Illustrated Catalog of Incubation Reliefs from the Cults of Asklepios and Amphiaraos

Appendix VIII Illustrated Catalog of Incubation Reliefs from the Cults of Asklepios and Amphiaraos

While incubation is known to have been practiced among the Greeks at numer- ous sanctuaries devoted to many different divinities over the better part of a millennium, for reasons that can only be guessed at the artistic representation of this practice in stone appears to have been limited to Attica and the border zone in which Oropos was situated.1 Due to this geographical limitation, the reliefs that clearly or possibly show an incubation scene all come from the two cults in this region in which incubation is known to have played an important role: those of Asklepios and Amphiaraos.

VIII.1 Asklepios at the Athenian and Peiraeus Asklepieia

There are up to seventeen Classical reliefs or relief fragments dating from the late-fifth to early-third centuries BCE that can be interpreted with varying degrees of certainty as showing incubation scenes and are either known or suspected to have originated at the Athenian Asklepieion, as well as two full reliefs from the Peiraeus sanctuary—one of them now lost—that clearly show incubation scenes.2

1 For the very small number of dedicatory reliefs from other places that potentially represent incubation see Appendix IX. 2 On these reliefs, see now the essential work of the late Georgios Despinis, who recently pro- duced a fully illustrated catalog of the Asklepios reliefs from Athens—but not Peiraeus—in which he freshly identified some fragments as having come from incubation reliefs, pre- sented new joins and interpretations, challenged previous conclusions regarding certain reliefs, and provided comprehensive bibliographies for each as well as such basic informa- tion as dates, proveniences and measurements (Despinis 2013, 85–97 et pass.), while also presenting an important new join for the Rhamnous relief of Amphiaraos discussed below (Cat. No. Amph.-Rhamn. 1). Older studies still worth consulting include: Hausmann 1948, 38–60 (with catalog); Holtzmann 1984, 891–892; van Straten 1995, 68–70 (with list of reliefs at p. 68n.180); and Sineux 2007b; cf. Terranova 2013, 299–304. See also Grmek/Gourevitch 1998, a general survey of representations of illness in Greek and Roman art (with Attic reliefs at pp. 17–19), and two significantly earlier studies that were the first to examine the phenomenon in detail, Ziehen 1892 and Sudhoff 1926.

Figure 29 Cat. No. Ask.-Peir. 1 (Peiraeus Mus. 405). Photo: Ephorate of West Attica, Piraeus and the Islands

VIII.1.1 Peiraeus Asklepieion While the one surviving incubation relief from Peiraeus, due to its quality and composition, has been reproduced more times than any of the incubation reliefs and fragments from Athens, the lost relief has been largely overlooked by scholars.

Ask.-Peir. 1 (Fig. 29) Collection: Peiraeus Mus. 405 Primary publication(s): Hausmann 1948, 166, No. 1 + fig. 1; Mitropoulou, Attic Votive Reliefs, 63–64, No. 126 + fig. 183; LIMC II, “Asklepios,” No. 105; Comella, Rilievi votivi, 219, “Pireo 17,” cf. p. 47 + fig. 65; Leventi 2003, 133–134, No. R13

A new study of the reliefs as well as a complete catalog is being prepared by Jesper Tae Jensen, preliminarily entitled Healing Dreams: The Votive Reliefs from The Athenian Asklepieion at the South Slope of the Akropolis (personal communication). There is also currently a proj- ect under way to produce a new corpus of the dedicatory reliefs in the National Museum in Athens, which will include the vast majority of incubation reliefs. (Since Despinis pres- ents full bibliographies for each Asklepios relief and both he and other scholars have given detailed descriptions of the reliefs, and there are also these ongoing projects aimed at further study of the reliefs, for the present catalog there has been no intention of duplicating those efforts—instead, the focus is on providing illustrations as well as brief descriptions and basic bibliography.)