A Greek painting at Persepolis

In his magnificent report on the American excavations at Persepolis E. F. Schmidt published a fragment of a stone plaque found in the Treasury (frag. 2 on FIG. 2). This plaque bore a sketch of a human torso, which G. M. A. Richter considered to be Greek work of about 500 B.C. : she identified the figure as ‘Heracles wearing a chiton with a lion's skin over it which is knotted on the chest’. This fragment was lost when the ship in which the finds from Persepolis were being transported to America was sunk by submarine action during the Second World War. But recently Giuseppe Tilia discovered further fragments in a storeroom at Persepolis, which he recognised as probably belonging to the same plaque; and from these Prof. Boardman has been able to determine that the original scene was of a contest between Herakles and Apollo.(FIG. 1).