An Inscribed Stele Depicting a Horseman Now in the Bodrum Museum

Jan-Mathieu CARBON – Signe ISAGER – Poul PEDERSEN   26–30

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Abstract: This note provides a new edition of a small stele depicting a horseman riding towards an altar, to be identified as a «Thracian horseman» or «Thracian rider». Previously only partially deciphered, the inscription below the relief is a posthumous dedication by a certain Tryphon to his son Bassos, who died as a pre-adolescent child (νήπιος). Assigned to Halikarnassos by its first editors, Laflı and Bru, the stone is argued to be a pierre errante which travelled to the Museum of Bodrum. On the basis of its iconography, it is most likely that it originally came from north or north-western Anatolia (e.g. the Hellespont).

Keywords: Bodrum; Thracian horseman; Thracian rider; Tryphon; Bassos; hero; νήπιος.

 

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