Inventory number
Ακρ. 577
Artist
Attic workshop
Category
Sculpture
Period
Classical Period
Date
470-460 BC
Dimensions
Height: 0.58 m
Length: 0.38 m
Width: 0.08 m
Material
Marble from Penteli
Location
Archaic Acropolis Gallery
It was discovered in three fragments, probably around 1882, behind the Erechtheion and was reassembled.
It depicts Athena and a seated man rendered at a smaller scale since his is a mortal. The goddess is wearing a long chiton, a himation, an aegis with snakes on its edges and sandals. In her raised left hand she would have held a spear, rendered in paint on the relief’s background. The man is seating on a throne having his feet on a footrest. He is naked from the waist up with his flaccid skin denoting his advance age. He seems to be giving something indiscernible to the goddess while in front of him, on a bench or table, is placed an object. Traces of red colour used to be preserved on Athena’s cloths, the throne and the object on the bench.
A number of different theories regarding this scene have been put forward. Some archaeologists believe that the man is a craftsman offering a small piece of jewellery he made to Athena Ergane as an aparche. Others suggest that he represents the personification of the Deme that is the whole of the citizens and the city-state constitutions, giving a coin to Athena as a symbolic return of the loan taken from the public treasury for state affairs. Still others regard the man as a treasurer, managing the wealth of Athena’s Sanctuary, who is offering to the goddess coins that carry her image.
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