Two Late Hellenistic Funerary Stelae from Milas Museum

Abstract

The subject of this article is the typological, iconographic, stylistic and chronological evaluation of two funerary stelae called Stele I and Stele II, preserved in the Milas Museum. The stelae, which have a frame form and are thought to have had a triangular pediment, embody influences from the Ionian and Delos Workshops, attract attention with their podium, which is thicker/higher than the side frames. This form, which imitates the high pedestals upon which the statues used in public or grave monuments in the Hellenistic Period were placed, was designed to carry sculptural figures used in the stage area of the stelae. Famous figural types that take on the symbolism of famous works of the Classical and Hellenistic Periods were preferred in the scene, which includes a section from daily life, where family members standing independently of each other, side by side, look across/at the audience. These consist of a mixture of types such as Pudicitia Saufeia and Sophocles/Palliatus, as well as Demosthenes-Kos and Pudicitia Saufeia-Kos Types. The combination of innovative motifs in Kos sculpture with famous types such as Demosthenes and Saufeia stem from the sculptor’s creative mind. Stylistic analysis of the figures dominated by eclecticism indicates Stele I dates from the late second century B.C. and it is thought that Stele II was made at the beginning of the first century B.C. The use of figural types from different time periods suggests that they are the product of an ongoing tradition in and around Mylasa. The fact that the stelae have influences from different workshops such as Ionia, Delos and Kos, as well as from the neighbouring cities of Mylasa, must be due to the cosmopolitan structure of the city, which was a crossroads in antiquity.