MAMA XI 86 (Sebaste) 
Table-leg in the form of a leopard
- Type of monument:
- Table-support.
- Location:
- Kırka (Sebaste): in a house.
- Description:
- Head and elongated neck of a panther in fine white marble, from a table-support. A flat fillet 6cm wide runs down the back and originally continued above to support the table-top. Broken above and below.
- Dimensions:
- Ht. 0.27+; W. 0.115; Th. 0.24.
- Record:
- MB notebook copy; photograph (1956/37).
- Publication:
- None.
- Date:
- Roman imperial period.
Illustrations:
Photograph of MAMA XI 86 (Sebaste 22: 1956-37)
Table-supports of this kind, with an animal protome at the head and a single animal-leg or claw at the base, are very widespread in the early Roman imperial period (Richter 1966: 111-2; Pfühl and Mobius 1977-9: II 363-5; Fabricius 1999: 88). For similar examples with a panther’s head at the top and a single lion or griffin’s claw at the base, see Richter 1966: Figs. 575-6 (Corinth); Stephanidou-Tiberiou 1993: 291-2, nos. 159-60 (Athens). For animal table-supports from Sardis, see Hanfmann and Ramage 1978: 149, nos. 218-20 (griffins and lion); for Aphrodisias, see Phillips 2008: 259 n.35 (‘the best-preserved Aphrodisian table supports with animal motifs... all feature a panther protome emerging from a calyx’). It is likely that this item is of Dokimeian origin; tables with supports of this kind are regularly depicted on Dokimeian sarcophagi of the Roman imperial period (e.g. Waelkens 1982: 93, no. 157 Istanbul B [Sidamaria], with Taf. 28.4).