Abstract
The results of the excavations of the “Macedonian type” tomb under the Kasta Hill near Amphipolis were presented by far most completely at the 29th AEMTh conference (March 2016, Thessaloniki). Among the objects covered by this presentation there was a relief depicting a “warrior”. According to the team of archaeologists under K. Peristeri, it was a part of the decoration of the Kasta Hill monumental complex serving as a cenotaph or a heroon to Hephaestion. The Italian historian of art A. Corso suggested that this relief should be dated to the last decades of the 4th century BC, and that it shows Alexander the Great at the head of Hephaestion’s funeral procession. However, the cavalry shield and the helmet of the person depicted in the relief indicate that it should be dated to a much later period. Firstly, in the time of Alexander and at least in the early period of the Successors the Macedonian cavalry did not use shields at all. The relief shows a round fl at cavalry shield with spina, which started spreading across the Balkan region and the Hellenistic East not earlier than 270s BC. Secondly, the helmet in the relief (a variant of the κῶνος type) has good analogies in the pictorial evidence and artefacts from Macedonia, as well as other parts of the Hellenistic world, which date back to the time not earlier than the end of the third century B.C. Besides, it is questionable that the relief belongs to the complex of the Kasta Hill despite the place of its fi nding. It is much more likely
that the relief belonged to a tombstone of a Macedonian horseman, a contemporary of the last Antigonid kings, Philip V (221–179 BC) or Perseus (179–168 BC), which was not completely preserved. Most probably, the relief, or rather the preserved fragment of it, represented not the main character (whose fi gure could have been in the lost part), but a servant (parallels to such composition are numerous in votive and funerary monuments in Macedonia and abroad).
Keywords
Macedonia, Amphipolis, Kasta Hill, tomb, relief, cavalry shield, helmet
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