THE SPHINXES AT ASSOS 0! i DY ge be BO ye Oe ¥ yor w Ogan Gurel '86 Adams House F-31 Classical Archaeology 131 Prof. David Gordon MittenThe sphinx relief from the Temple at Assos is at once a work of art and an archaeological puzzle. The temple, for example, poses the unusual juxtaposition of a sculptured architrave of Tonic persuasion into a structure of essentially Doric order. While still a point of controversy, it is generally believed that the sphinx frieze block was in the center of the long relief where it would be directly above the doorway to the temple. The placement of the two sphinxes, in which they symmetrically and centrally face each other with an extended fore paw resting on top of a single Ionic offering column between them, support this conclusion. Dating of the frieze presents less of a problem, especially since the obviously Archaic form of the sphinx heads clearly delineates the temporal context of the piece. We can also be reasonably sure of the cultural context of the frieze in as much as the jlong feminine hair piece combed down behind each of the two Jneads points to sphinxes of Greek, and not Egyptian, inspiration. The relief is cut into a large trachite block which apparently also served as a supporting element in the overall structure pf, eae, acceprts mm lac kdeccahpPtgers sineke oe Le the temple. No doubt, the presence of a nearby quarry made = pee especially convenient to use this exceptionally hard volcanic wks Lon : cba stone. ‘The material was tough enough to impose considerable “9/724 technical demands that partially determined the lack of finely '"*# detailed lines in the relief. Even if such details once existed, they were vorn away, plopgwith any adorning paint, pete Re Setdl COPE ane Je place we da oe during the rather ektensive weathering of the object. Closer examination of some of th8°Bfotected areas of the relief,such as behind the wings and along the borders of deeper cuts,ae Ate) ws indicates that the surface of the stone was indeed once smoother but without any discriminating details. Because of this, we must fix our interpretations upon, the, pol, Nesvetig “turret | Le Ladd hive. "Bk eHleg' 3 Kee webby rather sparsely abstract and coarsely formed etching of the Gy valet “Ttany relief in its present condition. While many such incerpreveiifzed E13 ae questions may be raised, one of the more compelling concerns ayo eharque fo the "authorship" of the frieze itself. Was it the joint effort whi, pe. of two artists, each of whom worked on one of the sphinxes, or was it a single artist who was solely responsible for the entire relief? I believe that the stylistic and technical evidence points to the former case; namely it was a superior craftsman ple S created the left-hand sphinx (the one now in the Boston yee, ee ‘Museum of Fine Arts) while a less skilled, perhaps an apprentice noe pane type, fashioned the facing sphinx. on an overall scale, the sphinx on the left is certainly appa better balanced and proportioned which contributes to a more Jt ra ww ve realistic and dignified figure. Examining the tail, for instance, reveals that the artist of the left-hand sphinx thought carefully enough to let the tail taper slightly before the terminating tuft. Beyond this, the tail imparts a free-flowing movement with its continuous curvature, in contrast to the tail of the xight-hand sphinx which has an unnaturally straight rod-like segment of the tail. Finally, with respect to the tail, the left-hand artist displays a more complete sense of anatomy and three-dimensionality as he clearly has the tail insert into the middle of the rear torso rather than flatly against the \side as it appears in the right hand sphinx.\DriaaSed Ay gx Selo bLated Le ght" Even within the few and sparse etches that were made in the volcanic stone, the artist of the left-hand sphinx was able to create a more naturalistic hind-leg on which the torso is poised with balance rather than sagging beneath the leg as with the right-hand sphinx. The delicately sanded surface curvature of alt ne? om ythe hind leg flanks gives the viewer a strong hint of the 4 / musculature in three dimensions which is in refreshing contrast to the flattened sanding of the right-hand sphinx. The wings serve as more compelling evidence, as the left- hand artist has created an amazing piece of sculpture-in-the- round at the top of the wing. Here, the angled cuts behind and underneath the wing reinforce the three-dimensionality of the piece and dramatically extend the wing out into the open space. In the right-hand sphinx, the cut is perpendicular to the background stone, yielding a feeling that the wing is pasted against the supporting architrave. An even more delicate touch is exacted on the interface between the wing and torso, where the left-hand artist has chosen to thin the cut out as the wing descends into the body. Such anf effect, however, is not even attempted with the right-hand sphinx. While the above questions of "authorship" are probably mpossible to definitively answer, the notion of group art versus individual art has significant ramifications towards the role of art in this Archaic Greek society. In the case of the Sphinxes at Assos, the evidence seems to point at a group effort on the central frieze block. What this means as far as art in Archaic Greek politics, propaganda, myth and patronage is the subject of further study.