Beobachtungen an den Grabpfeilern von Isinda

Abstract

In Lycian Isinda there are the remains of six pillar graves. P 1 (using the numbering in Wurster 1993) is the smallest and lies on the slope to the west. It has the remnants of a grave-chamber and a constriction across the middle, arising from an attempt to divide it cross­wise. P 2 stands higher up the slope, still erect on a stepped base slab, but only one half of it, because it had been divided lengthwise. Beneath the pillar lies what is probably a fragment of the capstone. Still higher up lie the remains of P 3: a stepped base slab, a multiply stepped capstone and three slabs evidently stemming from a pillar also divided lengthwise.

To the south-east only the base slab and the capstone of P 4 survive. Next to it is P 5, the re­mains of the pillar whose reliefs Rudolf Heberdey had cut away and transported to Istanbul in 1896. It was still standing erect at that time, but 40 cm. thick slabs were removed from both sides to the full height of the pillar. Today the rest of the pillar lies in front of the stepped base (on a similarly stepped socket of rock), and a piece has been broken away from the top. The trunk bears cutting lines to its full length on both sides, showing that it was to have been divid­ed sometime later.

This pillar could have been set up by the dynast Cheziga I, possibly identical with the Cheziχa who is mentioned several times in the later inscription TL 65 from Isinda itself. In the relief on the southern side the dynast brandishes five shields, and this has a parallel in the relief on the pillar in the agora of Xanthos about a century later. In the latter there are seven shields, and the Greek text explains this as seven Arcadian hoplites killed by the dynast on a single day. This resembles the self-pre­sentation by Dareios I in Behistun, boasting of victory over nine kings in one year (522/21 BC). It is noteworthy that this was imitated shortly afterwards in Isinda, albeit with­out an in­scription.

Wurster’s pillar P 6 probably does not exist, but on the southern slope I have found another cham­bered pillar still erect and partly buried (P X). Two other places in central Lycia have a si­mil­ar number of pillar graves: Four in neighbouring Apollonia, six in Kerϑϑi, above Hacı­oğlan, along with a stepped socket of rock upon which a further pillar could have stood.