Georgii A. Lomtadze

Denis Zhuravlev

The relief with the scene of «carrying Dionysus» was discovered in the ancient city of Kepoi in the Asian part of the Bosporan Kingdom in 1967 during excavations directed by Nilolai Sokol’sky and is now at the State Historical Museum. The rectangular relief represents two men (actors?) carrying the figure of Dionysus. Both men wear short chitons, with phalluses to be seen from under them. The sitting person carried by them (most probably Dionysus) wears a long himation. The closest analogy is a small terracotta composition from Kerch, now at the State Historical Museum, with two actors carrying Dionysus. The terracotta from Kerch is dated to the Hellenistic period. The relief from Kepoi, showing a scene from a Dionysian festival, could have been a part of a more complicated composition placed in a temple or some other cult complex. Some parallels and the contexts of the find allow to date it to the second part of the 4th century BC. It is a unique evidence that Dionysian cult and festivals existed in Asian Bosporus.