AIUK46 no. 16 Grave stele of Xanthippos

Grave stele of Xanthippos

AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments) no. 16 Date: ca. 430-420 BC

Xanthippos. (relief)^[1]

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments) no. 16 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG II² 12332 (PHI)

IG I³ 1282bis (IG Online)

GIBM I 123

Conze II no. 696

Clairmont, CAT 1.630

Translation by: Robert Pitt

AIO Images: 1

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Funerary

Findspot: Athens, Petraki Monastery (BM 1805,0703.183)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This sculpted funerary relief was aquired at Athens by Anthony Askew ca. 1748 from the Petraki Monastery and later came to the British Museum through the purchase of the Townley collection. Xanthippos is depicted as a bearded man dressed in a himation and sitting on a high-backed chair; he holds a cobbler’s last in his right hand, presumably a tool of his profession. Two smaller female figures, probably his daughters, stand either side, the older girl holding a bird, which symbolised the soul and is often shown on grave reliefs and funerary pottery. The sculpture is thought to be stylistically similar to the east frieze of the Parthenon, and so is dated around 430 BC, making it one of the earliest Classical funerary reliefs.

There is some tendency, especially in contemporary elite authors, to denigrate artisanal trades such as shoemaking (e.g., Ar. Knights, 736-40; Pl. Rep. 421a), but the expense of this monument and the great variety of known terms for different types of shoemakers suggest that there were grades of such workers, and so Xanthippos could, for example, have been the owner of a factory making shoes. This is one of a very small group of Classical Attic funerary reliefs to profess the occupation of the deceased. The majority of such cases belong to metics, although two citizen "professions" that are regularly depicted on gravestones are priests/priestesses and nurses (see AIUK 4.6, no. 23 and 37).

This the earliest in a series of 27 Attic funerary monuments in the British Museum which include sculpture, usually figurative (relief stelai). For other examples see AIUK 4.6, no. 17 - AIUK 4.6, no. 43.

For a colour drawing by William Chambers depicting the monument and other antiquities in the dining room of Charles Townley's house in Westminster in 1794 see BM 1995,0506.8.

For more detailed discussion of the inscription see AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments), no. 16.

Added: 6 Apr 2022
Updated: 18 Apr 2023
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