The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

[Taphoi]

According to a work in progress by Dimitris Dendrinos, the total number of marble slabs that surrounded the perimeter wall were 365.44 and the days of the year as calculated with modern means is 365.22. The architect probably had the slabs sculpted in a way that 365 of them fit in a 360 degree circle. What is also interesting is this:

The date and time depicted. Assuming a clockwise motion and the current North as
the beginning of the calendar depicted by the 365 marble stones of the exterior wall
(something which seems to be the most likely case and the simplest scenario here),
the entrance does depict three days and the first six hours of that day in late June
and early July. These days and hours may had been connected to some religious
observances 23 centuries ago, or to the time of the year the occupant of the tomb
died (or was born, or something of significance happened to his/her life).Such
symbolic interpretations however, are left to the interested reader.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxfAWy ... Y1UWM/view

The author states that this is a work in progress open to anyone that can expand it and contribute with ideas or corrections.

Thanks to help from gepd I can confirm that the Dendrinos article is not correct. In particular, the length of the blocks in the peribolos is not the same as the width of the podia for the Klodones/Karyatids. The paper by Stephen Miller mentioned by gepd (above) confirms that the peribolos blocks are between 1.165m and 1.2m in length. The most accurate value for the circumference of the peribolos cited by the archaeologists can be derived from their diameter of 158.4m. That gives 497.63m, which is 365.9x the width of the podia. This is an interesting and valid coincidence, but may be accidental. There are now many dimensions reported for details of the Amphipolis tomb, so there is a lot of scope for finding ratios that might appear superficially significant. The tomb entrance appears most obviously to face the acropolis of nearby Amphipolis rather than any astronomical feature.
Best wishes,
Andrew

[agesilaos]

You forget that the monument is elliptical not circular, so the calculation may be interesting but is not valid; the perimeter will be larger than for a circle.
It would be possible to calculate an approximate value, see this page www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/ellipse.html but I don't recall any data on the relevant measurements only the statement that it is an ellipse by the architect Lanzaridis, I think.

I will read the paper but my initial response was sceptical, though the author does recognise that the monument is not circular but elliptical, but that just means any ratios are going to be approximate that include the perimeter as one cannot accurately calculate the perimeter of an ellipse. Nor did the Greek calendar allow one to plant a stake on the third of Boedromion 200 and align a celestial observation, and have that alignment maintained on third Boedromion the next year.

[Efstathios]

I think that what Mr Lefantzis said is that it is elliptical in the vertical and not the horizontal axis, meaning that the blocks at the north side are a bit higher than the blocks at the south side. This does not affect the length. The peribolos is almost a perfect circle. At least this is what i remember from the presentation from January, i'll find the relevant images to post.

Andrew, about the outer blocks and the blocks at the Karyatids/Kores, i have not looked into it and you might be right. Maybe you can mail Dendrinos about it, if you are interested. However, is the 365 accidental? It is indeed a valid observation that in a circle of 360 degrees there are 365 blocks, which could represent each day of the year. The entrance faces to Amphipolis, but nevertheless if North is day 1 of the year the entrance represents June/July if one goes clockwise. Of course it is a hypothesis. Then again, if the architect was Deinocrates it is possible that the monument has astronomical symbolisms and references.

Agesilaos, interesting fact about the greek calendar, i will need to research it, but i cannot see how it applies here, as it is like a fixed date or month inscribed upon a circle, a point of reference.

[Taphoi]

I think that what Mr Lefantzis said is that it is elliptical in the vertical and not the horizontal axis, meaning that the blocks at the north side are a bit higher than the blocks at the south side. This does not affect the length. The peribolos is almost a perfect circle. At least this is what i remember from the presentation from January, i'll find the relevant images to post.

Andrew, about the outer blocks and the blocks at the Karyatids/Kores, i have not looked into it and you might be right. Maybe you can mail Dendrinos about it, if you are interested. However, is the 365 accidental? It is indeed a valid observation that in a circle of 360 degrees there are 365 blocks, which could represent each day of the year. The entrance faces to Amphipolis, but nevertheless if North is day 1 of the year the entrance represents June/July if one goes clockwise. Of course it is a hypothesis. Then again, if the architect was Deinocrates it is possible that the monument has astronomical symbolisms and references.

Agesilaos, interesting fact about the greek calendar, i will need to research it, but i cannot see how it applies here, as it is like a fixed date or month inscribed upon a circle, a point of reference.

Yes, the mound was seemingly elliptical in a vertical cross-section, but circular in the horizontal plane, so the peribolos wall is circular.

My point is that there are not 365 blocks in the circle of the peribolos, but approximately 420. So there is no direct evidence that the architect was aware of the coincidence that the width of the podia divided the peribolos perimeter approximately into the number of days in a year.

agesilaos is right that the number of days in a year varied from year to year in the Greek Lunisolar calendars, but they were well aware that 365 days was the average number and they were well aware that there were 365 days between recurrences of the same solstice or equinox.

You and Dendrinos appear to be assuming that there is some astronomical significance to 1st January, but in fact there is not. It is an accident of history that we start the year on that day. Even if there were any ulterior significance, there is no obvious reason to associate that day with due north.

Let N be the number of dimensions for features of the tomb that have been published up until now, if each such dimension is divided by each of the others, then there are N(N-1) ratios. If N=30 that is 870 ratios. the numberline is therefore already peppered with such ratios and quite a few of them are randomly going to be quite close to numbers that might be regarded as significant. So it is not all that surprising that one such ratio is close to 365.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[gepd]

Some more facts from recent interviews you may find interesting:

a) Katerina Peristeri mentioned that in the pebbled floor, in front of the Caryatids, the team found the outline of a square base, where a statue was probably located. It is assumed that the extended Caryatid hands were holding a wreath or something else and were crowning the statue.

b) She also stated that parts of a statue were found in the fill of the last chamber. They do not appear to belong to the sphinxes or the Caryatids and they assume they may have belonged to the statue that was between the Caryatids.

c) The findings indicate that one of the sphinxes was facing outwards (the one that the head was found) and the other inwards. That is a statement by the architect of the excavation.

d) The chief engineer of the excavation refuted Kambouroglou's claims that the base cannot support the lion monument, stating that first this depends on how the weight is distributed. He also noted that basic calculations could show that if the lion was constructed in the way assumed, the foundations found could support even more weight.

e) With regards to Andrew's question about how Kambouroglou knew about how deep the foundations go: these were excavated by Lazarides in the seventies down to their bottom level. There are also published reports about that, which also says that the soil below was found mostly undisturbed. What he missed reporting, however, is that Lazarides found large amount (tons) of marble pieces surrounding those foundations.

f) As Efstathios noted, piecies of the peribolos and also the assumed, marble base of the lion have been found all over Amphipolis, e.g. at the four Christian Basilicas, the Roman walls of the Acropolis at Amphipolis or the late roman walls of the city (in addition to the pieces that were submerged in the Strymon river and are now located next to the modern location of the lion). Much of the marble found in later constructions at Amphipolis comes from Kastas. The 80 piecies from the assumed lion's base and Macedonian iconography, that Efstathios mentioned, were found near the Kastas hill. These pieces support the dating of the monument in the last quarter of the 4th century BC.

g) Lefantzis states that the base that was found next to the scattered lion pieces in the early 1900s did not belong to the Lion - it doesn't appear that the lion was ever placed there. There are no findings supporting the concept that this base was associated with any large scale monument that could support the lion. The scattered marble piecds from the Strymon that Broneer assumed belong to the Lion's base are now known to have belonged mostly to the peribolos of the Kastas tomb. Other lion monuments (e.g. at Knidos, Chaeronia etc.) were associated with large burial monuments next to them. The modern base of the lion probably belonged to another monument and they may have some evidence to support this claim (no more details where given on that).

h) He states that they have also discovered several additional pieces of the Lion, some of which near the peribolos. All pieces found indicate there was only one lion - they appear to match the style and technique use for the construction of the known monument.

I hope I did not forget anything.

[Taphoi]

In the light of the sad news this morning that Katerina Peristeri’s lecture in London on 22nd May has been cancelled, we appear still to be some time away from a formal presentation of the dating evidence for the Amphipolis tomb. The archaeologists have been consistent and even voluble on the fact that their excavation has dated the monument to the last quarter of the 4th century BC at least since their discovery of the sphinx entrance hit the headlines last August. They have hinted that this fairly precise dating is supported by coin and pottery finds, but the specifics remain unpublished. All that I could say up until now was that everything that has been published is entirely consistent with that date range.
However, in looking at the range of material that has been published on the monument, not just in the most recent excavation cycle, but also from earlier investigations, the outline of a dating argument from the available evidence can be proposed.

A good starting point is the mosaic, which appears to be one of the greatest surviving examples of the pebble technique. Its dating significance is that the pebble technique was progressively superseded by the more familiar and technically superior tessara technique during the third century BC. The technical superiority of tesserae comes from the ability to minimise and almost eliminate mortar gaps between the stones. This is especially important, if the artist is so ambitious as to attempt to give 3-dimensionality to the composition by the graduated rendering of light and shade. The Amphipolis artist joins a very select group of pebble mosaicists in making this attempt – most of the parallel examples are found in the late 4th century mosaics from the palace at Pella. But the success of their efforts was constrained by the limited contrast that they could achieve, due to the overall tinting of the work by the mortar gaps.

However, from at least the first half of the third century BC, mosaicists at Alexandria were solving the mortar gap problem by using shaped tesserae, initially mixed with pebbled areas, but soon without any pebbles at all. This approach quickly spread throughout the entire Mediterranean area, so that by the end of the third century BC, the tessara technique was pre-eminent everywhere and especially so for the most sophisticated compositions. There are lingering examples of pebble mosaics into the early second century BC, but they are found in peripheral locations or else they do not attempt sophisticated 3D effects. The sophisticated 3D mosaic in the Amphipolis tomb is therefore very unlikely to have been created after the end of the 3rd century BC and even a date after the middle of that century is fairly unlikely.

Another dating argument for the Amphipolis tomb has already been published. The analysis of the blocks associated with the Roman dam in the river Strymon by Stephen and Stella Miller includes a detailed discussion of their date. It is certain that these blocks were taken from the circular peribolos wall of the Amphipolis tomb. They match the sizes and shapes of the various types of peribolos blocks and they are of the same material and have the same sculptural decorations (bands of drafting etc). In fact the Millers were able to reconstruct a section of the peribolos wall without being aware of its existence and they noted the conspicuous absence of corner blocks. The Millers suggested that the form of the clamps that had been used to pin the blocks together indicated a Hellenistic date, but they concluded that the only architectural detail that could be employed to refine that date was the shaping of the geisons (cornices) on the crowning blocks from the peribolos wall. They noted that a previous researcher, G Bakalakes, had argued for a late 2nd century BC date for the blocks on the basis of their architectural style. But the Millers observed very carefully that the geison argument allowed either for a date in the 2nd century BC or alternatively matched a group of examples from the 4th century BC.

It is virtually certain that the mosaic, the circular peribolos wall and the finalisation of the mound to fit the peribolos wall are all contemporaneous works under the same architectural direction, because there is complete architectural continuity between the peribolos and the tomb chambers. It appears that the only overlap between the date range when the mosaic could have been created and the date ranges for the construction of the peribolos is the last quarter of the 4th century BC. The evidence found by the Amphipolis tomb archaeologists for the last quarter of the 4th century BC must be independent of this argument, because they announced their dating before the mosaic was discovered. In addition it might be mentioned that I am still not aware of any other precedent for the floor of the first chamber (shards of white marble set in a red mortar) except the exact parallel from the late 4th century BC floor at the palace in Aegae. It therefore seems to me that the room for doubting a date in the last quarter of the 4th century BC is now very narrow on the known facts, but, of course, comments are welcome.

Best wishes,
Andrew

[agesilaos]

Odd maths there, Taphoi; I make the overlap between a range of 4th century BC to 2nd century BC and the range late 4th century BC to mid third but possibly early second, to be at least the late fourth to the mid third say 325 -250 BC.

The Archaeologists have distanced themselves from the early dating; coins are said to have Alexander's face upon them, nothing more specific, and, indeed that unless these are Lysimachos tetradrachms and their copies, they probably only bear Herakles' head; the architect has said that his guess at Deinokrates stemmed from the earliest date given which was unsupported by anything, and he seems to be recanting that guess and the associated gibberish about Deinokratean measures.

It is a pity the the lecture is off, I was looking forward to that, was a reason given? Not too sure she would be releasing much new information, though given the stranglehold over such announcements; the C14 dates should be available for the skeletal remains, yet nothing has been announced.

[gepd]

I am not sure how much google translate can help, but here are three interviews (in Greek) from Katerina Peristeri, Michalis Lefantzis (the architect) and Antonio Corso (archaeologist/ art historian, in contact at least with M. Lefantzis) with many interesting facts, some of which summarized in my earlier post:

http://www.tovima.gr/culture/article/?aid=683548

http://www.parapolitika.gr/parapolitika ... E%BC%CE%B7

http://www.protothema.gr/culture/articl ... timenidon/

In the first link, the architect also argues that the bottom level of the lion base (partly found during the peribolos excavations but we have not yet seen), painted with sculptures, also dates the monument in the late classical or early Hellenistic period. Antonio Corso also dates the tomb in the late 4th century BC based partly on the caryatid details.

There may be also some other dating arguments we may reconstruct from past studies, ie. the discovery of a large pyre of the early hellenistic period (pre 275 BC) at Kastas. If we assume the only grand hellenistic burial at the hill was the tomb found last summer, then it is natural to assume also that the dating of the tomb cannot be later from that of the pyre.

The architect has also shown lettering on the peribolos (http://www.zougla.gr/image.ashx?fid=1559813) that also support the dating, although not sure how.

[Taphoi]

Odd maths there, Taphoi; I make the overlap between a range of 4th century BC to 2nd century BC and the range late 4th century BC to mid third but possibly early second, to be at least the late fourth to the mid third say 325 -250 BC.

The Archaeologists have distanced themselves from the early dating; coins are said to have Alexander's face upon them, nothing more specific, and, indeed that unless these are Lysimachos tetradrachms and their copies, they probably only bear Herakles' head; the architect has said that his guess at Deinokrates stemmed from the earliest date given which was unsupported by anything, and he seems to be recanting that guess and the associated gibberish about Deinokratean measures.

It is a pity the the lecture is off, I was looking forward to that, was a reason given? Not too sure she would be releasing much new information, though given the stranglehold over such announcements; the C14 dates should be available for the skeletal remains, yet nothing has been announced.

Due to reasons beyond our control Ms Peristeri is unable to travel to London to deliver her speech.

The Millers considered that the geisons of the crowning blocks of the peribolos wall are only consistent with either 2nd century BC or 4th century BC examples, so the form of the geisons appears to exclude a 3rd century BC date for the Amphipolis tomb. A second century date is inconsistent with the technique of the mosaic, so the 4th century BC must be correct.

I am not aware that the archaeologists have said anything to distance themselves from a late 4th century BC date. In fact they re-asserted their dating in the November presentations and noted the technique of the mosaic as extra evidence. They have indicated that they have found well stratified coins and potsherds in situ during their excavations dating back to the time of Alexander, but they have not given any details.

I hope that the Greek Ministry of Culture will continue to issue bulletins when new information is available. The alternative would appear to be that the information will be selectively leaked, which would be a less good way forward.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[Xenophon]

I cannot comment on all the dating evidence that we have been given so far, not being an expert in all those fields, but I have had a life-long interest in ancient mosaics, even having reproduced many copies of Roman examples. Back on p.33 October 30 and p.50 November 30 I posted information about pebble mosaics and their styling and dating.

If we were to try and date the tomb purely by the mosaic, we would come up with a date in the fairly narrow range of 325 - 275 BC or possibly just outside it.......

Which of course is subject to other dating evidence.

[amyntoros]

The Millers considered that the geisons of the crowning blocks of the peribolos wall are only consistent with either 2nd century BC or 4th century BC examples, so the form of the geisons appears to exclude a 3rd century BC date for the Amphipolis tomb. A second century date is inconsistent with the technique of the mosaic, so the 4th century BC must be correct.

I'm very curious as to how the Millers reached such a conclusion. Can it be true that a form of architecture was in constant use during the 4th century BC, then fell out of favor for another hundred years, and then came back into use for another century? Why? And how do we know this is so? Is it because the form of 'geisons' has never been found on a wall which has been proven to come from the third century? If so, how are such walls proven to be 3rd century? Or is it a simple circular argument in that this form of geisons is used to date walls to the 4th and 2nd centuries and the absence thereof is used to date walls to the 2nd century? Sorry for so many questions. I'm not doubting the Millers, as yet , just trying to understand their reasoning.

With thanks,

[Efstathios]

Broneer also dated the lion when it was first found, at the last quarter of the 4th century. There are a lot of evidence that support the dating, most of which have been discussed here and gepd and Andrew have given a nice summary for most of them. It has been clear for some time that the team has not revealed all of their findings, for example the fact that there was a statue in front of the Karyatids and that they were holding a wreath. There were rumors circulating about this wreath for a long time now, and that it was probably a golden wreath similar to that which was found in Amphipolis in the early 90s and was at the Getty museum and later returned to Greece. This golden wreath which is a lot more luxurious than Phillip's one, allegedly came from a tomb near Kasta hill, maybe from the small mound that was found nearby.

Also, Mrs Peristeri said that the monument holds more secrets, and since then she hasn't said otherwise. Mr Lefantzis posted on his facebook page at the 25th of January something about a silence of many months that will soon stop, without being influenced by political play and communicative manipulations. I don't know what that means, maybe he was counting for the new government to allow for more exposure, but that didn't exactly happen. The new Minister of Culture seems to want to downgrade the whole matter. Though the team now can work under less pressure. There are a lot of things that we haven't seen, like the rest of the painted architraves, the carbon dating, more results from the geo-scanning, but i guess that we will in time.

[Taphoi]

The Millers considered that the geisons of the crowning blocks of the peribolos wall are only consistent with either 2nd century BC or 4th century BC examples, so the form of the geisons appears to exclude a 3rd century BC date for the Amphipolis tomb. A second century date is inconsistent with the technique of the mosaic, so the 4th century BC must be correct.

I'm very curious as to how the Millers reached such a conclusion. Can it be true that a form of architecture was in constant use during the 4th century BC, then fell out of favor for another hundred years, and then came back into use for another century? Why? And how do we know this is so? Is it because the form of 'geisons' has never been found on a wall which has been proven to come from the third century? If so, how are such walls proven to be 3rd century? Or is it a simple circular argument in that this form of geisons is used to date walls to the 4th and 2nd centuries and the absence thereof is used to date walls to the 2nd century? Sorry for so many questions. I'm not doubting the Millers, as yet , just trying to understand their reasoning.

With thanks,

I have now managed to get hold of a copy of the Millers' main reference for their dating of the geison soffits from the peribolos. That is Lucy Shoe's Profiles of Greek Mouldings. This has made it clear to me that the Millers' idea that there is good dating evidence in the shape of the geisons is correct, but the specific way in which they used Shoe's work is dubious.

Shoe gives a rather large set of about 170 geison soffit profiles ranging in date from the 5th to 2nd century BC. She performs some analyses of subsets from this group, mainly by classifying them into a Table of date range versus certain ranges of certain ratios characterising details of the forms of their profiles. The Millers seem to have ignored the individual profiles (which are shown with details of their source, often including their date). Instead they looked at the ratio class in Shoe's Table into which the peribolos geisons fall. They noticed that most examples in this class were 2nd century BC, but that there is a large subset from the 4th century BC (in fact there are also a few examples from the 3rd century BC and the 5th century BC in that ratio class, so the Millers' conclusion turns out to have been somewhat statistical).

However, had the Millers looked at the individual profiles they would have realised that none of the 2nd century BC examples shown by Shoe is a significantly close match to the overall peribolos geison profile (i.e. ALL details and not just the pair of ratios used for analysis purposes by Shoe). I have now compared the peribolos geison profile with all the examples shown by Shoe and there is only a significantly close match for all the details of the profile in about half a dozen of Shoe's examples. Of these two are from structures specifically dated to the 2nd half of the 4th century BC and the rest are all classed among late 4th century BC examples by Shoe. In fact therefore the Shoe evidence does convincingly place the peribolos blocks in the late 4th century BC on the basis of the their geison soffit profiles, but not in quite the way that the Millers argued.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[Taphoi]

In the spirit of sharing Amphipolis tomb evidence, here is the geison soffit profile matching to the late 4th century BC for the peribolos wall blocks. The first diagram shows the close matches published by Shoe which have specific dates (two from the same vicinity of Corinth) against the Amphipolis tomb profile as published by the Millers. The second shows Shoe's 3rd century BC profiles (no close matches) and the third shows Shoe's 2nd century BC profiles (also no close matches). There are a few other 4th century BC profiles that closely match the Amphipolis tomb geison soffits, but Shoe does not explicitly date them. This is quite persuasive evidence in favour of a late 4th century BC date for the Amphipolis tomb, especially when combined with the mosaic, the marble-shard paving in red mortar, the stylistic argument regarding the lion's date and whatever unpublished evidence has been the basis for the archaeologists' dating to the last quarter of the 4th century BC.
Best wishes,
Andrew

Matching the Amphipolis tomb geisons to late 4th century BC examples

AMPHIPOLISgeison.jpg (133.31 KiB) Viewed 3897 times

3rd century BC geison profiles

3rdcenturyGeisonSoffits.jpg (146.88 KiB) Viewed 3897 times

2nd century BC geison profiles

2ndcenturyGeisonSoffits.jpg (82.69 KiB) Viewed 3897 times

[agesilaos]

Thanks for posting those; but one, probably stupid , question,; just where is the geison on the Kasta monument? As far as I can tell it ought to be a gutter around a temple roof (yes, wiki based on Robertson, D. S. 1943. Handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); looking at the photos of the peribolos the top edge does not look like the Millar's drawing, but that might be my tired old eyes.