Beside these simple and characteristic portraits of seated women we must place a standing figure. The stele bears the name of Amphotto, and comes from Thebes ([Pl. XVII]). There is here, as in many Boeotian monuments, a pleasing absence of convention. The dress of Amphotto is arranged in an unusual manner; her hair streams down her back. She seems at first sight quite an ordinary mortal; yet there are features in the representation which belong to another sphere. On the girl’s head is a tall circular crown, of the kind called by archaeologists the polus, which is a distinguishing mark of goddesses in early art. In her hands also are perhaps a flower (represented in painting and so lost) and a fruit, which are the characteristic offerings to the dead, and remind us of the Lycian and Spartan monuments of the cultus of heroes.
The Amphotto stele belongs to the middle of the fifth century. Of the same age is an interesting slab at the British Museum[185], on which is depicted a woman seated, also wearing the polus. She holds in one hand a leaf-shaped fan, of the same kind which the statuettes of Tanagra commonly hold; and in the other hand a cup from which a serpent feeds. The serpent here takes us still nearer to the ideas which gave rise to the Spartan stelae.
A class of reliefs must not be omitted which represents
Plate XVII
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FIG. 63. GIRL WITH DOLL. | FIG. 64. PRIESTESS OF ISIS. |