico, having upon the roof a statue of
Dionvsos, which is now in the British Museum. Whether the tripod
rested on the knees of the seated statue, as some maintain, or was dis-
played in the interior of the structure, is still an unsettled question.
For the inscription, sec below, p. 78. The monument of Nikias had
the facade of a small hexastvlc Doric temple. There is nothing to
show where the tripod was placed. For the inscription on the archi-
trave, see below, p. 81.
We will now compare the Ikarian monument with these three chief
examples. The Nikias and Thrasyllos monuments are both of such
form that they admit of being called vaoi, the word which Pausanias
uses in describing the structures on the Street of the Tripods. The
foundation of a fourth choregic monument, now exposed in the cellar
of a house near the Lysikrates monument, is of quadrangular shape.
A semicircular cxedra-like form, such as that of the Ikarian monu-
ment, has been unexampled among choregic monuments; but the num-
ber which we know is so small, and the variety exhibited by even these
few so great, that this does not make positively against identification of
the monument at Ikaria as choregic.
The surface of the upper side of the roof-stones (Fig. 1) is rough,
and the top is surrounded by a bevel 0.11 m. wide on the curved side
and 0.13 m. across the front. The socket at d is circular with a diam-
eter of 0.22 m., that at e is about 0.32 by 0.24 m., but very roughly
made. The right-hand side of the central socket has been split away,
as is indicated by dotted lines in the sketch, but a fragment found in
the debris shows that the original cutting was the same as on the other
side ; a and b form one continuous cutting, but b is cut two centimeters
deeper than a ; the cutting e is only 0.03 m. deep. I have no opinion
to advance as to the nature of the object which these cuttings were
made to receive. I hold that they could not have been intended for
the direct support of a tripod, and that so complicated an arrangement
Witth. Inst. Allien., 1885, i>. 217 fi'. 3 Ditt. Syll., 415.
ARCHITECTURAL REMAINS IN IKARIA.
and the monument of Nikias, which Dr. Dorpfeld has reconstructed
from the fragments found in the Beule gate.'' The monument of Lysi-
krates is an elaborately ornamented circular building, counted among
the earliest surviving examples of Corinthian architecture. Upon the
roof is a large three-branched acroterium disposed as a base for hold-
ing the tripod, and the architrave bears the inscription,3 which has the
regular form of an official choregic memorial. The monument of Thra-
syllos was in the form of a portico, having upon the roof a statue of
Dionvsos, which is now in the British Museum. Whether the tripod
rested on the knees of the seated statue, as some maintain, or was dis-
played in the interior of the structure, is still an unsettled question.
For the inscription, sec below, p. 78. The monument of Nikias had
the facade of a small hexastvlc Doric temple. There is nothing to
show where the tripod was placed. For the inscription on the archi-
trave, see below, p. 81.
We will now compare the Ikarian monument with these three chief
examples. The Nikias and Thrasyllos monuments are both of such
form that they admit of being called vaoi, the word which Pausanias
uses in describing the structures on the Street of the Tripods. The
foundation of a fourth choregic monument, now exposed in the cellar
of a house near the Lysikrates monument, is of quadrangular shape.
A semicircular cxedra-like form, such as that of the Ikarian monu-
ment, has been unexampled among choregic monuments; but the num-
ber which we know is so small, and the variety exhibited by even these
few so great, that this does not make positively against identification of
the monument at Ikaria as choregic.
The surface of the upper side of the roof-stones (Fig. 1) is rough,
and the top is surrounded by a bevel 0.11 m. wide on the curved side
and 0.13 m. across the front. The socket at d is circular with a diam-
eter of 0.22 m., that at e is about 0.32 by 0.24 m., but very roughly
made. The right-hand side of the central socket has been split away,
as is indicated by dotted lines in the sketch, but a fragment found in
the debris shows that the original cutting was the same as on the other
side ; a and b form one continuous cutting, but b is cut two centimeters
deeper than a ; the cutting e is only 0.03 m. deep. I have no opinion
to advance as to the nature of the object which these cuttings were
made to receive. I hold that they could not have been intended for
the direct support of a tripod, and that so complicated an arrangement
Witth. Inst. Allien., 1885, i>. 217 fi'. 3 Ditt. Syll., 415.