Fülöp Gyula (szerk.): Festschrift für Jenő Fitz - Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. B. sorozat 47. (Székesfehérvár, 1996)

E. Alföldi-Rosenbaum: Womens Mantles with Decorated Borders

Fig. 11-12: Tombstone oof Septimia Constantina. Székesfehérvár, István Király Múzeum. Formerly Vereb.

Photos Gelencsér Ferenc, IKM

the earliest example of the mantle with a decorated border. It certainly seems to be the only one known so far showing this motif on this particular type of mantle.

4. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum. Inv. no. 22/1905, 13. From near Intercisa. Tombstone of M. Aurelius Rufinianus. G. Erdélyi, Intercisa I (Archaeologia Hungarica NS 33,1954), Catalogue No. 28, PI. XL, 1 (with earlier bibliography).; L. Barkóczi, Alba Regia XXII, 1985, 102, Pl. IX, 1.

The portrait busts of M. Aurelius Rufinus, his wife Ulpia Firmina, their son M. Aurelius Rufinianus and their daughter Aurelia are placed in a rectangular niche framed by pilasters. The parents and their young son wear the usual dress: tunic and sagum for father and son, tunic and mantle draped over the shoulders for the mother. The little girl wears over her tunic a

(27) L. Barkóczi, op. cil. p. 102, mentions one further example of the mantle with an embroidered border on a fragmentary tombstone in Székesfehérvár, probably from Gorsium, on which a girl wears a mantle with a border decorated with a double wave band between thinly inscised lines. I do not know the stone or a photograph of it, but to judge from Barkóczi's description the mantle is probably of the type B (“Am Quersack und am Saum des Kleides” : with the term “Quersack” Barkóczi seems to describe a kind of “balteus”). The other two stones listed by Barkóczi do not display the type of mantle discussed here: a) the fragmentary tombstone from Aquincum-Testvérhegy shows only hatching; b) the fragmentary tombstone from Pécs (Janus Pannonius Múzeum, Inv. no.

mantle with a border decorated with a scroll which runs down the left side of the mantle, that is, only here has it been indicated.

It is L. Barkóczi who seems to be the first to have noted this detail. It certainly had escaped my notice in 1942, and it is not described and thus not discussed by G. Erdélyi.

The date of this rough and not very well carved stone is probably in the fourth decade of the 3rd century as assumed by G. Erdélyi and L. Barkóczi mainly on the strength of the hair style and the details in M. Aurelius Rufinus’ face. Its main importance in our present context: it shows that a young girl, the prematurely deceased daughter of a simple miles of a legion could be depicted wearing such an embroidered mantle.(27)

D. The headless statue from Carnuntum.

The best known example of a woman’s mantle with borders

1254, F. Fülep-A.Sz. Burger, Die römischen Steindenkmäler von Pécs, 1974, Cat. No. 59, Pl. XVI, 1, fig. 2a—2b; A.Sz. Burger, Die Skulpturen des Stadtgebietes von Sopianae und des Gebietes zwischen der Drau und der Limesstrecke Lussonium-Altinum {CSIR Ungarn VII, 1991) Cat. No. 33, PI. 37, shows a mantle (called “römische Stola-Palla-Trächt” by Burger) that in reality could have had embroidery but does not have it on the stone. Barkóczi {op. cit. p. 103) seems to assume that the narrow borders of the mantle’s edges draped in a shallow U-curve across the chest and hanging down in the middle had a painted decoration. There could have been painting on the stone, but not just on the narrow raised border.

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