Nankov Stoyanova Heraclea Tomb-libre

7/21/2019 Nankov Stoyanova Heraclea Tomb-libre

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Figure . e frontal side of the marble door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . Drawing of the frontal side of the door. Horizontal and vertical section. (Drawing: D. Stoyanova)Figure . e right side of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . e breaking in the upper right corner of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . e breaking in the lower r ight corner of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

by Emil NANKOV,American Research Center in Sofiaand Daniela STOYANOVA, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

A stone door of a tomb is kept in the

lapidarium of Archaeological Museum inSandanski.Because the door was unearthedby looters in the area of the village of Rupite,

municipality of Petrich (the site of the

Hellenistic and Roman town of HeracleaSintica),there is no further information aboutits findspot, or provenance, from one of theknown necropoleisassociated with the town.Circumstantial evidence suggests, however, thatthe necropolis in question could have been the

one located in "Chervenite skali."

Description

e door is made of a single slab with thefollowing dimensions: .9m high, .-.m

wide, and .-.m thick. e stone is coarse-grained marble,at present covered with thick

e authors are grateful to Vladimir Petkov,Director of Archaeological Museum in Sandanski,for the possibility to publish this monument.

On the identification and the results of the recentexcavations of the site, s ee Nankov and Vagalinski, inthis volume.

On the location of the necropoleisof Heraclea Sintica,see and Nankov in this volume.

Carved from the same marble is a gravemonument, dated to the first half of nd centuryAD, from the area of Rupite and perhaps originatingfrom the same necropolis (Vladimir Petkov, pers.

patina (Figs. -). On the front side of the door arecarved four almost identical cassettes.ey areframed by three horizontal and three vertical reliefbands.On the bands, hemispherical bosses were

carved in imitation of nail heads, which were part

of the metal plating on the wooden doors thatserved as prototypes. us, the frontal side of theslab depicts a double wing stone door. e upperand the lower end of the door are determined by

the height of the two endmost horizontal bands.e lower horizontal band marks the upper

end, and the higher one marks the lower end.e hemispherical bosses on these bands arearranged in single rows, and they are in two rows

on the middle horizontal band. On the verticalbands, the bosses are in single rows. e distance

between the bosses on the horizontal bands isshorter, compared to this distance on the vertical

com.), and brought in the Archaeological Museumin Sandanski in , containing the name of certainGaius, son of Lucius, a citizen of both Scotussa andHeraclea (Mitrev 8, fig. ). See also footnote .

e upper right cassette: .cm high, .cm wide;the upper le cassette: .cm high, .cm wide; thelower right cassette: .cm high, .cm high; thelower le cassette: .cm high, .cm wide.

e upper and middle horizontal band: 9.cm high;the lower band: .cm high. e right vertical bandis .cm wide, the middle .cm, and the le .cm.

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Figure . Detail of the upper right cassette of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . Detail of the upper le cassette of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . Detail of the lower right cassette of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)Figure . Detail of the lower le cassette of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

bands. us, two bosses were carved beneath and

above each cassette. e le vertical band and themiddle one have seven bosses each, while the oneon the right has only five.is smaller number

is due to the carving of the slab's upper andlower corners, which are shaped to allow for the

tapering axles that fix the door in the thresholdand the lintel of the doorframe. At present, both

axles are broken off,8but their diameter can beestimated at approximately .cm (Figs. -). eremains of lead cramps indicate that additional

metal mechanisms, now missing, were fixed to theaxles in order to strengthen them and facilitate thedoor's rotation. At the base of the upper axle on

the door's backside a groove was made, cm wide,. cm thick, terminating in a circular hole, .cm in diameter. e function of these carvings is

perhaps related to door's fixture.e transition between the bands and

the cassettes is achieved by cyma rectaprofile,which marks a rectangular field in relief,

limited by carved eggs, not always separatedfrom the shell (Figs. -). is indicates thatthe work on the decoration of the door was le

unfinished. It should be noted that there is noseparating element (dart or spear) between theeggs. Where shells were carved, they are thick,

with small pointed eggs.e right side of the door has a slightly

curved profile, while the le one has a rectangularprofile (Figs. -). Despite the patina, it couldbe seen that the frontal side and the le lateral

side are well dressed and smoothed, whilethe right lateral side, the top side, the bottom

side and the backside have roughly treatedsurfaces except for a vertical band on the back,

e diameter of the segments along all bands,except for the middle horizontal one, which is.cm, is .-.cm. e segments protrude from thebands' surfaces ca. - mm, whereas their volume isachieved through a slight removal of the area aroundthem.

8 e uniform patina reveals that the breakings didnot result from the looters' activity. It should benoted that at some parts on the right side and on thetop and bottom surfaces of the door, there are tracesof red mortar.

immediately next to the le side of the slab (Figs.-). It is well dressed, probably in order to fittightly into the doorjamb of t he entrance frame.

On the le wing of the door, there

are traces of a metal handle and its lockingmechanism. e handle was mounted in a carved

rectangle, set between the relief bosses on themiddle horizontal band (Fig. ).9e locking

mechanism was mounted in a small opening,pierced in the upper cassette of the le wing, nextto the middle vertical band.On the backside, the

mechanism was fixed by means of two horizontaliron clamps, parts of which are still preserved.ey are attached to the door by lead.e traces

of a shallow bed, carved at the upper end of thebackside, indicate the approximate shape of thebolt and the fact that it was locked in the lintel of

the doorframe (Figs. -, ).

Analysise stone slab under consideration has the

distinct features of an actual door, placed in amonumental tomb.e decorative scheme ofa stone door with four cassettes is usual for the

stone doors in Asia Minor and race betweenthe thand the rdcentury BC ( ,-, . I, III-IV; , -8;

Stoyanova , -, Pl. II-IIIa-b). At thesame time, the door design is notably different

in one respect from the numerous stone doorsof tombs in Macedonia, dated between the thand the ndcentury BC ( , .

II; Stoyanova , -, Pl. I): in the lattercase, there are no lateral vertical bands to shape

rectangular cassettes on the wings.

9 Dimensions: .cm wide, .cm high, .9cm deep.

Diameter of the hole is .cm.

e width of the brace is .cm and .cm thick.

Dimensions: .-.cm wide, .-8.cm high.

e only available information about a monumentalbuilding is associated with the necropolis at the"Chervenite skali" locality, where during a field surveytraces from a rectangular building built with largeblocks have been documented ( ,9-8 [Muletarovo, Site ]).


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e door from the necropolis of

Heraclea Sintica displays a number ofpeculiarities. e small size of the door suggeststhe small dimensions of the entrance it sealed.

is fact, however, is not indicative of thedimensions of the tomb itself. In race, there

are examples of large tombs with very smallentrances, and, in turn, very small stone doors.

Particularly revealing in this respect is thetomb near the village of Alexandrovo, Haskovodistrict ( 9, -, . 8-).

A feature worth mentioning is that thecassettes are almost equal in height. Normally,the lower cassettes are higher than the upper

ones (cf. , Ta. I-IV; Stoyanova, Pl. I-IIIa-b).

A further peculiarity is the decorationof eggs in the cassettes. Such decoration is nottypical of the cassettes of stone doors from

race and Asia Minor in the Hellenisticperiod. Only the marble door from Golyama

Kosmatka tumulus near the town of Shipka,municipality of Kazanlak, has a paintedLesbian kymationon the transition betweenthe bands and the fields of the cassettes (, -, . 8; 8, 9-9).e tomb dates from the beginning of the rd

century BC, and the door was most probablymanufactured elsewhere (Stoyanova, in print).

ese specifics provide grounds to excludea date in the pre-Roman times and to narrowdown the chronology to the Roman period, when

the tomb's commissioner, influenced by earliermonumental tomb architecture, chose to seal it

with a marble door. e lack of separating elementsbetween the eggs indicates the schematization ofthe Ionic kymation, probably due to the input of thelocal workshop that manufactured the door.

Stone doors of this type were not very

popular in tomb architecture of the Romanperiod. However, during the nd-rdcentury

On the discussion on the chronology of the tombin Golyama Kosmatka tumulus near Shipka, seeSaladino -; Stoyanov, Stoyanova, in print.

In the lapidarium of Museum of Archaeology and

AD in some Roman provinces, it became

fashionable to depict double wing stone doorson tombstones.Such monuments were mostpopular in Asia Minor (Waelkens 98). irteen

types were distinguished, with Type L beingthe most relevant for analysis of the door under

consideration. It depicts a double wing doorwithout additional elements, such as architraves,

pediments, naiskoi, etc. (Waelkens 98, 9, Cat.N. -, 9, , , 99, Taf. , , 8, 89).Apart from their appearance on numerous

tombstones, double wing doors were alsodepicted on the narrow sides of stone sarcophagifrom the same region (Waelkens 98, Cat. N.

89, Taf. 88). Another monument, brought tothe lapidarium of the Archaeological Museum

in Sanadanski along with the door, suggests the

Ethnography in Tekirdathere is a marble door withfour cassettes carved on its upper side (Inv. N 9).Another marble door of unknown provenience

representing a double wing door can be found in thelapidarium of the Archaeological Museum in Kilkis(AEMK 9), (Bouras , ). Four cassettes aresculpted on the upper side, with relief bands on topof which decorative bosses imitating the nails to befound on wooden originals. e ornamental schemeis different from that known from doors used inHellenistic Macedonian tombs, including late examplessuch as the one from Stavroupolis (Huguenot 8,, Cat. N. , , Pl. 9.). ese observations makeit likely that the door should be dated to the Romanperiod. It is possible to assume that the latter originatesfrom the region around Europos, where a Macedoniantype tomb has been documented, with no data aboutits chronology (Savvopoulou 99, ; 998, 8, fig.; Huguenot 8, , Cat. N. , , Pl. 9.). A

fragment of a marble door decorated with relief cassetteswas discovered by chance in the village of Kalamoto,municipality of Langadas, where ancient Kalindoia hasbeen located (Archeological museum of essaloniki,inv. no. 98; Rhomiopoulou 98, , fig. d). Onlythe two upper cassettes are preserved. On the horizontaland vertical bands incised circles imitate the nail heads.e transition from the bands to the area of the cassettesis made by cyma reversa profile. e similarities in thetreatment of the doors from Heraclea Sintica, Kilkisand Kalindoia firmly indicate a particular area ofdistribution, as well as their dating in the Roman period.

On tombstones with architectural elements,especially double wing doors, see Cambi , 8-8,8-88, fig. , 9, , -, .

Figure . e le side of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . e right side of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . e back side of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . Drawing of the back, the right and the le sides of the door. Top and bottom sides. (Drawing: D. Stoyanova)


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influence of the depictions of double wing stone

doors on funerary monuments, since it mostprobably belongs to such a monument (Fig. ).ere is a published tombstone with a framed

double wing door in relief, most probably fromthe vicinity of Perinthus (Sayar 998, -,

Taf. L, Abb. , Inschri N. ). Funerary stelaewith relief doors (Symbolic Door Stelae) were

used in Asia Minor from the Archaic period(Roosevelt ). In the Hellenistic period, adoor in relief and windows were depicted onthe back wall of the funerary chamber of one

of the finest examples of tomb architecture inMacedonia the so-called Eurydice Tomb in

Vergina (Miller 99, , n. ). According toStella Miller, this rendering of the wall serveslike ghostly invitation to the underworld (Miller

99, 8). Similar meaning should be attributedto the popularity of the motif on Roman

funerary monuments. Apparently, this fashionwas not unknown among the population of

Heraclea Sintica.To support the chronology of the stone

door in the R oman Period, one could adduce

evidence about cult and funerary monumentsin the region that illustrate the activity of localworkshops and travelling stonecutters in nd-rd

century AD.8

Conclusione tomb door under consideration wasmanufactured under the influence of Hellenistic

traditions and the fashion of utilizingrepresentations of double wing doors on

funerary monuments during nd-rdcenturyAD. e specifics of the door enable theauthors to date it and the tomb with which

it was associated to the nd-rdcentury AD. Anarrower date could be obtained through future

investigations of monumental tombs in the

It is noteworthy that the transition from thebands to the cassettes is rendered by the same,schematically executed eggs/leaves.

8 For other evidence suggesting the existence oflocal workshops for stone sculpture during nd-rdcentury AD, see Milcheva and Koleva in this volume.

Figure . Lower end of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)Figure . Upper end of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . Detail of the openings for the door handle and the locking mechanism on the frontal side of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . Detail of the locking mechanism on the back side of the door. (Photo: E. Nankov)

Figure . Funerary monument with relief depiction of double wing door (?), Archaeological Museum in Sandanski.

(Photo: E. Nankov)

necropolis of Heraclea Sintica. Also important

would be the evidence of the use of the samemarble in the architectural decoration andsculpture in the area of Heraclea Sintica.

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Dr. Emil Nankov

American Research Center in Sofia Vasil Petleshkov Street, Sofia

E-mail: [email protected]

Assist. Prof. Dr. Daniela Stoyanova

Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd, Sofia

E-mail: [email protected]

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Nankov Stoyanova Heraclea Tomb-libre