Hesperia

"Let No One Wonder at This Image": A Phoenician Funerary Stele in Athens

by Jennifer M. S. Stager

Hesperia, Volume 74, Issue 3
Page(s): 427-449
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067962
Year: 2005
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ABSTRACT:

An autopsy of the Hellenistic grave stele of SM[.]/'Αντίπατρος discovered in the 19th century in the Kerameikos in Athens, reveals that its textual (Phoenician and Greek) and visual components differ significantly from previously published descriptions. The author reexamines the morphology of the monument, also considering its sacred address and the force that such a monument exerted on its context. This single monument to a Phoenician buried in Athens engages issues of bilingualism, religious symbolism, and, most importantly, self-definition, which structured the complex social interactions in Athens in the late 4th-2nd centuries B.C.