Formal Analysis: Marble stele (grave marker) of a youth and little girl with capital and finial in the form of a sphinx; accession number: 11.185a-d,f,g,x Marble stele (grave marker) of a youth and little girl with capital and finial in the form of a sphinx, the most complete grave monument of its type to have survived from the Archaic period. 1 The monument is made with marble; the total height is 13 feet and 10 11/16 inches.
The monument depicted two young people, a young man and a girl, they are both standing in a profile view, and are looking off to the sides. The young man is shown as an athlete with an aryballos (oil flask) suspended from his wrist.. Also, his holding a pomegranate- a fruit associated with both fecundity and death in Greek myths. 2 The little girl seem to be the younger sister of the athlete, and she’s holding a flower. The young men and the girl are shown in a very strong and immense powerful form that give us a feeling that they are gone from us and head into another world. The monument is in a very good condition although some part of the stone are chipped off. The overall form and figure were kept in a very good condition; therefore, it shows the advantages of using marble. Since marble is a long lasting material, the work that created on marble stone would last longer than other materials. But at the same time marble stone is a very hard material to carve on, and it would take more time to create a piece of art than using any other materials. Also, the transportation would be hard, because it is very heavy, so damages would occur.