IGI3 554 Dedication to Athena by the fuller Polykles

Dedication to Athena by the fuller Polykles

IG I³ 554 Date: ca. 550 BC

Polykles the fuller (knapheus) dedicated this to Athena.^[1]

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References:

IG I³ 554 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

Translation by: Edmund Stewart

Images: Acropolis Museum - (1)

Monument type: Handle

Inscription type: Dedication (private, Athena)

Original location: Acropolis

Findspot: Acropolis (Acropolis Museum X.7178)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This dedication was inscribed on the bronze handle of a lekanis, a vessel that was perhaps designed for offering or serving food but which could also be an offering in itself, especially from artisans (for offerings of vessels for Athena Ergane, perhaps at the Chalkeia festival, see Sophocles fr. 844 TrGF, with A.-C. Gillis, Des dieux dans le four, 2021, 29-31). The vessel itself is missing. For an intact example see here; while for another female dedicant, cf. N. Palaiokrassa in N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro, Worshipping Women, 2008, 54, no 13. Other inscribed handles found on the Acropolis are IG I³ 554 bis-558ter, none of which include occupational terms for the dedicators. For further information on similar bronze dedications from this period including occupational titles, see IG I³ 546.

For other fullers (knapheis) who made similar offerings, see IG I³ 616 and IG I³ 905. Fulling may refer either to cleaning the raw materials of textile production or to cleaning finished garments. The central part of the process involved beating cloth under foot in a detergent solution (Hippocrates Regimen 1.14). For the process of fulling in the Roman period, see M. Flohr, The World of the Fullo, 2013, 98-121. The work of the fuller may have been similar to that of the washerwoman (plyntria) Smikythe who also dedicated on the Acropolis (IG I³ 794). On the other hand, if the Greek knapheus had the same meaning as the Latin fullo and if the organisation of Greek fulleries resembled their much better documented later Roman equivalents, it is probable that the term signified the owner and manager of a fullery (who might also be the head of a family business) rather than a mere worker in the fulling stalls (see Flohr 2013, 274-75). We should not therefore assume that Polykles would necessarily have regarded himself as a banausos (a worker of obviously low skill and low status); the addition of the occupational term suggests the opposite in fact. On dedications including occupational titles see IG I³ 546.

Added: 19 Aug 2025
Updated: 19 Aug 2025
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