TY - JOUR AU - Kisbali, Tamás Péter PY - 2021/03/03 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - The Goddess on the Vezirhan Stele JF - BAF-Online: Proceedings of the Berner Altorientalisches Forum JA - BAF-O VL - 4 IS - 1 SE - Panel KOTHAR: Iconographic narratives DO - 10.22012/baf.2019.26 UR - https://bop.unibe.ch/baf/article/view/7271 SP - AB - <p>The stele from Vezirhan (Istanbul Archaeological Museum, inv.&nbsp;6219+71.27) is best known for its Old Phrygian and Greek inscriptions (B-05). However, its reliefs also pose an interesting challenge. They include a boar hunt, a ritual banquet scene, and a human figure, commonly identified as a goddess, with lions, birds, and a palmette-like motif “sprouting” from her head.</p><p>The stele is dated to the late 5<sup>th</sup>–early 4<sup>th</sup> century BC. The hunt and banquet scenes clearly belong to this time (and find many parallels on votive and funerary reliefs and seals of Hellespontine Phrygia).</p><p>The image of the goddess, however, continues a different tradition, one that possibly stems from an earlier period. The Vezirhan goddess doesn’t have a singular prototype, but displays connections to a wide variety of iconographical schemes and details. Most are found in the 7<sup>th</sup>–6<sup>th</sup> centuries BC arts of Anatolia and the Aegean. By examining this corpus, with special focus on the <em>Potnia theron</em> iconographic type, we understand that the Vezirhan goddess is related to other deities attested in Anatolia (in fact, her name might have been a variation of Artemis, according to line 3 of the Phrygian inscription). Yet, she cannot be identified with any of them directly. For all matches, there are also differences. A certain creative effort was made to distinguish the goddess from her peers, possibly to reflect her local cult.</p><p>In my talk, I would like to unfold this synthetic image, examine its components, and try to put them back together – and hopefully gain some insight into how the Vezirhan goddess’ iconographic scheme came to be.</p> ER -