Stelé
（
στήλη). An upright tablet or slab of stone. At Athens such
tablets were set up in a public place, especially on the Acropolis. Laws, decrees, treaties,
etc., as well as sentences of punishment against defaulters were engraved upon them, and thus
made publicly known. The use of stelae for funeral monuments was common in all Greek
countries. In earlier times they are narrow and thin slabs of stone, slightly tapering towards
the top, which is crowned either with
anthemia (decorations of flowers
and leaves), or with a small triangular pediment ornamented with rosettes. The shorter but
broader stelé, crowned with a pediment, is later than the other kind. Many such
stelae resemble small shrines or chapels. Besides the inscription referring to the dead, they
often bear representations of them in relief, as in the famous monument to Dexileos, B.C. 390,
near
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Stelé from the Acropolis of Mycenae. (Reber.)
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Stelé. (Street of the Dead, Athens.)
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the Dipylum at Athens. From the stelae, many important Greek inscriptions have been
recovered, on which see
Epigraphy.
