The Pitsa panels or Pitsa tablets are a group of painted wooden tablets found near Pitsa,

Corinthia Corinthia ( el, Κορινθία ''Korinthía'') is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated around the city of Corinth, in the north-eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Geography Cori ...

(

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

). They are the earliest surviving examples of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

panel painting A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel of wood, either a single piece or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, panel painting was the normal method, when not paint ...

Location

The four panels, two of them highly fragmentary, were discovered during the 1930s in a cave near the village of Pitsa, in the vicinity of

Sicyon Sicyon (; el, Σικυών; ''gen''.: Σικυῶνος) or Sikyon was an ancient Greek city state situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day regional unit of Corinthia. An ancient mona ...

. They can be stylistically dated to ''circa'' 540–530 BC, i.e., to the late Archaic period of Greek art.

Technique

The tablets are thin wooden boards or panels, covered with

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

(

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...

) and painted with mineral pigments. Their bright colours are surprisingly well preserved. Only eight colours (black, white, blue, red, green, yellow, purple and brown) are used, with no shading or gradation of any sort. Probably, the black contour outlines were drawn first and then filled in with colours.

Motifs

The tablets depict religious scenes connected with the cult of the

nymphs A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are typ ...

. One of the two near-complete examples shows a

sacrifice Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...

to the nymphs. Three or more females, dressed in

chiton Chitons () are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora (), formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized. They are also sometimes known as gumboots or sea cradles or coat-of-mail s ...

and

peplos A peplos ( el, ὁ πέπλος) is a body-length garment established as typical attire for women in ancient Greece by circa 500 BC, during the late Archaic and Classical period. It was a long, rectangular cloth with the top edge folded down a ...

, are approaching an altar to the right. They are accompanied by musicians playing the

lyra Lyra (; Latin for lyre, from Greek ''λύρα'') is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the modern 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra was ...

and

aulos An ''aulos'' ( grc, αὐλός, plural , ''auloi'') or ''tibia'' (Latin) was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology. Though ''aulos'' is often translated as "flute" or "double flute", it was usu ...

. The person nearest the altar appears to be pouring a

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid, or grains such as rice, as an offering to a deity or spirit, or in memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures today. Various substa ...

from a jug. A small figure behind her, perhaps a slave, is leading a lamb, the sacrificial victim. An inscription in the Corinthian alphabet names two woman dedicators, Euthydika and Eucholis and states that the tablet, or the depicted offering, is dedicated to the nymphs. The second well-preserved tablet also has a written dedication to the nymphs and shows three partially overlapping female figures, perhaps the nymphs themselves.

Function and context

The tablets are

votive offering A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...

s, connected with the rural cult of the nymphs, which was widespread throughout Greece. Stylistically and technically, they probably represent rather low quality panel paintings of their time. This, as well as references to wooden painted or inscribed votives at other Greek sanctuaries (e.g.

Epidaurus Epidaurus ( gr, Ἐπίδαυρος) was a small city (''polis'') in ancient Greece, on the Argolid Peninsula at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros: ''Palaia Epidavros'' and ''Nea Epidavros''. Since 2010 they belong to the ...

), indicates that the Pitsa tablets belong to the types of votives available to the lower, or poorer, sections of population. Such simple votives may have been far more numerous originally, but the fact that they are made of perishable materials, whereas richer votives were of stone, bronze or precious metals, has led to their near-total disappearance from the archaeological record.

Significance

Most ancient paintings that survived are either

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

es or vase paintings. It is known that panel paintings were held in much higher regard, but very few of them have survived. The best known examples of ancient

, the

Fayum mummy portraits Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of ar ...

and the

Severan Tondo The Severan Tondo or Berlin Tondo from circa 200 AD, is one of the few preserved examples of panel painting from Classical Antiquity, depicting the first two generations of the imperial Severan dynasty, whose members ruled the Roman Empire in the ...

, are of

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

date. The Pitsa panels, probably preserved due to the unusual climatic conditions inside the cave, are by far the earliest examples of this technique to survive. As the only pre-Roman specimens, they represent virtually all the evidence for a whole style of art. Incidentally, the ancient Greeks believed that panel painting was invented in Sicyon, not far from Pitsa.

References

Bibliography

*Larson, J. ''Greek Nymphs — Myth, Cult, Lore''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2001, pp. 232–233. *Boardman, J. and Callaghan, P
Western Painting, Greece, Archaic period (c. 625–500 bc)
''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...

'', 2008.

External links

Page about Pitsa on a site dedicated to ancient Sicyon
{{National Archaeological Museum of Athens Ancient Greek religion Archaic Greek art Ancient Greek painting Greek inscriptions Greek animal sacrifice National Archaeological Museum, Athens Sicyon Votive offering Archaeological discoveries in Greece 1930s archaeological discoveries