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Meniskoi and the Birds*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Jody Maxmin
Jody Maxmin
Affiliation:
Somerville College, Oxford
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Extract

Mentior at si quid, merdis caput inquiner albis corvorum, atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum Iulius et fragilis Pediatia furque Voranus.

Horace, Satires I, viii, 37–9.

The years following the liberation of Greece from Turkish rule in 1833 witnessed what was perhaps the greatest display of industry on the Athenian Acropolis since the Periclean building programme. In 1837 the Greek Archaeological Society was founded for the purpose of carrying out a systematic if unscientific excavation of the Acropolis down to the classical level. The excavators sought first to clear the area of the Turkish buildings and accumulated débris which cluttered the surface, and then to work on the partial restoration of the ancient buildings: the Parthenon, the Propylaea and the Erechtheum.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 95 , November 1975 , pp. 175 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1975

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References

1 Cited by Lechat, H. in ‘Observations sur les Statues Archaïques de Type Feminin du Musée de l'Acropole’, BCH xiv (1890), p. 345Google Scholar.

2 μηνίσκος, a diminutive of μείς, refers to the moon in its crescent phase, in contrast to σελήνη, full moon. Presumably the Greeks chose this word to describe the apparatus on account of its resemblance to a crescent moon, just as they called their temple gable ἀετός for its resemblance to an eagle, or the spreading member of the Doric capital ἀχῑνος for its resemblance to a sea urchin deprived of its quills. It is reasonable to suppose that the μηνίσκοζ to which Aristophanes refers must have looked enough like a crescent moon to have earned the name.

3 , Eph. Arch. (1886), pp. 74–82.

4 Jahrbuch, II (1887), p. 141.

5 Ath. Mitt. xiv (1889), pp. 233–9.

6 Petersen's idea of a trident as the original shape of the device was inspired by a partially preserved trident on an antefix from Cervetri (Monum. Inediti del Instit. Supplement, pl. II, no. 3; whence, Daremberg-Saglio, , Dict. III, ii, p. 1718, fig. 4901)Google Scholar. Treu, on the other hand, thought that the original form of the device was a straight rod (Olympia III, Die Bildwerke in Stein und Thon [1897], p. 153 and pl. XLV. For a discussion of the drill holes in the metopes, cf. pp. 158, 160, 162, 164–5, 169–70, 173–4, 176, 178).

7 Since we have no evidence that the devices on the akroteria were called meniskoi (they were probably not: Josephus at least calls them ὀβελοί), this article will exclude a discussion of them except to say that in antiquity they would have come under the category of bird-protection devices, hence their association by scholars with meniskoi. In our own times, a likely analogy are the cages of criss-crossed wire, set over the tops of rain-spouts to prevent clogging by leaves and bird nests.

8 Op. cit., p. 235.

9 Op. cit. Section V ‘μηνίσκος’, pp. 337–50. See also his article, ‘Meniskos’ in Daremberg-Saglio, , Dict. III, ii. pp. 1718–20Google Scholar.

10 BCH (1890), pp. 348–9.

11 Ibid., p. 349.

12 Acrop. Mus. no. 670; Richter, Korai, no. 119, figs. 377–9.

13 Korai: Acrop. Mus. no. 669 (Richter no. 109, figs. 228–35); Acrop. Mus no. 681 (Richter no. 110, figs. 336–40); Acrop. Mus. no. 671 (Richter no. 111, figs. 341–4); Acrop. Mus. no. 679 (Richter no. 113, figs. 349–54); Acrop. Mus. no. 682 (Richter no. 116, figs. 362–7); Acrop. Mus. no. 673 (Richter no. 117, figs. 368–72); Acrop. Mus. no. 672 (Richter no. 118, figs. 373–6); Acrop. Mus. no. 670 (Richter no. 119, figs. 377–80); Acrop. Mus. no. 674 (Richter no. 127, figs. 411–16); Acrop. Mus. no. 661 (Richter no. 131, figs. 426–8); Acrop. Mus. nos. 643 and 307 (Richter no. 128, figs. 417–19); Acrop. Mus. no. 685 (Richter no. 181, figs. 573–7); Acrop. Mus. no. 684 (Richter no. 182, figs. 578–82); Acrop. Mus. no. 660 (G. Dickins, Cat.)

Nike: Acrop. Mus. no. 693 (Dickins, Cat.).

14 The Iliossos kouros which is not technically an archaic nude youth, wears a mantle with holes for the attachment of metal brooches and perhaps a chain at the neck (cf. Ridgway, B. S., ‘Stone and Metal in Greek Sculpture’, Archaeology vol. 19, no. 1 [1966], p. 38)Google Scholar.

15 Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek no. 12; Richter, Kouroi no. 171, figs. 509–10.

16 Kouroi: Athens Nat. Mus. no. 3858 (Richter, Kouroi no. 31, figs. 132–3); Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek no. 2832 (Richter no. 109, figs. 328–9, 334); Acrop. Mus. no. 663 (Richter no. 139, figs. 402–3); Acrop. Mus. no. 653 (Richter no. 140, fig. 415); Boston Museum of Fine Arts no. 34.169 (Richter no. 143, figs. 413–14); Louvre no. MND 890 (Richter no. 163, figs. 490–1); Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek no. 12 (Richter no. 171, figs. 509–10); Acrop. Mus. no. 698 (Richter no. 190, figs. 564–9); Acrop. Mus. no. 689 (Richter no. 191, figs. 570–4); Kansas City, Rockhill Gallery (Richter no. 164, figs. 485–8); Acrop. Mus. no. 606 (Dickins, Cat.); Acrop. Mus. no. 623 (Dickins, Cat.); Acrop. Mus. no. 624 (Dickins, Cat.); Acrop. Mus. no. 633 (Dickins, Cat.).

17 Berlin 2589. ARV 2 1301, no. 7; Para, 475; Jb 42, p. 179; Antike Kunst 6, pl. 3, 1 and 3.

18 Graef, and Langlotz, , Die Antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen (Berlin, 1925), I, pl. 46, no. 682Google Scholar. Note also the enthroned commander from the frieze of the Nereid Monument in London (slab no. 879). He is seated beneath a large umbrella held by a boy attendant behind him. The angle of the umbrella is much the same as that on the Acropolis sherd and the pole appears to be rising from the crown of his head (cf. Richter, The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans [London, 1966] fig. 62; Smith, A. H., A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities II [London, 1900] p. 24)Google Scholar.

19 Victorian Inventions, Leonard de Vries (London, 1973), p. 161: reproduced with the kind permission of John Murray Ltd.

20 From The Philadelphia Inquirer (January, 1974) and reproduced with the kind permission of Associated Press Ltd. The Archbishop released the dove, a symbol of the soul's ascent to heaven, during the Epiphany celebration in Tarpon Springs, Florida, and soon thereafter the bird flew back and perched on his head.