A New Grave Relief from Syria

Author(s): Klaus Parlasca

Source: The Brooklyn Museum Annual , 1969-1970, Vol. 11, No. 2, Part 2: Articles (1969-
1970), pp. 168-185
Published by: Brooklyn Museum

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26457671

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Figure 1. Funerary stela in the form of a niche with a male portrait bust. Lime
stone. From northern Syria; about a.d. 130-140. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carl L.
Seiden through The Roebling Society (69.34).

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A New Grave Relief from Syria
Klaus Parlasca

A recent gift to the Department of Ancient Art has considerabl

broadened the wide range of that department's collections. The new
acquisition is a grave relief (Figs. 1-2) that came up for auction i
New York.1 It consists of a male bust within a deep, round-toppe
niche of fine yellow limestone, flanked by shallow Ionic pilasters whic
are surmounted by acroteria in the form of half-palmettos. Thes
acroteria extend toward the arch of the niche. The sides of the monu
ment are worked unevenly; presumably they were covered when the
relief was let into the wall of a tomb chapel. Damages to the sides
probably occurred when the relief was removed from its original
location. A two-line Greek inscription, cut into the front of the base of
the relief, reads:
Δάφνε, χρήστε άλνπε χαίρε

"Daphnos, brave, carefree, farewell!"

Inside the niche is the bust of a man wearing a Greek himation2 and
holding a bookroll in his left hand. The face is evenly rounded, the chin
not accentuated. The individual locks of the hair are turned in at the
ends. The neatly trimmed beard leaves the lower lip bare, and above
the upper lip is a small moustache divided in the center. Artistically,
apart from the stylization of the hair and beard, the treatment of the

Abbreviation:
CIS II 3 = Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pt. 2, vol. III, ed. by J.-B. Chabot;
Texte, fasc. 2 (Paris, 1947); Planches, fasc. 2 (Paris, 1954).

1 Acc. no. 69.34. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carl L. Seiden through The Roebling
Society. Limestone. Height 62 cm.; width 52 cm.; depth now 11.7 cm.; height of
head of man 24.5 cm. Probably from northern Syria, region of Hierapolis. New
York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., Sale no. 2834 (New York, 11 April 1969), p.
16, no. 89, p. 17 (illus.). The Brooklyn Museum Annual X (1968-1969), p. 70
( illus. ) and p. 167. Restored in stucco are part of the nose, the little finger of the
right hand, the center of the arch, and small chips on the ridges of the drapery.
I owe to Herbert A. Cahn the first reference to the existence of the relief, and to
B. V. Bothmer the kind offer to publish it in The Brooklyn Museum Annual. The
latter also translated my text from the German.
2 M. Bieber, "Roman Men in Greek Himation . . .Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 103, no. 3 (June 15, 1959), pp. 388 ff. and passim with illus.

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 Figure 2. Funerary stela, detail of head (69.34).

eyes is noteworthy. Their almond shape is not naturalistic; and the

sharply marked pupil, a circle with drilled center, enhances the in
tensity of the stare.
The type of representation and the inscription identify the relief as
a grave monument. Palmyra, the provenance indicated in the sale
catalogue, is surely incorrect. Among the numerous reliefs from the
tombs of this Syrian desert metropolis,3 not a single parallel can be
found for the architectural framework of the Brooklyn piece. Further
more, Greek inscriptions are very rare on Palmyra grave reliefs,4 and
they are never applied to the base line. Most important, Palmyrene

3 Still basic today is H. Ingholt, Studier over palmtjrensk skulptur ( Copenhagen,

1928 ), a monograph to which the author has added a number of important articles
over the years.
4 They usually form part of a bilingual inscription. Among the few exceptions
should be mentioned the splendid relief bust of Aththaia in Boston, Museum of
Fine Arts no. 22.659; see Ingholt, Studier, p. 139, PS 421; C. C. Vermeule, Greek
and Roman Portraits . . . (Boston, 1959), no. 64 (illus.); Boston, Museum of Fine
Arts, Greek, Etruscan ù- Roman Art: The Classical Collections, 2nd ed., rev. by
G. H. Chase and C. C. Vermeule (1963), p. 225, fig. 240.

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Figure 3. Funerary relief. Limestone. From northern Syria; about A.D. 150.
Basel, private collection.

sculptures are all made of a local nummulitic limestone, not the fine
yellow limestone of the Brooklyn piece. Where, then, if not at Palmyra,
did the Brooklyn relief originate?
Fortunately, one can arrive at a satisfactory answer to this question,
since the new relief is not completely unique, by comparing it with
related sculptures. Most of these related pieces have appeared only
recently, the majority of them in the international art market. A few
years ago this writer drew attention to several of them and, on the
basis of similar pieces found in the region of Membidj in northern
Syria, known in antiquity as Hierapolis-Bambyke, concluded that this
area was the most likely provenance for them.5' Since that time the

0 "Zur syrischen Kunst der frühen Kaiserzeit," Archäologischer Anzeiger ( 1967),

pp. 547 ff., especially pp. 560 ff. The relief illustrated there in fig. 12, as
owned by J. Eisenberg, New York, has since entered the collections of Columbia
University (acc. no. S-506.68) as a gift from Dr. Arthur Sackler. It is the earliest
example of this group known from Syria.

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known number of monuments of this type has increased considerably,
and the new pieces appear to have essentially confirmed the provenance
already suggested. Furthermore, several similar grave reliefs have come
to light from the adjoining part of southern Turkey, indicating that
the type was native to an even wider region.6
In addition to the Brooklyn relief, another grave monument of
comparable quality (Fig. 3)7 can be discussed here for the first time,
by kind permission of its owner. Within a rectangular niche a family
group is represented. The woman is dressed in an Oriental garment
with veil and wide headband. Her husband, on the other hand, is
adorned in a purely Western and Classical style as far as clothing,
hair, and beard are concerned. Between the parents is their son, who
wears a youthlock wrapped around his head like a braid. This coiffure
is known from several Syrian works; some of them, mostly from
Palmyra, have been listed by Ingholt in connection with a relief bust
from his excavations.8 The fashion of the man's hair and beard point
to a date of about a.D. 150 for this piece.

0 In the collections of the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul are two unpub

lished reliefs which were accessioned under nos. 5518/19 and 5520 as gifts of
local antiquities dealers in Nizip (Nisibis) and Adana, respectively, in 1962 and
1963. The latter item, however, is merely a plaster cast of the original.
T Basel, Switzerland, private collection; 49 χ 73 cm. To Herbert A. Cahn I owe
the photograph by D. Widmer reproduced in Fig. 3 and the owner's permission to
illustrate the piece. The relief has already been illustrated in a prospectus of the
firm Miinzen und Medaillen A.G. in Basel, issued on the occasion of the Swiss arts
and antiques fair in Berne, October 10-21, 1969 (p. [8]). The Greek inscription
reads as follows:

] ΑΔΗ αλυπε Μαρίανε Άπολινάριε

χοίρε άωρε χαίρε αλ[νπ]ε χαϊρε

The three inscriptions are arranged in two lines each, one beside the other.
The short female name at the beginning of line 1 (only one letter seems to be
missing) may have originated in Asia Minor. L. Zgusta, Kleinasiatische Personen
namen (Prague, 1964) lists several names of similar composition, e.g., p. 150, §
294, 2: Δοδη ; p. 201, §§ 473-475: Ίνδη and Ήνδη . The name in our
inscription might be completed as Δαδη ; cf. ibid., pp. 139-140 (analogous male
names Δαδα and Λαδής ); the author takes into consideration the female name
Δαδη (p. 140, note 45), which has not yet, however, been recorded in Asia Minor.
8 See Berytus 5 (1938), p. 138, pi. 49, fig. 3, from the tomb of Abdaasthor.
The relief (ibid., pi. 49, fig. 4) is Istanbul no. 3795, height 44 cm., acquired in
1899. Also mentioned is an unpublished statuette from Hama, now in the National

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Figure 4. Funerary relief. Limestone. From northern Syria; December, A.D. 171.
Frankfurt am Main, private collection.

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 The Brooklyn relief differs in several respects from other monuments
of its type. The architectural framework of the niche is very rare; the
author knows of only two other examples. The first is the relief bust of
a young girl in Frankfurt am Main (Fig. 4), which is dated to December
of the year a.d. 171 by the inscription.9 Here, the elements of the
framework are less carefully executed than on the Brooklyn piece, and
the summarily indicated capitals of the pilasters are Corinthian, not
Ionic. The acroteria and the double line of the arch, however, cor
respond exactly to those of the Brooklyn relief. The second piece with

Museum in Copenhagen (no. 8A14). P. J. Riis very kindly enabled me to obtain

a photograph of its head from the Hama Commission.
The following pieces are to be added: Palmyrene relief bust, ex-coll. Viscountess
d'Andurain; see M. Rostovtzeff, Caravan Cities (Oxford, 1932), p. 152, pi. 23,
fig. 3. Stela of a boy in Adana; see Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 83
(1959), pp. 543 ff., fig. 1. Statuette of a boy from Harbata; see Ronzevalle in
Mélanges de l'Université St. Joseph de Beyrouth 21 (1937-1938), p. 78, pi. 32,
fig. 11; V. von Gonzenbach, Untersuchungen zu den Knabenweihen im Isiskult der
romischen Kaiserzeit (Bonn, 1957), Κ 25, pp. 157-158, pi. 22; pp. 27-28, note 51,
and pp. 34-35, note 77, are references to the examples mentioned by Ingholt in
Berytus 5 (1938). The date of a.d. 98, however, refers only to the founding of
the tomb of Abdaasthor, not to the bust discovered in it (Ingholt, op. cit., p. 121).
The interpretation of H. Seyrig, to which Gonzenbach, op. cit., p. 158, refers, was
already published by the former in Syria 31 ( 1954), p. 84 (and republished in his
Antiquités syriennes V [Paris, 19581, p. 103).
Unusual is the lock hanging down behind the right ear on the Palmyrene relief
of a page standing beside a priest in Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek no.
1024, published by Ingholt in Berytus 2 ( 1935), pp. 73- 74, pi. 33, fig. 2 ("perhaps
a slavelock"); Gonzenbach, op. cit., p. 35, note 77; CIS II 3, p. 372, no. 4322,
pi. 37; Enciclopedia dell'arte antica V (Rome, 1963), s.v. "Palmirena, Arte," by
A. Giuliano, p. 912, fig. 1118 (the priest's head does not, however, belong with it!).
The problem of representations with locks of hair such as this will be dealt with
elsewhere by this writer.
8 Private collection of the author. Acquired in Beirut in 1969. Height 57.5 cm.;
width 40.5 cm.; depth 13 cm. The inscription reads:
"Ετους γπυ μη
νος *ίΑ)πελλαί
ου Μάρθας
αωίρίε χαίρε όυγατίη)ρ Βερον
ΟΥ "ΑπολλονιΜίον

"(Deceased) in the year 483 in the month Apellaios, Martha, you early deceased,
be greeted, daughter of Beroues (?), son of Apollonisios.
Line 4: obviously mistake for άωρε ; Y mistake for Ρ .
Martha is a frequently used Aramaic name; see E. Littmann in F. Preisigke,
Namenbuch (Heidelberg, 1922), "Anhang," col. 519.

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Figure 5. Funerary relief. Limestone. From Izriyah; second century A.D. Beirut,
Museum of the American University (3524).

an architectural framework (Fig. 5),lu the representation of a woman

in native costume, entered the Archaeological Museum of the American
University of Beirut through the art market; Izriyah is said to be its
provenance. It too should be attributed to the second century a.d. The
holes in the upper corners served for fastening garlands.
That the Brooklyn relief represents a special class of monument is
also made evident by an analysis of its style. Although the other reliefs
belonging to this group show a certain latitude of artistic values,11
their stylistic standards are more or less Western and Classical. The
pieces of somewhat higher quality, such as the relief in Basel (Fig. 3),
which permit a better assessment of the group, indicate an essentially

10 No. 3524; D. Baramki, The Archaeological Museum of the American University

of Beirut (Beirut, 1967), p. 79 ("limestone bust of a Syrian princess of the third
century a.D."). The inscription reads: TlgE/xilla aXvns xa'8e
11 Examples of somewhat less quality: J. M. Eisenberg, Art of the Ancient World
II, Royal-Athena Galleries Cat. no. 45 (New York, December, 1966), p. 28, fig. 35;
Catalogue of Egyptian . . . Antiquities (Sale Catalogue, London, Sotheby, 1
December 1969), p. 12, no. 19 (illus. ); this relief was seen in the Beirut market
in 1968.

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Figure 6. Funerary relief. Limestone. From Urfa (Edessa); second century A.D.
( ? ). Istanbul, Archaeological Museum ( 2360 ).

Western and Classical (that is, Roman) repertory of forms. It is

probably no accident, therefore, that Aramaic Semitic inscriptions occur
only occasionally on reliefs from the northern periphery of the region
in which this type of grave monument prevails. Two examples, now in
Istanbul, are from Urfa, the ancient Edessa; and one of them is illus
trated here for comparison (Fig. 8).12 They are not precisely datable,
but one can safely assume that they were made in the second
century a.d.

12 No. 2360; 45 x 84 cm.; here illustrated after a new photograph made by H.

von Gall (neg. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Istanbul, no. R 3047). The
author is indebted to Dr. Necati Dolunay, Director, Archaeological Museums of
Istanbul, for permission to illustrate this piece and Figure 9. The piece was acquired
in 1910; it had been found on the grounds of the citadel of Urfa (Edessa), where
it probably had been brought in modern times. See N. Giron, "Notes épigraphiques,"
Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale [Université St. Joseph de Beyrouth] 5 (1911),
pp. 77-78, pl. 4; J. Leroy, "Mosaïques funéraires d'Edesse," Syria 34 (1957), pp.
328-329, fig. 3 (a rather incorrect sketch).

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 The situation is somewhat different with the new relief in Brooklyn.
The Greek elements of costume and inscription link it directly to the
other examples of its type, which also regularly show the deep, round
topped niche for single busts, although without the frame. An
instructive parallel is furnished by a relief that appeared in the London
art market a few years ago (Fig. 7).13 The somewhat strange aspect of
the head on the Brooklyn piece is therefore rather surprising to the
observer whose eye has been formed on more Classical pieces. A certain
static attitude is evident, despite the careful elaboration of details,
especially in the hair and beard. This quality is emphasized by a
comparison with the London bust, with its thick hair and small locks.
It is not difficult to determine the origin of the stylization of the hair,
for similar and even more ornamentally treated locks are found in the
sculpture of Palmyra. That there are indeed connections with the art
of Palmyra is confirmed by the fact that one can find analogous treat
ments of the form of the face in Palmyrene art. These parallels become
evident when one compares the Brooklyn piece with a relief bust in
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 8), a piece which is furthermore
dated by its inscription to a.d. 181.14 The distinct treatment of hair and

The second relief, Istanbul no. 2194, measures 35 x 80 cm.; it was acquired in
1882 and, before 1878, was in a mosque in Urfa; E. Renan, "Deux monuments
épigraphiques d'Edesse," Journal asiatique (1883, 1), pp. 246 ff., pl. 1; Antiquités
himyarites et palmyréniennes: catalogue sommaire (Constantinople, 1895), p. 75,
no. 194; H. T. Bossert, Altsyrien (Tubingen, 1951), pp. 69 and 262, fig. 902;
Leroy in Syria 34 (1957), pp. 307-308, 328, 338, fig. 5 (sketch).
13 Octagon [London, Spink & Son Ltd.] 3 (March, 1966), p. 8 (illus.); Parlasca
in Archäologischer Anzeiger (1967), p. 560, note 55. The inscription reads:
]AE XQrlore Songe X"~l9f 'YjieQlßnQaxaiov] I?.
Only the ending -)-o; is preserved of the man's name, here given in the
usual vocative form. The missing part on the left presumably also bore the year
date; an unpublished relief bust in the garden of the Damascus Museum likewise
has the date distributed on the two upper corners: ôï> (= 470), Adov (= 27
August, a.D. 159). The month of Hyperberataios corresponds in Imperial times
to October of the Julian calendar. The style of hair and beard as well as the
manner in which the eyes have been incised suggest a date in the second quarter
of the second century a.d.
Height 61 cm. The writer is indebted to M. R. Geoffrey Smith of Spink & Son Ltd.
for providing the photograph of this piece.
14 Acc. no. 02.29.4; 51.7 x 44.7 cm.; Ingholt, Studier, p. 38, PS 16, pi. 5, fig. 2;
J.-B. Chabot, Choix d'inscriptions de Palmyre (Paris, 1922), p. 113, pl. 27, fig. 8;
CIS II 3, pp. 349-350, no. 4263, pl. 39; C. R. Morey, Early Christian Art, 2nd ed.

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Figure 7. Funerary relief. Limestone. From northern Syria; second century A.D.
Photograph courtesy of Spink & Son Ltd, London.

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beard is comparable, as is the delineation of the brows by means of a
shallow, narrow groove. The mass of thick, stylized curls occurs
commonly in Palmyrene art of this period. There are also many
examples of far less manneristic workmanship which can be favorably
compared with the hair of the man on the Brooklyn relief. An excellent
parallel is offered by a relief bust in Istanbul (Fig. 9), which is dated
by its inscription to May 15 of the year a.d. 157.15 One might also cite,
on a somewhat larger scale, the treatment of the hair on a head in
Damascus (Fig. 10).10
The drilling of the eyes on the Brooklyn face is exactly paralleled on
some pieces of Palmyrene sculpture executed before the middle of the
second century a.D. Although the sale catalogue attributed the Brooklyn
relief to the third century, the fixed dates of the parallel pieces thus
far cited indicate that it should be dated a century earlier. It cannot
even be as late as a.d. 180. Furthermore, since the family relief in
Basel (Fig. 3) shows that a different type of drilling of the eyes, with
stronger accents on the pupils, was current around a.d. 150, it seems
preferable to attribute the Brooklyn sculpture to the decade around
a.d. 130-140. The fashion of the beard, which appears to be Hadrianic,
also points to such a date since it cannot, at most, be later than early
Antonine.

These special characteristics of the Brooklyn relief that are so useful

in establishing its date make it more difficult, however, to establish its
provenance since they show that the piece is not a pure example of one
of the better known styles of the period. Nevertheless, because it is
related to the art of both Palmyra and northern Syria, it probably
originated in the northwestern part of what is today the Republic of
Syria. The place name Izriyah, however, which is given as the proven
ance for the Beirut relief (Fig. 5), should be accepted with some
caution. One must remember that further west, on the coast, grave
reliefs with architectural frameworks were once in use. These, however,

( Princeton, 1953 ), pp. 29-30, 263-264, fig. 20. The author is indebted to Dr. Oscar
W. Muscarella, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, for providing the photograph used here.
15 No. 3840; 56 x 44 cm.; Ingholt, Studier, pp. 34-35, PS 11, pi. 4, fig. 1; CIS II
3, p. 476, no. 4616, pi. 47.
10 No. 18; from the figure of a sarcophagus group; height 26 cm.; S. and A.
Abdul Hak, Catalogue . . . Musée de Damas (Damascus, 1951), pp. 43-44, no. 42;
here illustrated after negative no. 902 of the Institut Français d'Archéologie in
Beirut. The plaster base has now been removed.

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Figure 8. Funerary relief. Limestone. From Palmyra; A.D. 181. New York, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art (02.29.4). Photograph courtesy of The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

were always decorated with representations of an entire figure within

a gable-topped niche. From this direction may have come the impulse
for the richer decoration of the Brooklyn monument with its framework
in relief.
The fact that the artisan who created the Brooklyn relief was
obviously familiar with the artistic repertory of the Palmyra studios
opens new avenues of approach to the question of the geographic
distribution of the Palmyrene style. The lack of a systematic study of
this problem has led to several previous errors in evaluation. The claim
is frequently made, for example, that one must admit a wide geo
graphical distribution for the Palmyrene style on the basis of certain
isolated monuments.
The few such objects which one can be certain were located outside
of Palmyra in antiquity differ in style and material from local Palmyrene
sculptures. Examples of such monuments include the well-known votive

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 relief dedicated to Aglibol and Malakbel in Rome17 and the grave
relief of Regina found in South Shields on the mouth of the Tyne near
Newcastle.18 Less well known are the relief busts of Palmyrene archers
and priests ( ? ), published poorly and in out-of-the-way places, which
come from Koptos in Upper Egypt and which, despite their typo
logical resemblance to Palmyrene grave reliefs, clearly represent local
workmanship.19
To judge by their material, the nummulitic limestone typical of
Palmyra, a few monuments were undoubtedly made there but were
certainly brought out of Syria only recently. Among these pieces are
a male head in Athens said to be from Thera20 and two priests wearing
the polos headdress in Relgrad which are allegedly of local origin.21
Without foundation, furthermore, is the idea that a female head from

17 Rome, Capitoline Museum no. 1206; C. Pietrangeli, ed., I monumenti dei

culti orientali, Rome, Musei Capitolini Cataloghi 1 (Rome, 1951), pp. 16-17, no.
19, pi. 6; E. Simon in W. Heibig, Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen
klassischer Altertümer in Rom II, 4th ed. (Tübingen, 1966), no. 1178, pp. 27-28;
H. Seyrig in Syria 18 ( 1937 ), p. 201, pl. 31 ( republished in his Antiquités syriennes
II [Paris, 1938], p. 98, pl. 31); CIS II 3, pp. 13 ff., no. 3902, pl. 1.
18 Roman Fort Museum; D. Smith in Archaeologia Aeliana ser. 4, 37 (1959),
pp. 203 ff., pi. 31, fig. 1; J. M. C. Toynbee, Art in Roman Britain (London, 1962),
no. 87, p. 160, fig. 85; CIS II 3, pp. 11-12, no. 3901, pl. 1; R. G. Collingwood and
R. P. Wright, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain I (Oxford, 1965), p. 356, no.
1065, pi. 15; E. and J. R. Harris, Oriental Cults in Roman Britain (Leiden, 1965),
pp. 96-97.
19 Examples are in the museums in Cairo and Lyon; for references see K. Parlasca,
Mumienporträts und verwandte Denkmäler (Wiesbaden, 1966), p. 115, note 155.
20 Athens, National Museum no. 1643; see Praktika tes Archaiologikes Hetairias
[Athens] 1890 (1893), p. 91, no. 4848; M. Bieber, Verzeichnis der käuflichen
Photographien des K. Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts in Athen I: Athen und
Attika (Athens, 1912), p. 114, no. 2370 (negative no. "Nat. Mus. 581," two views).
She describes the head as "Kopf im Stil der Palmyra-Porträts." V. Kallipolitis
kindly provided by letter the information that the head was acquired by the
Archaeological Society in Athens from a man from Thera on July 26, 1890.
21 No. 660 (head); Ingholt, Studier, p. 108, PS 160 A; N. Vulic in Spomenik
Srpska Kraljevska Akademija 71 (1931), p. 235, no. 626 ( illus. ) ; D. Garaäanin
in Godiünjak Muzeja Grada Beograda 1 (1954), p. 64, fig. 38; M. Grbic, Choix
de plastiques grecques et romaines au Musée National de Beograd (Belgrade,
1958), pp. 100-1Q1 and 133, no. 61, pl. 69.
No. 1593 (relief bust); Ingholt, Studier, p. 118, PS 244 A; Vulié, op. cit., p. 235,
no. 625 (with two illus.); Garaäanin, op. cit., p. 64, fig. 37; Grbic, op. cit., pp.
100-101 and 133, no. 62, pl. 70. D. Mano-Zisi, by letter dated 14 July 1966, kindly
provided the information that both sculptures have been in the museum since the
1870's. Therefore we have no proof that the two pieces came from the old
fortress in Belgrade.

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 t

Figure 9. Funerary relief. Limestone. From Palmyra; a.d. 157. Istanbul, Archaeo
logical Museum (3840).

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a grave relief in Palmyrene limestone, now at Bryn Mawr, could have
been brought to Carthage in ancient times, as the provenance indication
seems to suggest.22 The same certainly holds true — despite statements
to the contrary by Russian archaeologists — for two reliefs which were
re-excavated in 1957 in the Merv Oasis (Vekil'-Bazar, Turkmenistan),
and which appear to have already been in Russia at the end of the
nineteenth century.23 The recent findspot for these pieces lies on the
property of a former high administrative official of the region,24 to
whose collection the sculptures may once have belonged. At any rate,
there is no proof that the two reliefs, a male bust and a standing girl
with dove and grape, could have been brought to this part of southern
Russia in antiquity.
In reality, the area of distribution of purely Palmyrene sculptures
was limited to the Syrian orbit. Apart from the known findspots in the
region of Palmyra with their desert sanctuaries which D. Schlumberger
investigated,25 several finds at Dura Europos on the Euphrates must be
mentioned. Among them are three dated votive reliefs in the Yale
University Art Gallery, New Haven.26 Probably not of local origin,

22 The Ella Riegel Memorial Museum no. S-88; see J. L. Howarth, "A Palmyrene
Head at Bryn Mawr College," American Journal of Archaeology 73 (1969), pp.
441 ff., pl. 123, and pp. 445-446 for the question of the provenance, with useful
material on the testimony of Palmyrene military units in the western part of
North Africa. B. S. Ridgeway in E. Roebuck, The Muses at Work (Cambridge,
Mass., and London, 1969), p. 104, fig. 8 ("from Carthage").
23 Tashkent, Archaeological Institute of the University. The two reliefs, which
were excavated (sic) in 1957, had already been published in 1896 from photo
graphs which the then director of the museum in Tiflis, G. Radde, had sent to
Moscow: M. V. Nikol'skij in Trudy Vostocnoj Kommisii Imperatorskago
Moskovskago Archeologiceskago Obscestva II, 1 (1896), pp. 163-164, pi. 3.
Ingholt, Studier, p. 123, note 2, PS 288, and p. 153, PS 521, erroneously states that
the pieces had formerly been in Moscow; this reference has been overlooked in
the recent Russian literature, e.g. I. N. Vinnikov in Vestnik Drevnej Istorii 91, 1
(1965), pp. 139 ff. (with four illus.); M. E. Masson in East and West n.s. 17
(1967), pp. 239 ff. (with four illus.); G. A. Pugacenkova, Iskusstvo Turkmenistana
(Moscow, 1967), pp. 53 ff. and p. 209, fig. 26 (stela of a girl, detail).
24 Masson in East and West n.s. 17 ( 1967), pp. 239 ff.; Pugacenkova, Iskusstvo
25 D. Schlumberger, "Neue Ausgrabungen in der syrischen Wüste nordwestlich
von Palmyra," Archäologischer Anzeiger (1935), cols. 595 ff., esp. cols. 613 ff.,
figs. 12-21; idem, La Palmyrène du Nord-Ouest (Paris, 1951), especially pp. 51 ff.,
pis. 21 ff. and passim.
2GAcc. no. 1938.5313; votive relief for Tyche (Gad) of Palmyra, dedicated in
a.D. 159; see M. Rostovtzeff, "Le Gad de Doura et Seleucus Nicator," Mélanges

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Figure 10. Male head. Limestone. From Palmyra; second quarter of the second
century a.d. Damascus, National Museum of Damascus (18).

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however, is a fragmentary gabled relief formerly in the collection of
Georges Marcopoli in Aleppo. This piece was acquired at the end of
the last century in a village named Deir ez Zôr on the Euphrates.27
The new Brooklyn relief appears to come from the northern fringe
of the area within which Palmyrene art flourished, and it thus forms
the first known link between the sculpture of Palmyra and that of the
region between Hierapolis and Edessa. Aside from its artistic appeal,
therefore, it offers a great deal of material for the evaluation of regional
artistic trends in Syria during the period of the Roman Empire.

syriens offerts à M. René Dussaud I (Paris, 1939), pp. 291 ff., pl. 2 (following p.
284); O. Eissfeldt, Tempel und Kulte syrischer Städte in hellenistisch-römischer
Zeit, Der Alte Orient 40 (1941), pp. 126-127, 138, fig. 1; Bossert, Altsyrien, pp.
39, 173, fig. 563; T. Dohm, Die Tyche von Antiochia (Berlin, 1960), p. 12, pl. 6.
Acc. no. 1938.5314; votive relief (companion to the one previously cited)
showing Seleukos I Nikator who crowns the local god (Gad) of Dura-Europos;
Rostovtzeff, op. cit., pp. 281 ff., pl. 1; Eissfeldt, op. cit., pp. 126-127 and p. 138,
pi. 12, fig. 1; Bossert, op. cit., p. 39, fig. 562. On the identification of the male
Semitic Gad with the female Greek Tyche, cf. K. Parlasca in Jahrbuch des
Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 8 (1961), p. 95, with further
references.
Acc. no. 1938.5312; votive relief for Nemesis, dedicated in a.d. 228; see H.
Seyrig in Syria 13 (1932), pp. 50 and 53 If., pi. 18, fig. 5 (republished in his
Antiquités syriennes I [Paris, 1934], p. 11, no. 6, pp. 14 ff., pi. 18, fig. 5 [with
earlier references]); L. Budde, Die Entstehung des antiken Repräsentationsbildes
(Berlin, 1957), p. 16, fig. 43 (where the piece is erroneously said to be in the
Damascus Museum).
27 In 1897 in the collection of G. Marcopoli in Aleppo; see J.-B. Chabot in
Journal asiatique ( 1897, 2), pp. 317 ff., fig. 7; M. von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer
zum Persischen Golf ... I (Berlin, 1899), p. 284 (illus.); Ingholt, Studier, p. 107,
note 7, PS 153 A; CIS II 3, p. 420, no. 4456, pl. 59. For the location of the place,
see R. Dussaud, Topographie historique de la Syrie antique et médiévale (Paris,
1927), p. 456 and map XV. This relief, which must have come from a grave
monument, has to be added to the list of private portraits in pediments of grave
reliefs. For collections of deceased persons similarly represented within pediments,
see P. Hommel, "Giebel und Himmel," Istanbuler Mitteilungen 7 (1957), p. 28
29, pl. 10, figs. 1-2; H. Jucker, Das Bildnis im Blätterkelch (Ölten, 1961), vol. 1,
pp. 103 and 148 ff.; vol. 2, figs. 30-32; cf. K. Schauenburg in Städel-Jahrbuch n.s.
1 (1967), p. 53, figs. 16-17.

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