Ephemeris 2004 Optimized

8/13/2019 Ephemeris 2004 Optimized

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AE2004 A New Funerary GQid Leaf from Pherai 3

since December 1924, when a large number of boxes containing 'valuable items' were sentby Arvanitopoulos to the National Archaeological Museum for conservation.5

In addition to the brief reference in Praktika some information about the circumstancesof the discovery of the leaf can be found in the excavation daybooks of Arvanitopoulos.6According to them, the gold strip was discovered in November 1904, together with graves,in a field near the hill Magoula Mati or s'ta Mylia,7 by the owner of the land AthanasiosNastos, while digging to uproot large trees. Not much is known about the graves, as Arvanitopoulos visited the site two years after their discovery when the landscape had changed andhe had to rely on locals and the press for information.8

The strip was found in what appears to have been a marble lidded - cylindrical?osteotheke (repository), measuring 0.41 m in diameter and 0.18-0.20 m in depth. It hadallegedly contained only a few bones and the strip, which suggests that the funeral rite wascremation.9 When Arvarutopoulos visited the site, the repository had long been used by theowner of the plot as building material in his house and the strip had been collected by thethen mayor of Velestino, from whom he bought it in 1906 for 10 drachmas.

Consequen tly, there s not much information about either the burial ground or the contents and date of the grave. Magoula Mati Lies in the area of the extensive northern cemetery of Pherai and is near the ancient road towards Larisa (map 1, no. 2).10 With the exception of what is, probably, a family burial tumu]us at the locality Thymarakia and numerousgrave markers found during agricultural works, the northern cemetery of Pherai remainslargely unexplored. 11

5. Dossier on A. Arvanitopoulos in the Archive ofMonuments and Publications, Ministry of Culture. M.Stamatopoulou would like to thank the Director of theArchive of Monuments and Publications of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture Mr P. Pantos for permissionto consult and study their archives and Mrs M. Pantou for her help during research in the archlves.

6. AQX A Q ~ . 4, 25 IeTCrqtfJeiov 29 Noeftf3eiov1906, pp. 9 and 13: 7 Ox:r:wfJe{ov.

7. AQX A Q ~ . 5 (1906-7): p. 81, 26 jttn iliov 1907on the Magoula Mati.8. Arvanitopoulos in his excavation daybooks re

ports that he relied for information on locals and thethen mayor of Velestino St. Dondos, who had collectedthe strip upon discovery and from whom Arvanitopoulos bought it in 1906 with Archaeological Society of Athens funds.

9. Arvanitopoulos calls it J . L a Q ~ l a Q L V l l Meta in hisdaybook, but the description suggests that it was not ahydria but a marble repository similar to other exam-

pies from the region. The dimensions were taken fromI Dimopoulos who had published the find in theVolos press in 1904. It should be noted that thePharsalos gold leaf (5) was also found inside a marblerepository, which was recovered from numerous fragments by Verdelis, E 1950-1951, 80-105, esp. 80-81,fig. 1.

10. SUihlin op.cit. n. 4, 105-6, fig. 5. On MagoulaMati: 0. Apostolopoulou-Kakavoyianni, Ton:oyQa


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Ephemeris 2004 Optimized

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