The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote: Another image of all c-14 dates looking the same, from cited paper. As you can see, the (simulated) results from 400 bc, 300 bc and 200 bc are absolutely indistinguishable...

Image
There is no contradiction between those charts and my chart from Oxford Uni. Everyone can see that the samples from around 300BC have a carbon date range extending into the early 2nd century BC. The sample that you call 200BC is actually for 225BC to 175BC. Because 175BC is across the transition into the next C-14 epoch, those elements of the sample push its date range forward in time. If the sample had been 225BC-210BC, its date distribution would have overlapped with 315BC.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Just so. And finding those boundaries is the point, which becomes more possible with the increased accuracy. So, revenons a nos moutons, if the recent comments are a generic 'second century bc' comment, I think you can follow what I'd be inclined to think. If there's overlap with datable pottery, you start to get some additional things to play with for the dating. The relationship to the remains just seems something which has to be treated differently. Some may date from this period. They all might. But it doesn't 'smell' right that they'd be used for dating the sealing walls - it's just not logical. The flipside to that is that it still leaves plenty of room for much older remains, and also may well fuel the idea this tomb did have some 'cult' function.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

Amazing! A native Greek speaker tells you what the Greek means yet this is not enough you persist with your reconstruction of non-released C14 data? I tend to think that System 1988 will know what Mrs Pidgeons said rather better than the automatic translation programmes. I would suggest you cease these suppositions; none of us know what will be said when the digit is finally removed from the pigeon's orifice (I find the cancellation of her London talk telling in a different way to you). I suggest we await matters and see what she actually presents, before things descend into moderator territory :P

Further info on the C14 thing would be interesting, though, as a general point of information, the blur described does cover our period, but it might be moved to the off-topic forum; as it is a subject not only of great interest but of great importance, worthy of separate and accessible discussion, I confess to being well out of date on the matter, we might perhaps have a thread devoted to new advances in archaeological science, BUT and its's a big but (come on, you saw that coming! :lol: ). Could we fully reference things, preferably just with a link but if the info is in a book or article in a standard style so that we have

the author(s)
the title
the date of publication
publisher
Journal and number and pages if journal

This is something I would like to see throughout, but know that sometimes one has no access to books and has to work from memory, which is no problem as long as it is stated, as most of us do.

Over the weekend I will post on the off-topic forum, we all need to agree some codes of practice, not least, so that the moderator knows when we are transgressing :lol: everyone must have an input... oh, time for my medication, but lets think about what we like and dislike and actively suggest improvements, that do not involve mutilating other members...Nurse!
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote:Just so. And finding those boundaries is the point, which becomes more possible with the increased accuracy. So, revenons a nos moutons, if the recent comments are a generic 'second century bc' comment, I think you can follow what I'd be inclined to think. If there's overlap with datable pottery, you start to get some additional things to play with for the dating. The relationship to the remains just seems something which has to be treated differently. Some may date from this period. They all might. But it doesn't 'smell' right that they'd be used for dating the sealing walls - it's just not logical. The flipside to that is that it still leaves plenty of room for much older remains, and also may well fuel the idea this tomb did have some 'cult' function.
It would indeed be illogical to conclude that the sealing was 2nd century BC if you were presented with a set of C-14 dating distributions running into the 2nd century BC and not extending beyond it (e.g. like the one given by samples from 325BC-275BC), because, as we have seen from the detailed charts, even if there were material just a decade or two into the 2nd century BC present amongst the samples, it should give C-14 dating distributions extending well into the first century BC. Even if you had pottery from inside the sealing walls only up to the 2nd century BC, you would not conclude a 2nd century BC sealing if you also had C-14 distributions running into the 1st century BC. Therefore the logic here tells us that Katerina Peristeri has C-14 distributions that all terminate in the early 2nd century BC and she has incorrectly interpreted that as meaning 2nd century BC sealing, when in fact it is certain evidence that the sealing occurred between 325BC and 200BC, but provides no significant information in isolation on when the sealing happened within that range. That is my conclusion: the C-14 evidence shows that the tomb was sealed between 325BC and 200BC and the bones are at least as old as the sealing.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Btw: Diligent readers may be wondering how I can say the dating must be pre-200BC, when I am agreeing that the C-14 distributions themselves extend well into the 2nd century BC. The answer is that I am using a subtle bit of additional dating information: the fact that we know that the samples were all sealed in at a definite and precise date. That means that the date distribution of the samples themselves has a hard edge in time and that means that some smudging forward on the more recent edge of the C-14 distributions can effectively be discounted.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

But there will be significant information on the range. After the walls were built, we'd get, erm, stratification outside. Whether on top of any jumbled fill directly next to the wall or not. This is why I've been trying to tell you that this needs to be seen in a big picture, not just with taking dates which point towards that narrow time frame you want them to point to. The sealing event may be completely distinct to the remains found inside. It may not even be related to any dating of evidence found within the fill. Your conclusions are very literally being built on exceptionally sandy foundations.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote:But there will be significant information on the range. After the walls were built, we'd get, erm, stratification outside. Whether on top of any jumbled fill directly next to the wall or not. This is why I've been trying to tell you that this needs to be seen in a big picture, not just with taking dates which point towards that narrow time frame you want them to point to. The sealing event may be completely distinct to the remains found inside. It may not even be related to any dating of evidence found within the fill. Your conclusions are very literally being built on exceptionally sandy foundations.
It is of course the case that the archaeologists might have some other good evidence for dating the sealing, but the indications are that they do not. The types of evidence that you are mentioning would all have been available last November, when they thought that the sealing was 2nd or 3rd century AD. The fact that they themselves now acknowledge that they were completely wrong tells a clear story on the extent and quality of the dating evidence on the sealing from the dig itself.
The monumental obelisks of Egypt were raised using sandy foundations :D
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

I don't recall a date being given for the sealing event itself at any point until now - you were actually convinced that it happened straight after Olympias was buried inside weren't you? I seem to recall a few pages of this thread trying to argue that it looked like the sealing post-dated the burial and wasn't all part of the plan, to steal a phrase. The date you're referencing may be the one for the Romans playing on the site, and which is again confirmed obliquely. If you think the foundations of obelisks are just sand, then no wonder we're having issues here :D
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

Think you'll find they were raised onto stone pedestals see

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5 ... k+AIA2.pdf

:lol:
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by amyntoros »

Zebedee wrote:I don't recall a date being given for the sealing event itself at any point until now - you were actually convinced that it happened straight after Olympias was buried inside weren't you? I seem to recall a few pages of this thread trying to argue that it looked like the sealing post-dated the burial and wasn't all part of the plan, to steal a phrase. The date you're referencing may be the one for the Romans playing on the site, and which is again confirmed obliquely. If you think the foundations of obelisks are just sand, then no wonder we're having issues here :D
Just to be fair, I re-read the November posts from this thread (over a glass or two of vino!) and found this post which is the best one that confirms Andrew's remarks re a sealing date:
Efstathios wrote:There was a lot said in the presentation that have not been covered in the summaries of the news media that aim at the main points and headlines. Mr Lefantzis when he was showing slides of the mound against hill 133 (the big hill next to the mound) said that the mound should be viewed as a part of a wider array, and that there will be archaeological research cuts in various places in the surrounding area. Maybe this suggests that there is something in hill 133 too?

The part with the questions from the reporters is also interesting, a lot of questions were about when the monument was sealed and why. The answers were that aside form Romans there was also the presence of Goths and Thracian tribes in the area. The first looting might have taken place by the Romans after the battle of Pydna, or by others, and after that they repaired parts of the tomb. The sealing was made sometime around the 3rd century A.D. at the same time that the Romans were removing marble blocks from the perivolos with the crane that was found near it. The stone blocks that were used for the sealing walls were from parts of the monument. The sealing with sand was made at the same time with the sealing with the walls, as the first wall in front of the sphinxes was at 80% set on the sand. The question is who sealed the monument at the later Roman years and why. At the same period Severus sealed the tomb of Alexander in Alexandria, maybe there could be a connection there.

P.S As for Amyntoros question, Mrs Peristeri replying to a question by a Greek reporter said that there have been found coins from the 3rd century A.D.
Maybe it's the wine (no, it definitely is!) but I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why the change of dating of the tomb's sealing affects the conclusions regarding the occupants therein. :lol:
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Thanks Amyntoros. I missed that precise phrasing - I thought it was just a suggestion, but clearly not from Efstathios' report. So it wasn't actually dated, just an assumption that because the Romans were removing blocks so they also sealed the tomb. They confirmed in October that they had datable material which they weren't going to talk about other than to say it existed. Looking back to that post you quote, Andrew highlighted a little further on that there were also statements that C3rd bc and C2nd bc coins had been found too, albeit with no-one specifying exactly where.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

It is, my dear Amyntoros, quite elementary; Andrew posits that Peristeri has changed her position on the sealing event from 3rd century AD to the second century BC on the basis of C14 evidence, to which he then assigns a range on the basis of a plateau in the results expected for late 4th to 2nd century BC. This allows a 316 date to be possible when the C14 points to 2nd century BC. The first step is flawed, however as we do not know why she has retrojected the sealing, what we do know is that the original date was based on coins found in the context of a crane base which was used to dismantle the peribolos, blocks from which are used in the sealing making it a fair assumption that these event were synchronous.

No 2nd century BC crane remains were reported; C14 dates for the skeletons would not date the sealing. It is pretty obvious that the skeletons were inside before the sealing no matter when that was. Even if organic matter was found underneath a sealing wall, that would only give terminus post-quem. One can therefore conclude that Peristeri does not understand what C14 might tell us, or that C14 has nothing to do with her decision to re-date the sealing, possibly an excess of spleen and ouzo, following the 'Dawn' article.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

amyntoros wrote:Maybe it's the wine (no, it definitely is!) but I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why the change of dating of the tomb's sealing affects the conclusions regarding the occupants therein.
The main reason to think that the burials are not original is that most are uncremated, whereas it was standard practice to cremate high status individuals in the Hellenistic period. But inhumation became standard in the Roman period. Hence there was a forceful argument that the burials should be Roman re-use. That is now exploded and utterly overturned.
As I have argued it appears that the carbon dates will overlap with the hypothesis that the burials are original late 4th century BC. I continue to believe that it is likely that Cassander sealed the Amphipolis tomb. The strongest argument against that hypothesis (Roman inhumations) has just been overturned.
Katerina Peristeri also said in November that the archaeologists found no dating evidence (of the nature of coins and potsherds) "within the main space". I believe that she was referring to the area inside the sealing walls.
I did not say that obelisks were raised on sandy foundations but using sandy foundations. There is a persuasive theory that obelisks were raised by resting their lower portion horizontally on a box of sand and then allowing the sand to flow out of the box.
Best wishes,
Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

A chance remark with no supporting evidence explodes nothing. Now you will have Kassandros's men smash the doors and lightly damage the sphinxes, before storing them in the final chamber, then toss in Three dead men an old woman and a baby (one might ask what happened to the Greek mania about pollution?). They then dismantled the monument that they had erected a scant three years earlier to seal the tomb and filled it with sand.

You did say 'using' but that is ambiguous, we would not call the sand in the sandbox 'foundations', it must have a technical name; your mission should you decide to accept it.... :lol:
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:A chance remark with no supporting evidence explodes nothing. Now you will have Kassandros's men smash the doors and lightly damage the sphinxes, before storing them in the final chamber, then toss in Three dead men an old woman and a baby (one might ask what happened to the Greek mania about pollution?). They then dismantled the monument that they had erected a scant three years earlier to seal the tomb and filled it with sand.

You did say 'using' but that is ambiguous, we would not call the sand in the sandbox 'foundations', it must have a technical name; your mission should you decide to accept it.... :lol:
It was not a chance remark, but written in a letter to a newspaper and meant to be published to the world. Unless the Chief Archaeologist has been kept in ignorance of her C-14 results, it was informed by the C-14 results. The burials were already there when Cassander entered. The hypothesis is that he disrupted them in revenge for the tomb of his brother having been despoiled by Olympias (which is an historical fact) and sealed the tomb to prevent access to Olympias's remains by her supporters (no other motive for sealing an empty tomb so elaborately has even been suggested - Katerina Peristeri now writes vaguely about it being done for "protection"). Cassander did this six years after the original burial of Olympias in a poor cist grave at the site (not three). The sand served as the foundation for the obelisk whilst it was being raised - there is no more authoritative word.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

BUT C14 dates will not tell her when the sealing walls went up; since this is the only data she has changed clearly it is not based on C14 dating.

Better than 'foundation' for your sand would be 'efflux', since its purpose is to flow out, other alternatives have more distasteful usages.
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