PITSA
Achaia, Greece.
A modern village S
of ancient Aigira on the N side of Mt. Chelydorea (
Paus.
7.17.5) near the summit of which a rich votive deposit
in a deep cave (Cave of Saphtoulis) has been excavated. Extending to a depth of over 20 m and divided into several chambers, the cave was a cult center for the worship of chthonic deities, especially the nymphs and
possibly Demeter, from ca. 700 B.C. into the Roman
Imperial period.
The finds, which remain largely unpublished, are in the
nearby museum of Sikyon and in the National Museum
of Athens. They include numerous terracotta figurines,
votive pottery (mainly Corinthian), bronze mirrors and
jewelry, Corinthian and Sikyonian coins, wooden statuettes, bone dice, etc. The cave is famous, however, for
its beautifully painted and well-preserved wooden plaques.
Represented on one plaque in free-style, polychrome technique of ca. 550 B.C. is a sacrificial procession with dipinto name-labels and the incomplete signature of a
Corinthian painter in the epichoric Corinthian alphabet.
Dipinti on this and on another plaque also show that
these objects were dedicated to the nymphs. The four
plaques from the cave are dated ca. 550-500 B.C. and
supply almost unique evidence for nonceramic Corinthian painting of this period.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. K. Orlandos in
EAA VI (1965) 200-206
I.
R. STROUD
