[ Previous ][Contents][ Next ]

tion of the person whose modius it decorates(15) and sometimes represents a male bust without any modius headdress.(16) Secondly, all the Palmyrene men with a modius-headdress are beardless, even at a time when the fashion in Palmyra required a beard-that is, grosso modo, after the year 150 A.D.(17) Thirdly, if a modius is represnted on top of a small column or on a cushion next to the head of a funerary relief, the wreath having a medallion(18) or a miniature bust(19) [with modius or bare headed(20)] in the center, the man is invariably bearded. An apparent exception is found in a relief in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen,(21) on which a modius with medallion is figured on top of a column to the left of an unbearded man with a modius-headdress. But close examination, undertaken with the help of Mr. Elo, the sculptor of the Glyptothek, has proved that the head does not belong to this relief at all. The nature of the limestone is different, and it has been fixed to the relief after its arrival at the museum by means of plaster and a small metal tube.(22)

Unfortunately, the inscriptions on these busts with modius headdress run according to the usual genealogical pattern, but the tesserae on which we also find men with modius headdress represented, give us more ample information. On one, we see three such men and under them the following inscription: "the priests of the god Bel"(23), and on four other tesserae the inscription : -on "the priests of Bel" appears under one,(24) two,(25) and three(26) such figures.

With all this evidence it seems reasonable to regard the modius as the symbol of priesthood, probably not reserved for the priests of Bel alone, but also a prerogative of the priests of the other ancestral gods in Palmyra (27) In the absence of literary documents it is, of course, extremely difficult to get an adequate idea of the laws governing the clergy, but we propose, with due reserve, to regard the unbearded Palmyrenes with the modius headdress as the real priests, and the bearded

15. Studier, PS 8; pl. 111, 1 -PS 24, pl. VIII, 2-PS 62, 148-50, 157-58, 160, 253-54- Choix, pl. XXVIII, 9; Studier, PS 302-PS 323-24.
16. Studier, PS 12, pl. IV, 2-PS 159, 160 A, 246 (the bust in the Louvre : Choix, pl. XXXI, 12=Studier, PS 248, is a cast after this British Museum relief), PS 249, 251- Choix, pl. XXXI, 13; Studier, PS 252- Choix, pl. XXVIII, 10; Studier, PS 305- PS 317, 322.
17. Studier, p. 29.
18. Op. cit. PS 286.
19. OP. cit. PS 210, 221.
20. OP. cit. PS 230, 293.
21. Choix, pl. xxviii, 17; Studier, PS 303. Cf. Louis Robert, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, LIV, 1930, p. 264, n. 6.
22. The man represented, Yarhai, bas sandals on
 		    his feet, so is not bare-foot as Strzygowski states in his Orient oder Rom, Berlin 1901, p. 37, and from which supposition be draws far-reaching conclusions as to the origin of the Ashburnham Pentateuch.
23. Spoer, Journal of the American Oriental Society, XXVI, 1905, p. 114- Répertoire d'Épigraphie Sémitique, III, nr. 1677.
24. Sachau, Zeitschrift d. deutschen morgen- laendischen Gesellschaft, XXXV, 1881, p. 743, nr. 9; Répertoire d'Épigraphie Sémitique, III, nr. 1705-Euting, Sitzungsberichte d. kgl. preus. Akademie d. Wissenschaften, XXV, Berlin 1887, p. 415, nr. 12, pl. VIII; Répertoire d'Épigraphie Sémitique, I, nr. 447.
25. Tessera in the Cabinet des Médailles, Paris.
26. Ephemeris fuer semitische Epigraphik, III, P. 34, C; pl. V, I.
27. For these see Seyrig, Syria, XIII, 1932, P. 190-95.

[ Previous ][Contents][ Next ]
Created by the Digital Documentation Center at AUB in collaboration with Høgskolen i Østfold, Norway.

980519 pas - Email: hseeden@aub.edu.lb