DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18216#0073
XAXTHOS.
HARPY TOMB.
59
untenable, as the bodies are of the form usually given to
birds in early art (Conze, Arch. Zeit., 1869, p. 78).
(3.) In the third and most recent group of theories, the
seated figures are not deities, but heroified personages,
buried in the tomb, to whom offerings are made by
members of their family. (Milchhoefer, Arch. Zeit., 1881,
p. 53 ; Wolters, p. 75.) This view is supported by analogies
found elsewhere (cf. p. 299), while it avoids the difficulty
of supposing deities to be represented on a tomb. But no
parallel has been adduced for such a scene as a young
warrior giving his arms to the figure of an heroified
ancestor; moreover the dignity and adornments of the
enthroned figures seem most appropriate to deities.
On the whole it seems best to suppose that we have on
this tomb scenes connected with death, though we cannot
attempt, for want of knowledge of Lycian mythology, to
assign names to the personages represented. Maidens
make offerings to female deities, and men to male deities.
On the east side a boy makes an offering, on the north side
a young warrior gives up his armour, and on the south
side a man offers a bird. Kindly winged beings bear
away the souls of the dead, and the crouching figure
on the north side suggests the grief of the survivors.
(Cf. Brunn, Sitzungsber. d. h. layer. Akad. Phil. hist. CI.,
1872, p. 523, who points out the succession of ages among
the figures, but does not consider the idea of death to
be implied in the central groups of the north, east, and
south sides.)
Style and Period.—In the Harpy Tomb we have a fine
example of the work by the Ionian School of Asia Minor,
whose chief characteristic is a certain voluptuous fulness
of form, and languor of expression, contrasted with the
muscular vigour of the Doric sculpture, and the delicate
refinement characteristic of a part of the early Attic work
(cf. Brunn, loc. cit., p. 205, and Kayet, Monuments, No. 13),
HARPY TOMB.
59
untenable, as the bodies are of the form usually given to
birds in early art (Conze, Arch. Zeit., 1869, p. 78).
(3.) In the third and most recent group of theories, the
seated figures are not deities, but heroified personages,
buried in the tomb, to whom offerings are made by
members of their family. (Milchhoefer, Arch. Zeit., 1881,
p. 53 ; Wolters, p. 75.) This view is supported by analogies
found elsewhere (cf. p. 299), while it avoids the difficulty
of supposing deities to be represented on a tomb. But no
parallel has been adduced for such a scene as a young
warrior giving his arms to the figure of an heroified
ancestor; moreover the dignity and adornments of the
enthroned figures seem most appropriate to deities.
On the whole it seems best to suppose that we have on
this tomb scenes connected with death, though we cannot
attempt, for want of knowledge of Lycian mythology, to
assign names to the personages represented. Maidens
make offerings to female deities, and men to male deities.
On the east side a boy makes an offering, on the north side
a young warrior gives up his armour, and on the south
side a man offers a bird. Kindly winged beings bear
away the souls of the dead, and the crouching figure
on the north side suggests the grief of the survivors.
(Cf. Brunn, Sitzungsber. d. h. layer. Akad. Phil. hist. CI.,
1872, p. 523, who points out the succession of ages among
the figures, but does not consider the idea of death to
be implied in the central groups of the north, east, and
south sides.)
Style and Period.—In the Harpy Tomb we have a fine
example of the work by the Ionian School of Asia Minor,
whose chief characteristic is a certain voluptuous fulness
of form, and languor of expression, contrasted with the
muscular vigour of the Doric sculpture, and the delicate
refinement characteristic of a part of the early Attic work
(cf. Brunn, loc. cit., p. 205, and Kayet, Monuments, No. 13),