Novensia: Studia i Materiały (14.2003)

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of these representations there occur images of erotes, youths (likely shepherds),
as well as sheep, goats, hens, and dogs. Hence, it should be presumed that the
bottom part of the stela from Novae, which has not been preserved, had con-
tained a similar set of motifs. It is noteworthy, however, that a cock and hen
appear in the middle part of the stela, in a spot where the vine is shown growing
from the ground.
The ultimate identification of the species of birds depicted on the stela was
madę based on a plaster cast of the stela, which is now in Warsaw. The condition
of the original, to judge by the plaster сору, is far from satisfactory, encumber-
ing attempts at identification, especially in the case of the smaller representa-
tions. The identification was carried out first independently, after which the re-
sults were compared and a finał conclusion reached, permitting an ultimate
objectivity of these difficult identifications. (We would like to thank Dr. Danuta
Jędraszko-Dąbrowska, Dr. Hab. Krzysztof Dmowski and Dr. Ryszard Halba of
the Ecology Department of Warsaw University, who identified the bird species
from the stela independently, based on drawings).
The degree of generalization and stylization of the carving is difficult to esti-
mate, chiefly because of the apparently not very good stone-cutting techniąue
and the damages to the object. For instance, some parts of the birds, which are
important for species identification, like the head or beak, were missing. A very
serious encumbrance for the identification of particular species is the impossi-
bility to reconstruct the colors of the polychromy on the stela. In Antiąuity, ob-
jects of this type were commonly painted. On the other hand, the finishing of
some parts of the feathering, possibly without importance originally and consid-
ered merely as a decorative element, now, in the face of missing colors, has in-
voluntarily become an important diagnostic feature.
Species of a morę common character or ones that appear morę freąuently in
iconography were considered first of all in the identification, although a few of
the species actually identified on the stela are not known from any other Roman
artworks.
It may be assumed that in designing the stela the basie assumptions that were
madę were of a symbolic naturę. The surviving images do not reflect the actual
size proportions between the representatives of the various identified bird spe-
cies. The scalę differences run up to ten or even twenty times occasionally. Proving
the symbolic naturę of the representations is the fact that some of the species do
not occur in vineyards, but occupy other habitats. The identification also took
into consideration the symmetrical arrangement of the drawing, because it is very
likely that the iconographic program depended upon a juxtaposition of pairs of
species, and it seems that at least in a few cases the juxtaposition of species was
defmitely not accidental.
In conseąuence, the identification of the species of particular birds was not
always possible, and the likelihood of correct identification yaried, hence in a few