Amazonomachy frieze from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
- Title:
- Amazonomachy frieze from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown (architect: Iktinos)
- Photographer:
- Mericle, Danielle
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 400 BCE
- Site:
- Bassai, Greece (original)
- Location:
- Goldwin Smith Hall (second floor, top of stairwell), Cornell University
Bassai, Greece (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0768c
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 290
- File Name:
- CCC_0768c.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 137 (W) cm
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- Classical
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in relief (original) - Subject:
- Temple of Apollo (Bassai)
Amazonomachy - Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Description:
- This is a cast of a slab from the Ionic frieze of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai showing a scene of battle that includes two Greeks and two Amazons. At the viewer's left of the slab, a Greek, nude except for the billowing garment draped over his left arm, is shown in three-quarter view with his head in profile facing left. He holds his shield behind his back on his left arm. The Greek moves left with his right arm bent above his head. He held a weapon in his right hand and is in the act of attacking an Amazon on an adjacent block (as installed in the British Museum gallery, not as installed in Goldwin Smith
adjacent block is SSID 51294
British Museum no. 1815,1020.17). To the right, a clothed Amazon depicted between frontal and three-quarter views moves right on a bent left leg. She holds a shield behind her on her left arm and reaches back with her right arm to thrust a weapon at the Greek she battles to the right. The Greek is nude and shown from behind with his helmeted head in profile facing left. The shield on his left arm obscures part of his left side. He leans right on a bent right leg and reaches out with his right to throw a weapon. To the right, a just-wounded or killed Amazon, in three-quarter view, is shown collapsing to the ground. Her clothed body is still almost upright, but it has gone limp and her head (heavily damaged in the original) droops to her left shoulder. Her knees are about to hit the ground. Further fragments of this block were identified subsequent to the making of this cast. One fragment is held in Athens at the National Museum (no. NM 4768). A cast of that piece has been restored to the original block in the British Museum. The east and south sections of the frieze were devoted to scenes of battle between Amazons and Greeks. This block has been located on the east side of the frieze. Casts of slabs from the interior frieze of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai are installed in the common spaces at the top (second floor) of the main stairwells in both the north and south wings of Goldwin Smith Hall. - Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. 1815,1020.13 - Bibliography:
- W. B. Dinsmoor, "The Sculptured Frieze from Bassae," American Journal of Archaeology 60 (1956), 401-452
Hedwig Kenner, Der Fries des Tempels von Bassae-Phigalia (Vienna: F. Deuticke, 1946)
Ian Jenkins, Greek Architecture and its Sculpture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 130-150 - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
London, British Museum (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.