Painted Votive Plaques and an Early Inscription from Aegina

Abstract

This article is intended to serve as an introduction to the study of painted votive plaques; not that such a study is by any means novel, but since Otto Benndorf's published work on them the amount of material known has increased, and further consideration of them both as painted objects and as dedications seems desirable. As well as a general survey of their nature, name, and decoration, a more detailed account of eighth- and seventh-century examples is included, and I hope at another time to be able to extend the study to the rich later series, as well as to the Corinthian and funerary plaques which are not discussed here in detail.An inscribed fragment from Aegina is published below for the first time. Its finding did not suggest the study of plaques, in which I was already engaged, and I attribute and acknowledge its timely appearance to the Ἀγαθὴ Τύχη, who occasionally smiles on the archaeologist.