AIUK13 no. 1 Funerary monument for five individuals

Funerary monument for five individuals

AIUK 13 (Mount Stewart, County Down) no. 1 Date: Ca. 400-350 BC?

-sios. Kleno. Phaino. Neophron. Onomantos.^[1]

Relief

Greek text

References:

AIUK 13 (Mount Stewart, County Down) no. 1 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

SEG 46.300 (PHI)

SEMA 2056a

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Peter Liddel, Polly Low

AIO Images: 1 2 3

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Funerary

Findspot: Attica (?) (Mount Stewart NT 1220123)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This funerary monument commemorates five individuals. The character of the scene is typical of Classical Attic funerary monuments (late-5th to late-4th centuries BC), though it is unusual for as many as five figures to be depicted. The inscription naming the figures is on the moulding running above their heads. The figures form a group consisting perhaps of three generations of the same family. The seated male (-sios) and the standing female (Phaino, father and daughter?) are shaking hands (dexiosis), as are the older (Neophron) and younger (Onomantos) standing males (father and son?). This gesture signifying intimacy is common on Attic funerary monuments, though it is rare to find it depicted twice in the same scene. Onomantos is naked, a conventional indicator of youth and athletic virility, and a poignant one in this context. Although they are standing back-to-back the fact that the feet of Phaino and Neophron are touching suggests that they are husband and wife. A smaller female figure (Kleno, sister of the standing youth?) is carved in shallower relief than the other figures, and has a small bird perched on her raised left hand, another common, and poignant, motif on this type of monument, also usually associated with youth. The tenon at the bottom suggests that the relief may originally have been inserted in a base which may itself have been decorated and inscribed, e.g. with an epigram. The monument would probably originally have been one of a series of monuments in a family funerary enclosure (peribolos). The high quality of the relief suggests an affluent family. The stele can be dated by the style of its sculpture and lettering to ca. 400-350 BC. An attractive (but uncertain) restoration of the name of the seated man is [Ai]sios, a distinctive name borne by a known member of a propertied family connected with that of the orator Demosthenes. Aisios was the brother of Aphobos, Demosthenes' guardian, who allegedly mismanaged his property. The only Attic inscription in Northern Ireland, it is known to have been in the London home of the Marquesses of Londonderry in the first half of the twentieth century, but the circumstances of its acquisition by the family are unknown. For a fuller discussion of this monument see AIUK 13 (Mount Stewart, County Down), no. 1. For more information about private Attic funerary monuments, see AIUK 3 (Cambridge), section 3, with video.

Added: 3 Nov 2020
Updated: 29 Mar 2022
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ID: AIO_2007