The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

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Taphoi
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by Taphoi »

Yes, it is my point that they are not so easy to find. I have already mentioned the Lion Tomb at Knidos (below - though erosion makes it tricky to see, it is in the text on this monument too). I could also possibly add some early parts of the Belevi mausoleum near Ephesos, which it is suggested was begun for Lysimachos, but which also had a later phase of development for Antiochos II Theos.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Interior of the Lion Tomb at Knidos - large blocks with a band of drafting around their edges
Interior of the Lion Tomb at Knidos - large blocks with a band of drafting around their edges
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by agesilaos »

My point is that is difficult to find images online! However, it is something that would bear study, let's have a week on it and see what comes up, I have to dig through my books and reports (and may be drawn of into other frays); as a general request we can say that if anyone has a report or photo of blocks with the incused band we are talking about please post it but only if it can be identified by location, date preferably but without a location duplication is obviously a risk; then we might establish the termini however broadly. This is the sort of thing for which a broad forum can be very useful. I hasten to say that this is suggested in a spirit of enquiry rather than anything more sinister (we have had and will, no doubt, continue to have differences) but this is a point that could do with a jolly good look.

The lion tomb at Knidos has been dated to 394 when the battle which swept the Spartans from the sea and 175 for reasons which escape me and the British Museum fail to mention! Some groundling input might prove useful. So, anyone who is holidaying in Greece or Turkey, check those walls and let's not forget the rest of the Hellenistic world; Georgian bath can be ignored,though. :lol:
Last edited by agesilaos on Mon Aug 25, 2014 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by Taphoi »

I'm still thinking it's a ladder... :wink:
Best wishes,
Andrew
Amphipolis excavation 25th August 2014
Amphipolis excavation 25th August 2014
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by agesilaos »

Plonker! Thing at the back is the ladder and the objects in the foreground acroes, check out the former picture you posted and admit I got you there! This picture does show work is progressing apace , so whilst I am not excited, that's just how my trousers fold; we now have a distyle facade, not quite plain, a dromos,and maybe the actual entrance to the tomb(s), things are getting close and Marcus still has not worked out how to set up a poll, no wonder our education system is rather like the Greek economy or David cameron's integrity! Seriously(?), though let's nail it to the mast there can onlybe days before Revelation; I go for the Antigonid dynastic Mausoleion; let's have a best guess from everyone else reading the thread, hedge if you like but no one gets to take the rise out of me for being 100 years out without putting their own guess on record, OK? :D
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by Taphoi »

It seems that you may have been referring to the poles in the foreground, whereas I was talking about the ladder clearly visible in yesterday's photo "inside the vestibule" (cropped version below).
Focussing on the ladder in yesterday's photo
Focussing on the ladder in yesterday's photo
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by system1988 »

I have attached a photo from the inner antichamber.
FABAB13947815F0077D13AE9882E8F1D.jpg
FABAB13947815F0077D13AE9882E8F1D.jpg (40.22 KiB) Viewed 13560 times
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by Taphoi »

Thanks, Pauline. Perhaps it goes without saying that the rosettes recall the florets on the gold larnax of Philip II. (I think somebody once suggested that the florets on the larnax might be a reference to Olympias, whose original name was Myrtale [myrtle]).
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Image
Last edited by Taphoi on Mon Aug 25, 2014 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by system1988 »

This is part of the second ' midriff' wall ( marble) Behind it , there are two rooms ( 2 rooms = 2 people ? )
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by gepd »

Is the part of the wall missing here http://www.yppo.gr/2/g2001.jsp?mult_id=14749 due to a collapse? Or could it be from looters?
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by agesilaos »

640px-Illustration_Myrtus_communis0.jpg
640px-Illustration_Myrtus_communis0.jpg (187.11 KiB) Viewed 13535 times
This is common myrtle, which grows in the Northern Med, count the petals.You are no my optician so I cannot blame you but My eyes had no chance of picking that ladder out this is all boding well for a rapid ingress into the tomb proper. the form is already interesting and from the sunlight on the first 'ladder shot' does it not seem that the roof of the portico is down behind the sphynxes? Natural damage? Florettes are an age old decoration, going back at least to the geometric period.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by Callisto »

Hello all,

Sorry Taphoi, i couldnt find anything else on Archontiko's sphinx. The excavator is Pavlos Chrysostomou.

There are more pics today about Amphipolis. http://www.yppo.gr/2/g22.jsp?obj_id=58133

However I couldnt but notice the hole at the left side of this pic. I have got a really bad feeling about it :cry:

Btw i was reading today Diodorus account about Aristonus. Aristonus was in Amphipolis and apparently Cassander's army under the command of general Crateuas marched against him (D 19.50.3-7). Although the account doesnt say exactly where the initial battle took place, we could assume it was near Amphipolis or at least inside Bisaltia. Crateuas lost and a couple of days later, Aristonus defeated the remains of Crateuas army in Bidyndia (??) of Bisaltia. Cassander's general seems to fall in the battle. Later Crateuas family members murdered Aristonus. (D. 19.51.1) I think both of them (Aristonus and Crateuas) are candidates for being the owners of the tomb. I am not sure if this Crateuas is related to the Trierarch Peithon (father and son?)
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by Paralus »

The diaphragm wall seems in place below the hole though it's hard to tell and that may be soil. If that is soil encrusted wall then there appears only an opening at the top and not a very large one. Were I a tomb robber I might have made a better/easier job of it? Wishful thinking likely.

On the occupants?? I cannot see Olympias, Roxxane or Alexander IV. An Antigonid mausoleum is one of the better suggestions I've heard. There are three large rooms apparently and so a mausoleum seems to fit. I cannot see such for a Laomedon or a Krateros for example. Such would fit with Gonotas' progonoi monument on Delos where , apparently, some 20 legitimating ancestors' statues resided! (See Billows, Kings and Colonists, 42).
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by system1988 »

gepd wrote:Is the part of the wall missing here http://www.yppo.gr/2/g2001.jsp?mult_id=14749 due to a collapse? Or could it be from looters?
Alas this is the typical hole of the looters .Always a small one-pressing business.The question is what they left.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by agesilaos »

Mmmh, let's not despair,though, Tomb I at Vergina had been robbed but II and III remained intact.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipol

Post by gepd »

If anyone is interested I have access to this article about the seismic sounding of the tumulus at Amphipolis:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 8/abstract

but i am not sure what the rule is here for uploading artcles from journals that require subscription.
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