CAVI Lemma: Fragmentary BF plaque. Unattributed. Ca. 600 (Boardman).
CAVI Subject: Funerary: preserved are the top, left, and right edges (with BG stripes);
broken at the bottom: two female mourners: a large woman to left; at her lower
body, apparently a vase and a small female to left; at right, a woman to left
(smaller than her companion at left), mourning and holding a small child. Black
border. [No doubt part of a series, as a panel with the dead is required to the
left of this one.]
CAVI Inscriptions: The dr. in BSA 50 shows: horizontal: ḥεα̣γ̣ν̣; vertical:
hεικλε(ο̣)[.]ν̣α̣[--], with the dotted letters given partially or wholly in
outline; the omicron has the end of a vertical line in outline below its left
side: was the draftsman thinking of a koppa or rho? My very tentative readings
agree to some extent: hεγαμ and hεικλ(.)... Boardman, with some hesitation,
thinks a letter may be missing between the horizontal and vertical inscriptions;
he reads the second heta as a rectangular theta and considers the iota a
punctuation mark; he also thinks the stroke under the omicron should be ignored;
thus: hεδαν and θ̣ε|κλε̣ο̣να. On the assumption that these might be two female
names(1), he suggests, e.g.: hεδανθε and Κλεονα[σσα]. [This ignores the possible
letter in the upper right-hand corner.]
CAVI Footnotes: {1} cf. also H. Mommsen, Exekias I, 22 and n. 182. {2} see under
`replacements'.
CAVI Comments: Unskilful style, very poorly preserved. Other plaques with proper names are
the `areio' tablet, Athens, N.M. 2410 (CAVI 847 as corrected(2); perhaps), and
the Exekias series in Berlin (1811-1826, CAVI 2249 as corrected(2)). My readings
were poor. The dr. in the museum did not show the inscriptions well [this is
probably the dr. reproduced in Boardman, pl. 1.] - Mommsen says: "Eine frühe
Grabtafel in Athen ... trägt Beischriften, die schwer zu entziffern sind;
vielleicht handelt es sich um die Namen der klagenden Frauen." - Closed heta.
Rectangular theta (which may also be a heta).
CAVI Number: 872a
AVI Bibliography: Zschietzschmann (1928), no. 24. — Karouzou (1937), 111 (wrong museum no.). —
Richter (1942–3), 80 n. 7. — Boardman (1955), 58/3, pl. 1 (dr. and ph.). — H.
Mommsen (1997a), 22 and n. 182.
CAVI / AVI Data from Henry Immerwahr's Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions (CAVI), updated by Rudoph Wachter's Attic Vase Inscriptions (AVI)
